Page 131 of Moth to a Flame

Now I’m the one on the prowl.

“Are we playing a game? Is that it?”

My fingers brush along the leaves of the bushes. The grass bends beneath my sneakers.

“We can play. Sure, we can.Mygame.” I peek behind a thick tree bark. Empty. “One where I’m the one sodomizing you. You could take it, right?”

Darkness envelops me. The rotten apple scent intensifies.

“If I, a little fifteen-year-old girl, could take it, then—”

There’s movement up ahead. It’s not Lester. It’s a squirrel running down a tree.

“You could too. Take it like a champ.”

The smell of rotten apples reaches down my throat. I’m sickened by it. I taste it on my tongue. It’s hard not to gag. Not to lose the edge I have over him.

“Landon will kill you,” I whisper. “No. Landon will fuck you up so bad that you’ll beg him to kill you. You were nothing and you’ll stay nothing.”

“Not so sure about that.”

My eyes fly open.

I’m right where I fell asleep, on my side. In my bedroom. The windows are the same ones as always. Moonlight shines from them. The ocean is right outside.

But this isn’t Landon clamping a hand over my mouth. Isn’t him standing behind me, dragging me out of our bed.

Landon doesn’t smell of rotten apples. His voice doesn’t come off as hateful. His palm isn’t as coarse, and his fingers aren’t short and slimy.

Wrong. All wrong.

“If I were nothing…”

Before screaming, before kicking, my instincts demand one thing. One thing alone.

Jigsaw.

“You wouldn’t have dreamed about me.” I’m at the edge of the bed, sinking my feet into the mattress. He can’t take me. He can’t. “Wouldn’t have talked about me in your sleep.”

Somehow, Lester found me. Somehow, he broke into our home while Landon was out searching for him.

Doesn’t matter. I don’t care about how he got past the gates or past the private beach.

He’s in the house. In our bedroom.

There’s no one here to protect me but myself.

Those are the important things I have to focus on.

And getting to Jigsaw.

It won’t be long before Landon is back here. He’s out there, stalking the fucker’s home.

He’s smart, my future husband. He’ll figure out that Lester should’ve been home by now.

That he came for me.

I trust Landon to be here soon.

---