Page 56 of Into the Light

“Oh my god, do you want me to kill you right now?”

I laughed. As I talked, I’d felt around and realized he’d used duct tape to bind my hands together. I remember in one of Alex’s true crime podcasts, they’d mentioned how it’s actually easy to get out of duct tape if you wiggled your hands together just right.

“Okay, so not a bullied kid. Are you a competitor of mine? Maybe you make your own handmade jewelry and you’re trying to eliminate the competition.”

Leaning forward, he grabbed my face, squeezing my cheeks until they hurt.

“I’m going to skin you alive. Just wait.” He smiled and looked deep into my eyes with his terrifying, maniacal gaze, but I refused to look away. I would not show weakness.

He shoved me back, and I realized I was propped up against a gravestone. Taking his phone out of his pocket, he looked at it, swiping and typing some things out.

“Perfect. Now that your boyfriend is out of lockup, I can finish this shit and get the hell out of here.”

“What?” Raf was out of jail? And what did that have to do with this? “What are you trying to do?”

A deep, booming voice caressed my ears. I knew that voice anywhere.Raf.

“He’s trying to kill you and frame me for the murder. Just like he tried with Annie.”

“Well, plot twist. Here he is. Long time, no see.”

“Heath. What the fuck are you thinking?”

Heath? Raf’s old friend, Heath? The one that was dating Melissa when she…

“You are the biggest asshole around, and you want to know what I’m thinking?” Heath’s movements were wild, his hands swinging around like wrecking balls.

“I don’t know what I ever did to deserve this, bud.”

“Don’t you fucking call me ‘bud.’ You’re such an asshole. I thought you were off dead somewhere. You moved away and I never had to think about you again.”

“Until you ran into Annie, right? Maybe you were delivering food to her—”

“Shut the fuck up, like you’re better than me and I’m just delivering food. You always did have that superiority about you.”

Raf held his hands up in acquiescence. “I didn’t mean anything by it. Just that, it’s how you saw her, right? And she told you she ran into me up here.”

“She was so excited, like it was some wonderful thing. Rafael, the prodigal son.”

I don’t think that was how the biblical story went, but I kept my mouth shut. Raf had managed to keep Heath talking, and I assumed, prayed, that help was on the way.

“Well, you always thought you were so smart. So much better than us. Quitting the drugs, quitting the partying. Moving away. You didn’t even know the truth.”

“What truth, man?”

“Melissa, that bitch. Always trying to run back to you. Every little fight, every little mistake I made. I was never good enough. You were probably fucking her the whole time behind my back.”

“Wow, no.” He shook his head. “No, Heath. I wasn’t. We broke up, and she started dating you. She was troubled. She killed herself.”

Heath laughed. A deranged, hideous laugh that made my blood run cold.

“You still think that, huh? After what you know I’m capable of? You think that bitch had the strength to do that? No, she was weak as hell.”

“So you killed Melissa, then.”

“Yup, just like Annie, and just like your little girlfriend here—” Heath turned to look at me, but that was a costly mistake. Raf tackled him, landing on top of Heath and punching him in the face. Heath tried to fight back for a moment, but it was useless. They were both tall and muscular, but Heath couldn’t compare to Raf’s brute strength, or the adrenaline that he must have had, hearing all of that, knowing I could have been next.

Sirens sounded and red and blue lights flashed around the graveyard. Raf landed blow after blow on Heath’s face, but stopped when Theo pulled him off. He’d been knocked unconscious.

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