Page 22 of Stalking the Bride

My stomach lurches, dropping to my feet. My pulse doubles. A chill shoots through me as I realize what’s just happened.

Belledidcatch on to what I said about her pillowcase. She knows now that I’m her stalker, and she used the punching machine challenge to distract me so she could make a break for it. Not only have I blown my cover, but I’ve also completely failed in my duties of watching over her.

How could I let this happen?

How could I take my eyes off her?

“Belle!” I cry out. At this point, it’s impossible to know which way she went, so I turn left and begin sprinting down the pier, scanning for any signs of her. I knew I should have installed a tracking device in her phone. Even the microphone I setup in various rooms she’s always in are registering nothing right now. I was trying to hold back my degeneracy, but now I realize I’ve failed. I fucked up. Even the covert recording devices I installed where she goes are registering nothing. I won’t find her again. Belle outsmarted me, and there’s a good chance I’ll never see her again.

8

BELLE

Tears streakmy cheeks and I’m sure my heart is about to burst as I race through the night, every step taking me farther from the pier. I ran down to the beach and circled around the tourist rentals, hoping to escape with a route Conrad would not anticipate. Still, I keep glancing over my shoulder, expecting to see him hot on my heels at any second.

After all, he was a Marine. He has training beyond anything I could anticipate. There’s a good chance he’ll find me. But what else can I do but run?

People keep gawking at me as I pass them.What’s wrong with this girl?They must be thinking. I’m sure I look panicked or wrought with despair like my boyfriend just broke up with me and I’m chasing after him to beg him to take me back. When in reality, I’m the one being chased by a dangerous, dangerous man. How could I have been so stupid? So trusting?

Conrad called in the bomb threat.

He’s also been stalking me for weeks. Who knows how long?

Pink pillowcase.He gave himself away with that one. He may have driven me home before, but he’s never been inside my bedroom. At least, that’s what I thought until moments ago when those words slipped from his mouth.

“Thinking of you alone at your house, away from my protection, resting your head on your cute little pink pillowcases…”

Just replaying that statement in my mind now sends shivers up my spine. This whole time that he was pretending to be protecting me, safeguarding me, he was simply scheming to get close to me. Keeping me from leaving his sight. All that game of helping me prepare for my husband–that was just an excuse to touch me, to get me to open up to him so he could get inside me.

Oh God. I gave my virginity to my stalker.

This is sick. Conrad is demented.

I would never have expected this kind of lunatic behavior from a former Marine. Then again, how do I know Conrad even is a former Marine? He could have been lying about that too. And what about that incident with Barry back at the manor? Did he orchestrate that whole thing just to keep anyone from suspecting him?

I’m sick to my stomach as I order a ride on my phone while I continue to run. I put Police Headquarters under the destination. I have to report this maniac before it’s too late. Before he’s able to take cover, or go dark, or whatever terminology they use in the Marines to indicate that he’ll be impossible to find and apprehend. Which in turn means I’ll have to spend the rest of my life in constant fear, cowering behind alarm systems and locked doors, wondering when he’ll reappear and what he’ll do to me.

I reach my pickup spot and hide myself in the shadows of a pizzeria, watching my ride approaching on the map on my phone. The seconds tick by painfully as I glance around, panicked that at any moment, Conrad will appear out of the black, racing after me. And I would be helpless against him. His strength, his speed, his prowess. I simply can’t compare.

I’m debating calling 9-1-1 when my ride arrives. I leap out of the darkness, nearly twisting my ankle in the process, and leap into the backseat of the sedan.

“Um, are you…Belle?” the man asks.

“Yes, yes! I need you to drive, please. Now!”

I’m quivering as the man throws me a questioning glance in the rearview mirror, then pulls away from the curb and drives off into the night.

“Take it from me…We like girls who know what they’re doing. If a girl doesn’t know how to please her husband, how long do you think that marriage will last?”

That’s what Conrad said to me as he manipulated me and convinced me that somehow, he was doing me a favor by getting me ready to be with my future husband, when in reality he was just tricking me to get in my pants. And I fell for it! I basically gave myself away to him like a tourist handing their passport to a scammer on the streets, only to never get it back again. And yet, I still can’t think about our moments together without a tingling sensation returning between my legs. Conrad introduced me to things I knew nothing about. He changed me.

And the entire time, he was lying to me.

He called in a bomb threat to stop my wedding. And he must have broken into my house too if he knew the color of my pillowcase. Who knows what else he’s been up to.

Conrad is a stalker. And now I’m on the way to the police station to report him.

“Almost there,” my driver says to me cautiously, as thoughI’mthe twisted one. Sure, maybe I was behaving a bit erratically when I dove into the back seat like I was escaping a war zone, but if he only knew what was really going on and causing me to behave like a wild woman.

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