Page 26 of Somebody's Watching Me
“You’re all fire inside, aren’t you?”
“And I will burn you alive with it.” Her words were slurred, only fueling the anger. “Promise.”
The storm brewing over the inlet followed the car, and as the distance between them and Haven House grew, the more intense it became. A roar of wind encircled them, and, in her drug-addled mind, Jamison thought it sounded a bit like a lion, snarling and hungry.
Gravel from the driveway pelted the car’s metal frame, knocking against the passenger side window until it shattered. Denise screamed, raising her arms so not to get a face full of glass.
“What the hell?” Bruce swatted at the glass, knocking it off him while continuing to careen toward the gates. “Did no one check the weather for tonight?”
Losing a little more control over her body, Jamison pitched to the side, but Michael caught her before she collapsed completely. The muffled shouts of Bruce and Denise dissolved into white noise, leaving her to sink further into her hazy brain.
Not long after breaking up with Liam, she had checked herself into a spa. The idea had been that a bit of pampering might ease the chasm of sorrow swallowing her from the inside out. It hadn’t, and after a day of massages and facials, she decided to find solace in the hotel’s empty indoor pool.
A mistake.
Floating on the surface of the water, the weight of her pain eventually dragged her down, bringing her to rest on the pool floor. She had lain there, mourning her loss. A life with Liam. A family with him. A home where they would grow old together. The endless years of hearing him crack his corny jokes that always made her laugh.
The pressure from the water and her sorrows had her thinking—for the tiniest of seconds—what if she just let go? Take a deep inhale and quite literally drown in her pain. She was a failure, so what was the point in continuing?
But the darkness didn’t win. Even with Liam out of her life, she could never erase him completely from her head, and as his voice had screamed at her to break the surface that day, it was screaming now.Make notes. Take inventory. All of it matters.
Three people. Two men. One woman. Her mind ticked through their features. Denise’s pockmarked cheeks. Bruce’s buzzed haircut and meaty hands. The deep clef in Michael’s chin and his single brown eye sitting in total contrast to his blue one.
It would all matter.
If she escaped.
The mini hurricane encompassing the car grew stronger, and Michael shouted for them to stop. Denise screamed and Bruce slammed on the brakes, sending the car spinning off the drive.
Up ahead, Haven’s entry gates were closing, locking them in.
Jamison squinted, trying to see the security box through the blistering gale of wind and rain. No lights shone in the dark, and without electricity, it wouldn’t be possible for the heavy wrought iron barrier to move on its own.
“It seems we’ve underestimated Mr. McIntyre.” Curving an arm around her waist, Michael snapped open the door to pull her from the car. She held on to the seat, clawing at it until her nails broke off, but he was ten times stronger. “I think not, love.”
Denise struggled to get out, shouting at the walkie-talkie she seemed to have a death grip on. “Contingency plan initiated.”
Deadweight, Jamison sagged but didn’t hit the ground before Michael scooped her up effortlessly to toss over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. The world flipped upside down, and he jogged through the storm with Bruce and Denise on his heels. “Let’s move.”
Lifting her head so she wouldn’t vomit from being jostled, Jamison gasped when she saw the giant gates opening again and two white dots of light speeding parallel down the drive from the highway. Was it the police? Rowan?
She struggled to see but gave up quickly thanks to her depleting strength. Letting her head drop, Ty’s rainbow garden rushed before her eyes, and the crunch of the fragile flowers beneath Michael’s black boots told her they were taking her to the forest. If what she had seen was the police arriving and not some hallucination caused by the drugs, she hoped it was someone who had been here before. The forests of Haven House weren’t easy to navigate, and someone could end up dead in one of the pits near the old mill if they weren’t careful.
Thorny vines lashed at Michael’s ankles, constricting tightly as if they were attempting to hinder his escape. Not to be outdone, thunder and wind rushed in with a hail of rain to join in on the attack, showering their bodies in a violent swirl of unrelenting air.
The earth made its move next, rumbling as it gave chase by manifesting cracks in the dirt that slithered in their wake. Teetering on the brink of sanity, Jamison laughed, the manic sound merging with the wrath of Haven House. “Run, run, run as fast as you can.”
Michael paused to rip a vine from his leg. “Very cute.”
Once loose, he hauled her onward, making it to the forest entrance in no time. Inside the canopy, a muted silence greeted them. The deafening emptiness a total contrast to the storm raging over the estate.
“I hate this place,” Bruce muttered. “It gives me the creeps.”
“Grow up.” Out of breath from their run, Denise bent at the waist with her hands on her thighs. “Toby played here as a kid. It’s fine.”
Michael didn’t wait, charging ahead as if he knew the way. At the fork, they had the choice to go left to the graveyard or right to the mill ruins stretching out over the point leading to the water.
He turned right, jogging toward the ruins, and Jamison dug her nails into the muscles of his back. “Watch out for pits.”
