“That doesn’t prove anything,” he says, but his voice lacks conviction.
“No, it doesn’t, but when you take into account the thirty or so posts by other users about your cheating ring, Mrs. Henderson can’t just ignore it. She’ll have to look into it.” Smiling is the last thing I want to do, but I make the corners of my mouth lift, just as a fuck you to Mr. Werner.
“Ha! Ha. Ha.”
Okay that has got to be the weirdest, creepiest laughter I have ever heard. It’s straight out of Annabelle.
Mr. Werner stops laughing and holds out his hand. “Give me the phone, Lia.”
I take a step back. His laughter has triggered something inside me, some primal fear that makes me realize, belatedly, that I’m all alone in a secluded place with someone who just might be dangerous. I’d just assumed that Mr. Werner had made Sophie so depressed, she turned to drugs. But now I’m realizing—what if he’d actually killed her?
“Lia,” he says, his voice a warning. “Give me the phone, Lia.”
“Don’t come any closer.” Fear makes my voice wobble.
Mr. Werner looks confused. “What—are you scared of me? Give me the phone and we’ll forget about all this. I told you why I needed to do it. I told you, I don’t have a choice. Look, I even tried to warn you about taking my class. You were the one who insisted on taking it. How’s that my fault? Now give me the phone!” He darts forward as he says the last sentence and suddenly catches my wrist in a painful grip.
I shriek, try to pull away, but he’s got a death grip on me, and I can’t—I kick, aiming my knee for his groin. I hit his hip instead, but the kick surprises him into loosening his hold. I wrench my arm away and do the only thing I’m good at. I run.
I bolt straight into the thick of the woods, weaving around the redwoods, narrowly dodging their branches. Oh god, oh god, what the fuck is happening right now? What just happened? My thoughts are scrambled, my breath coming in and out in a terrified, high-pitched wheeze.
“Lia!” Mr. Werner’s shout comes from afar, a sound straight out of a nightmare. “Jesus, why are you kids so fucking melodramatic? My own fucking kids are like that too. ‘I’m a spoiled little shit! I don’t give a crap about everything you’ve sacrificed, Dad, I want to live with Mommy!’”
My mouth drops open. I can’t believe the revulsion in his voice as he talks about his own children. Only minutes ago, he’d been moaning about not being able to spend time with them, but his voice right now is pure poison, devoid of any genuine affection. So all of that stuff he’d said in the car about missing them had been a lie designed to make me feel sorry for him, to let my guard down. God, how could I have been so stupid?
He laughs to himself. “Those little shits. Why the hell would I want to see them? All I want is to keep them from their bitch of a mother and teach her a lesson for the way she treated me. And now here you are, messing everything up, and for what? Come out, Lia. Let’s be reasonable.”
I glance behind me. Can’t see him anywhere. Only trees around. My foot catches in a tangle of underbrush and I slam onto the ground. The breath is knocked out of me, and for a moment, I forget where I am, what’s going on, and then it all comes back in a rush and I scramble to untangle my foot from the mess of leaves and vines. Too slow. I’m sobbing out loud, a wild, desperate sound. I’m all of five years old once more, caught in a nightmare, with a monster pursuing me. I should be quiet—otherwise, the monster might find me—but I can’t control my breathing, my whimpering. I’m going to die here. Mr. Werner is going to catch me, and then he’ll—I don’t know how he’ll do it, maybe he’ll strangle me, maybe he’ll just throw me over the cliff, but the point is, I’m about to die.
“Liaaa.”
Pure panic bursts through my chest. I tear at the vines with my bare hands.
“Come out. I’ve told you my life story, shared with you the most vulnerable parts of my life. You see that, don’t you? That I’m the victim here?”
I give one last hard yank and my foot finally comes free. Just as Mr. Werner comes through the trees and sees me. His mouth stretches into a grin, showing all his teeth.
“Got you.” He leaps.
He crashes down on top of me, and I’m winded again. His body mass is sickening, terrifying, an alien grabbing me. His heat envelopes me, the weight of him shockingly real. So heavy, like a boulder crushing me. His hard flesh is on mine, and though I try to turn, he’s too heavy for me to budge. He’s too strong, too big for me to push off. I claw for something. Anything. A rock. I grip it so hard, its sharp edge bites into my palm. I swing it—sudden hot pain rips through my arm. He bit me! I shriek, dropping the rock. Mr. Werner lunges for it and swings at my head. I twist my head around, and the rock bashes into the ground, less than an inch from my skull. I feel the rush of wind against my skin, the savage thunk the rock makes. Mr. Werner isn’t holding back. He means to crush my skull like an egg.
Terror pounds through my veins. I will die here. His rancid breath is hot on my face, and the weight of him on top of me is so solid, so real. Oh god, this is truly happening. I fling my fist at his face, but it barely does anything. We’re both snarling, panting like dogs, limbs flailing everywhere, eyes barely seeing, uncomprehending what’s going on.
Then, suddenly, survival instinct takes over and I kick up with all the strength in my legs.
This time, I don’t miss his groin. His balls squelch sickeningly against my knee. He gives a weird half scream, half yelp, and grabs at my face. His fingers brush my head and my entire body lurches away from the touch. I shove myself to one side, but instead of getting up, I brace my hands against the forest floor, ignoring the way the sticks and stones on the ground bite into my palms, and I push, rolling into his legs with all my might. He pitches forward, arms pinwheeling.
There’s a crack, so hard, so clear, I feel it reverberate through my entire body. He hit me with something, he must have. I paw at my head, expecting blood, expecting excruciating pain to overwhelm me at any second. Maybe he’s hit me with the rock somehow, and this is a belated reaction—
No blood. What?
I look at Mr. Werner. He’s on the ground. But getting up, slowly. His movements are all wrong somehow, lurching and alien, a broken doll jerking to life. Every alarm inside me is blaring at me to run, but I’m rooted to the spot. When he turns to face me, I scream in horror.
A branch is sticking out of his left eye. He touches it, his other eye widening, like he can’t believe there’s something sticking out of his actual head. His mouth moves. Words come out, but they’re all wrong, jumbled and loose. I only catch the last one.
“—bitch.”