Page 88 of Heart of a Rebel

Making my way through the crowd, I spot the lot of tour buses ahead. With the few people meandering this far out, I’m struck by the quiet of it. Deafening silence all around.

A silence that can only be the result of one thing: I’m alone.

In my rush to get back to my bus after the show, I forgot to make sure security was following me. I must have been coming down from the high of performing, because as I glance over my shoulder, not one of them is in sight.

My heartbeat pounds in my chest, in my lungs, between my temples. It’s beyond loud all of a sudden. Thundering in every crevice and making it hard to hear anything more than my shoes crunching against the dirt beneath my feet.

I quicken my pace as I weave through the bus lot. But there’s so many and it’s a maze to get to mine. The rush of it all makes my vision blurry as every bus looks almost the same. I can’t help but feel lost among them.

I’ve walked this path many times over the past week and it’s suddenly foreign.

Think, Eloise. Think.

A shuffle behind me freezes me in place. Even if I know I should keep my feet moving, I can’t seem to do it.

I don’t have to hear him to know I’m being hunted. It’s an instinct. The relationship between predator and prey. I can feel him watching for me from somewhere nearby, closing in on his obsession.

Moving my foot a step forward, I’m stopped by a hard chest coming up behind me and something cool brushing the edge of my throat.

“Relax, Eloise.” His voice is coated in the same evil my nightmares feed off. “I’m here to save you.”

I try to shake my head, but it scrapes something against my throat, so I stop.

“Good girl,” he whispers right against my ear, and I get a whiff of his musky cologne. “Now be quiet and come with me, and there’ll be no harm to your pretty little throat.”

No harm?

The damage is already done. This is the man who shredded my life to pieces at one touch.

But I listen because if there’s a chance of getting out of this with what I have left, there’s no choice but to. His arm snakes around my waist, and I get that sickening feeling in my stomach as all the buried memories of him touching me come to the surface. I almost bend over and heave out my insides, but his blade pressing against my throat prevents it. In my head, I’m dragged back to that night. How even through the drugs I could feel him all over my skin.

He guides me around a few buses and we might be in the middle of a hundred of them but there’s not a person in sight. It’s a risk he’s even doing this here, but it’s a show of his desperation, which is even more terrifying.

Nothing is more dangerous than an animal cornered, and that’s how he feels to me in this moment. He’s conjured an end of the line in his mind, and I’m worried about what that means for me getting out.

Stopping at a bus in the middle of the lot, he reaches around me and pops the door open, pushing me through it. I almost fall forward when I reach the top step and he shoves me inside, but I manage to catch myself on a table as I hear him shut the door behind me.

The bus looks a lot like the buses the band has been using for this tour. The same layout, and the same decor before I personalized mine with a garden’s worth of plants. That’s when I spot the file on the table and see our record label’s name written across it:Neon Records.

I spin, and for the first time, I’m placing a face to the voice that’s haunted my nightmares. A face that’s not unfamiliar at all. Sharp features that are almost harsh the way he grits his teeth. Pale skin drowned out by his nearly white blond hair. The same man who was standing next to Adrian earlier at the edge of the stage, and my head starts to spin with the pieces clicking together.

He was there the night we signed our record deal. He was at the club handing out drinks to toast our celebration. He was even at the charity event.

He rarely comes to events, and when he does, he keeps with the executives in secluded corners, talking to only Adrian when it’s necessary. I figured he found himself too important to mingle with the talent, but now I see it. He wasn’t avoiding the band because we were too lowly.

He waswatching. He was waiting for his moment.

“Eloise.” He smiles, but it doesn’t reach his cold, icy eyes.

There’s no comfort in his expression, and not only because he looks domineering, but because he looks almost excited. Black depths vicious with intent. A hunter who’s about to get their kill and can’t wait to watch the life drain from it in his hands.

“Have a seat.” He points the knife in his hand, toward the couch. “I insist.”

It’s not an offer, it’s a demand. My body might fight me, but my self-preservation forces me to the couch. This isn’t like before when he drugged me, raped me, and tormented me. All those times he was a faceless figure. A monster hiding in the dark. Now, I’ve seen his face. That alone says more about his intentions than any of his words. There’s no walking away from this without the risk of me exposing him.

Ice pools in the deepest pits of my stomach at the realization.

“Who are you?” I’ll try to keep him talking long enough to think of a way out of this.

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