Page 27 of No Mercy In Red

I’d checked the app I used to track her.[Unable to locate iPhone 7394648.]

Anxiety twisted in my gut; something was wrong. Why couldn’t her phone be located?

After arriving back home, I loaded up the cameras history, looking at when she was last in her apartment. She had arrived home at 12:30, heading straight into her bedroom. I flicked onto the bedroom camera’s history, watching as she pulled out a hold-all from her closet. She packed items quickly, stuffing them in before entering the bathroom to take a shower. When she came out, she looked absolutely beautiful. I sped through the footage to find when she eventually left. 2pm. One hour and forty-five minutes before we were supposed to meet for our date. Ipaced around my apartment for nearly two hours, obsessively checking my phone to see if her tracker started working again, I finally caved. I dropped by her work, banging on the door despite the closed sign being very clearly in view. I knew she wasn’t at home because I’d watched the cameras obsessively. So where the fuck was she? It was almost 6pm. She usually finished work at 3 on a Friday, arriving at Melinda’s at 3:15. Pulling out my phone, I checked her social media again – nothing. She’d gone dark, disappeared off-grid. Panic surged through me, and I slammed my fist against my dashboard, still parked outside of her workplace, cursing loudly. Why was this bothering me so much? Was it because I couldn’t see her? Was it because I was so used to being able to see ninety percent of what she was doing, that the thought of not being able to was absurd to me? I could feel myself slipping, slowly losing it. Losing my access to her had made me lose my fucking mind. I scoured my thoughts, scrambling for an explanation as to where she could be. Lara always came to her apartment – Lara. I sifted through Max’s account on instagram before I found Lara’s page. My chest tightened as I saw her most recent post, heart hammering painfully as I opened the image. A photo Lara and Max, posing with sunglasses perched on their heads in a car, the caption reading:

’Heading to the lake for a few days. No signal, no worries. Just drinks, sun, and hopefully some hot men.’

My vision went red. Jealously surged through me, hot and furious. The thought of Max being touched by anyone else sent violent thoughts racing through my mind. She was mine. Only mine. And the thought of her being away, out of reach, with other men… I couldn’t handle it. I scrolled through my phone furiously, searching for lakes nearby, but there was too fucking many. And with no specific location, and zero ability to track Max, I felt utterly fucking helpless.

I arrived back at my apartment, pacing up and down trying to fight back the dark thoughts that haunted me – the sickening possibility thatsomeone else might be getting their hands on her. The walls seemed to close in on me, pressing tighter until I could barely breath. I forced myself to sit down, gripping my head in my hands, breathing heavily. It was pathetic, this obsession had grown dangerous, having me in such turmoil over the mere thought of someone else touching her. She had truly become an addiction that I couldn’t escape, even if I wanted to. She was every twisted desire I’d ever had, wrapped in one intoxicating woman. My mother had abandoned me when she died, and I didn’t let it break me. My ex-girlfriend had mocked and humiliated my needs, and I didn’t let it break me – but Max? She could break me entirely, and I would let her. Fuck, I would beg her to break me, if it meant I saw that earth shattering smile spread across her beautiful face.

No signal. No control.

I needed her to come back to me, only me. And if she didn’t? If she found someone else? If she let another man near her, even for a night? I knew with absolute certainty what would happen next. I would hunt him down, and fucking kill him, even if he made her happy, even if she begged me not to. Because Max wasn’t just an obsession anymore, something to hunt and stalk.

She was everything, and she was mine.

Chapter 23

Max

The drive to the lake house was exactly what I needed.

Windows down, music blasting, and Lara’s off-key singing drowning out any lingering worries I’d had about Connor, the police, or my fucked-up double life.

“Come on, Max, sing louder! I can still hear myself!” Lara laughed, cranking up the volume on the stereo until my ears were practically bleeding.

“If I sing any louder, I’m pretty sure I’ll cause an avalanche,” I retorted dryly, making her laugh even harder.

God, it felt good to laugh like this again, to just escape from reality, even if only for a few days. No murders, no stalkers, no cops, no bodies sat at the bottom of lakes. Just me, my best friend, and endless bottles of wine by a lake so far away from that small town I called home. Connor had sent me flowers, explaining why he was all of a sudden a ghost, not showing up to Melinda’s, claiming he’d see me Friday after work. I had no way of contacting him though, to tell him I wouldn’t be there. The funny thing about having a stalker is that was that he was just always there, I had no reason to need to contact him, so I couldn’t tell him where I would be. I could’ve popped by Melinda’s and asked Mel to send on the message I suppose, but I started to like the idea of making himsweat, taking the control away from him and placing it firmly in my hands. After all, it had taken him until fucking Thursday to explain his disappearance. Maybe he’d punish me again. I bit my lip at the thought.

Lara glanced over at me, suddenly looking serious, lowering the volume of the music. “You okay, babe? You’ve seemed a bit off recently. I mean, besides your sexcapade that you’re refusing to share details about.”

“Im fine,” I said quickly – maybe too quickly. “Just stressed about work.”

She narrowed her eyes, unconvinced. “Fine, keep your secrets, Hannah Montana. But if this whole mysterious man situation turns sour, I’m going to beat his ass myself.”

“Yeah, I’m sure he’d be terrified of your intimidating five-foot-nothing self.” I teased, nudging her gently

“You underestimate the power of a pissed-off short girl with acrylic nails.” she said, wiggling her hot pink nails at me menacingly.

I laughed, rolling me eyes.

“But seriously Max, this isn’t you. You don’t do feelings, and men. I basically had to beg you to have birthday sex for fuck’s sake.” She looked at me with concern on her face. “Just, be careful, okay?”

I nodded, but her words stuck with me. Lara had always been so fiercely protective, and part of me wanted so desperately to tell her everything – to spill every twisted detail. I wanted desperately to unburden myself from this terrifying yet intoxicating web I’d gotten caught up in. Of murders and stalkers. But I couldn’t, I couldn’t risk losing her. Or worse – putting her in danger.

The lake house was beautiful. Tucked away among towering oak trees that loomed high into the clear blue sky, the house overlooked the shimmering lake. Lara’s parents’ getaway was the perfect balance ofluxury and rustic charm, filled with memories of happier times before the world turned dark for me. We used to come here a lot during the summer before my dad had died. Spending long, hot days swimming around in the water, discussing all of the things that were making our lives hard. If only I knew then, what my life would become. That my existence would be turned into nothing but bitterness and anger.

We spent the first evening outside by the lake on one of the docks, sipping wine straight from the bottle, feet dangling in the cold water. Lara rambled on with the tales of her recent disastrous hookups, her stories becoming increasingly animated with every gulp.

“So then this guy – fuck Max, he literally howled like a wolf when he came. I shit you not, it was like mating with Jacob from Twilight or something.”

“You need therapy,” I teased, laughing so hard tears streamed down my face.

“Therapy, orgasms, or another bottle of wine, I’ll take any of the above.” She declared, clinking our bottles together.

I lay back on the wooden dock, staring up at the stars and letting the alcohol numb the edges of my paranoia. Nothing from back home had crossed my mind in over an hour, my brain too busy listening to Lara mumble on whilst I counted the number of constellations I could see smattered across the sky. but my ability to avoid everything at home was short lived.

---