Page 28 of In Her Mind

“How are you, Lisa? Is your ankle still hurting? I hope it’s feeling better.”

“Please,” she called out, trying to inject a firmness she didn’t feel into her voice. “My name is Amber Stevens. You’ve got the wrong person. I’m not Lisa.”

The voice fell silent, and Amber could sense eyes scrutinizing her from the darkness beyond the peephole—a voyeur to her suffering. She felt naked under that gaze, stripped of her identity and dressed in another’s skin by a madman’s delusion. The vaguely familiar timbre of the voice scratched at the edges of her memory, but like a word on the tip of the tongue, it remained elusive. It was a cruel game, being haunted by recognition without revelation.

“Please,” she repeated, her voice barely above a whisper now, “I don’t belong here. You’ve made a mistake. I’m not who you’re looking for.”

Amber’s breaths came in shallow gasps, the musty air of the cellar heavy in her lungs. “I’ll do anything,” she pleaded, her voice trembling against the thick silence that followed her captor’s question. “Just let me go—I swear I won’t tell anyone about this. Please!”

“You wound me with your lies,” the voice on the other side of the door rebuked softly, the words slithering into the cellar like a cold draft. “Why do you keep saying you’re not Lisa? Don’t you remember us, the love we shared?”

Her heart pounded a frenetic rhythm as she pressed her back against the damp stone wall, seeking support where there was none. She struggled to find a grip on reality amid the chaos of her thoughts. “I am Amber Stevens,” she insisted, her voice cracking under the strain. “I don’t know any Lisa. You have to believe me.”

“Lisa,” he continued, ignoring her protests, “we both made mistakes. You shouldn’t have left me, and my anger... it was unforgivable. But I’ve waited so long for you to come back to me.”

Amber’s mind raced, trying to piece together the delusion that held her captive. She shook her head, strands of hair sticking to her tear-stained cheeks. “There’s been some mistake,” she said again, forcing calm into her tone. “I’m not the person you think I am.”

Amber’s breath caught in her throat as the voice on the other side of the thick, wooden door twisted again into a lament. “It breaks my heart each time you deny it, Lisa.” His words were steeped in a sorrow that seemed almost genuine, yet they sent icy tendrils of fear slithering down her spine.

“Tomorrow,” he continued, his tone suddenly chillingly calm, “I’ll be back. Maybe then you’ll remember us... remember me.” There was a pause, and then his confession spilled forth like dark oil. “I’ve killed you twice already, and I’d hate to do it again. But tomorrow, Lisa, the choice is yours.”

Amber recoiled from the door, horror gripping her as she processed his words. An involuntary scream tore from her lips. “What do you mean you’ve killed me? I’m not Lisa! Please, come back!” Her pleas echoed off the cold cellar walls, desperate for him to hear her, to understand.

“Please,” she called out again, her voice breaking, “just tell me what you want! We can fix this, I promise!”

But there was only silence, followed by the fading sound of his retreating footsteps. She knew then that he had gone, leaving her alone with the weight of his madness pressing down upon her.

Amber drew a shuddering breath, her mind racing with the echoes of the madman’s confession. Lying there on the cot, the rough fabric scratching at her skin, she was painfully aware ofevery ache in her body, and the dim light of the lantern cast long shadows across the stone walls.

That bizarre conversation with her captor played on a loop in her mind. He had sounded almost tender when he called her “Lisa,” a jarring contrast to the terror he instilled in her. She couldn’t understand why he refused to accept her identity, why he was so convinced she was someone else. Who was Lisa to him? And why did it matter so much that he would go to such lengths to keep her here?

“Lisa,” he had called her. Not once, but insistently, as if trying to will her into being someone else. The thought sent a chill through her despite the stagnant air of the root cellar. Could she become this Lisa, if only to survive? Could she weave herself into his delusions and find a way out?

Her heart drummed in her chest at the prospect. To play the part of a dead woman, to convince a killer of her authenticity—it was a gambit fraught with peril. Yet what choice did she have? The alternative was to remain just the woman he held captive, the woman he believed he had already killed twice.

She found herself replaying the man’s earlier visit, and remembering another name he had mentioned. “Would you prefer that I call you Nancy?” he had asked.

What had he meant by that? It had almost sounded like a joke at the time. Did that name have any importance for the ruse she was desperately considering?

She moved cautiously, wincing as her sprained ankle protested, and pulled herself up into a sitting position. Her eyes traced the contours of the cellar, taking in the details as if they might hold the key to her performance. She would need to be convincing to inhabit the character fully. It was a role she never wished to audition for, yet now it could mean the difference between life and death.

Tomorrow, her captor would return, expecting Lisa. And she would be waiting, armed with nothing but desperation and a fragile ruse.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Jenna’s boots crunched softly on the bed of fallen leaves, her breath visible in the chilled air as tendrils of fog curled around her. The moon hung low and pale, casting an unearthly glow upon the familiar yet foreboding landscape. There, under the massive, gnarled branches of an ancient oak tree, she saw a young woman whose presence felt oddly predestined.

The woman stood motionless, her silhouette framed by silvered light. Then, right in front of her, a doorframe made of roughly-hewn wood stood, standing upright with nothing around it except air.

The woman knocked on the door and spoke through it in a pleading voice.

“You’ve made a mistake. She’s not the one you want. Don’t hurt her. I’m here. Maybe I can help you. Just open the door. Maybe I can be who you want me to be. I’m ready. Please let me in. You’re right about everything.”

Then, as if she had achieved her purpose, she turned away from the door toward Jenna.

Jenna approached slowly, the sense of purpose that had propelled her into this shadowy world tempered by caution. Even as she drew closer, the details of the figure before her refused to come into focus. The woman’s hair cascaded in loose waves, dark as the surrounding night, but her face remained stubbornly indistinct, as if she were not quite of this realm.

“Who are you?” Jenna asked, keeping her voice steady despite the unease she felt. Was this just a persistent figment of her own restless subconscious, or was this someone among the dead reaching out with an important message?

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