Page 111 of Love Me Fearless

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Pain pulsingthrough my skull wakes me. I blink at the dim space, trying to get my bearings. I’m on something soft—a couch?—in a small, open room.

Fear wraps its cold tentacles around me as the memories flash. One minute I was leaning over my engine, and then?—

“Oh good, you’re awake.” Jeremy carries a folding chair toward me.

I flinch, which jerks something on the floor. Something cold and heavy around my ankle. “Jeremy!” I cry out, wishing I could control the waver in my voice. “What is this? What are you doing?”

“I need to keep you safe, Ava.”

My breaths are coming too fast and the sizzling panic is eating through me. “No, Jeremy, please.” Hot tears prick my eyes.

His smile falters, and he shakes his head. “It’s for your protection.”

I gulp air and scream so hard my eyes and throat burn, making me cough.

Jeremy tilts his head, watching me like I’m some kind of specimen. “Nobody can hear you down here. I made sure of it.”

I scrabble from the couch, but the chain on my ankle trips me and I go sprawling. Lurching to my feet, I sprint forward, but the chain jerks me back and I fall again, landing on my knees. My kneecaps erupt in pain, shooting daggers down my shins.

It’s then I notice the bed in the corner and the vase of white roses.

I scream again until I’m shaking and coughing.

Jeremy walks to a shelf unit along the right of the room that’s stacked with cases of water and boxes of food. He tears open the plastic around one of the cases and sets one of the bottles on the floor near me.

That he didn’t bring it closer makes me feel like an animal. Like he’s afraid to get too close.

Alarm bells clang so hard in my head that the pain feels real. “You can’t keep me here.”

Jeremy sits down on the chair again, the hinges squeaking under his weight. “In time, I won’t need to. You’ll see.”

In time.

My stomach lurches but I coax a breath through my mouth. If I’m going to get out of here, I need to be able to think logically. How did I get into this room? I wince as the memory of the two of us bending over my engine returns. Did he hit me? Drug me?

“Where are we?” I take another quick scan of my surroundings. The walls are decorated with pictures, some in frames, some?—

I swallow my panic.

The pictures are all of me.

“My grandma’s house,” he says. “She left it to me when she passed.”

I never went to his house back in high school. Did he live with his grandma?Think, Ava! Where are we? Where did his grandma live? Are we still in Finn River?Once I escape, I need to know where to run.

My brain snags on a missing detail. “Why are there no windows?”

He laughs, like I’ve said something funny. “We’re in the basement.”

A shock wave of dread spears my chest. I force my mind to focus on the details. Where is the entrance? How do I get out of here?

“How did you get those?” I squint at the pictures. There’s one blown up from robotics class, our senior year of high school. Jeremy has his arm around my shoulders as we proudly display our final project. We’re both smiling. Did he have some kind of crush on me back then?

“I’ve been watching out for you for a long time, Ava.”

“You mean stalking me.”

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