Page 161 of Hayden's Stalker

I peer through my half-closed lids as my eyes adjust to the light, and when I can see what’s in front of me, I wish I couldn’t. Dan has a gun pointed directly at me.

“Why are you doing this?” I moan as I look at him.

“I said to get the fuck out. Do you want me to shoot you?” he snarls.

The fear is all-consuming. My legs are like blocks of ice, and I can barely bring myself to move. The letters sounded like he was in love with me, but Dan is acting more like he hates my guts.

“Get the fuck out, you cunt!”

It snaps me into action, and I try to climb out of the box. I realize that I’m in a van, but there isn’t much room between the top of the box and the van. The box lid isn’t fully open, and Dan is holding it ajar with the hand that isn’t holding his gun.

I try to wriggle through the gap but fall down multiple times, getting more and more stressed with each attempt. Especially because I can see that Daniel is fucking pissed at me.

“I can’t do it,” I tell him. “Maybe if my arms and legs weren’t tied up.”

He gives a humorless laugh. “I’m not that fucking stupid. I’ll untie your legs so you can get out.” He gives me a level stare. “If you try anything, I’ll put a bullet through your brain.Pleasegive me an excuse to do it.”

The way he says it makes it clear to me that he is one hundred percent for real when he makes this threat. It doesn’t make any sense because if he’s my stalker, then I thought he wanted to be with me.

“Okay,” I tell him, my heart beating double-time because I’m terrified that he’ll make good on his threat.

He pulls out a knife and slices at the ropes until they fall loose around my ankles. With my legs free, I manage to hook one out over the side of the box while holding onto it with my bound hands and throwing myself up and over the edge.

I land with a thud, half on the van floor and half outside it in the air. Gravity gets the better of me, and I crash onto the ground outside the van with another thud, and the air is knocked out of me. Pain ricochets through my body, and I roll onto my back as I try to breathe through it. I look up to see one of the big equipment boxes from backstage in the back of the van. I’m horrified when I see it as I realize how Dan got me here.

“You drugged me and put me in one of the equipment boxes? Why are you doing this?”

He shoves the barrel of the gun into my back and nods his head toward a big log cabin ahead of us. “Get walking.”

The gun is hard against my back, and I’m acutely aware that at any given moment, Daniel could pull the trigger. I still can’t understand at all why he’s doing this.

“But why?” I ask again. “How?”

He gives a bitter laugh as I start walking toward the rustic building. “Getting your heavy ass into the equipment box was the hardest bit. I was worried one of your fucking friends would come to check on the bitch.”

Fury flows through me when he insults Tati. It mixes with the adrenaline and fear already coursing through my veins.

“Once you were in it, all I had to do was wheel the box out to the van and load it up. A couple of people saw me, but nobody even gave me a second glance.”

Nausea adds to the other emotions as I realize how well he planned this because of course they wouldn’t. Who wouldever second-guess a roadie who’s moving equipment around backstage? No one and he knew it.

“But why, Dan?” I ask, hoping that the nickname will remind him that we were friends.

He shoves me forward with the gun. “None of your fucking business, cunt.”

I focus on putting one foot in front of the other. Any time I try to get any kind of answer from Dan about why he’s doing this, he just shoves me in the direction we’re going. I have no idea if Tati is dead or alive, and the memory of her in my changing room is vivid in my mind. My concern for her sits like a weight in the bottom of my stomach, and I have to hope that somebody found her soon after I was taken.

He leads me to a bedroom containing a large bed and ties me to it with ropes that are lying by the bed, apparently just waiting for me.

As he turns to leave the room, I beg him, “Please just tell me why you’re doing this. You don’t seem to even like me, let alone love me.”

He doesn’t say a word, just shuts the door behind himself, and leaves me lying alone, tied to the bed. I struggle against the ropes for a while before I have to accept that I’m not going to manage to get out of them.

Finally, I lie defeated on the bed, and a tear rolls from my eye. All I can think about is my beautiful Tatiana and how devastated she’ll be when she realizes what’s happened to me. I know that, no matter what, I need to stay alive to make my way back home to her.

I notice a clock on a wall at the side of the room, and I hope that Dan will leave me in this room. I’ll be able to use the clock to know when it’s noon so I can worry about Tati.

It’s been over an hour by the time I hear low voices talking outside of my room. One is Dan, but the other is unrecognizable, except for the fact that it’s a higher pitch, so possibly a woman.

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