“You’re insane,” I said.
Eric ignored me. “I searched for you. I searched and searched until I figured you must’ve been dead. I thought that right up until I ran into you in that house by the cemetery. You walked right into my life again looking recently sober and very confused. You were looking to score some H. Remember that Dre? Remember how it felt to stick that needle in your arm? That first little prick of your skin before it hit your vein and the world went away?” Eric chuckled and stood, slowly pacing the small room. “Sometimes I lay awake at night just remembering how it felt to be oblivious to this cruel world.”
Insane is an understatement.
“The thing is, you weren’t alone when I saw you in that house,” Eric’s tone turned deeper. Darker.
Angrier.
“I saw you in the cemetery...with HIM,” Eric seethed, with extra emphasis on the word HIM. “The same guy who killed Conner. That’s right, I saw him that night. I watched from the bus station as he carried you out of the motel room. When I snuck in to search for Conner all I found was his lifeless body in the bathroom. And when I saw you again, in that cemetery and realized the two of you were together, I knew you’d played a hand in Connor’s death. Who knows, maybe you did it yourself.”
“I thought you were dead,” I muttered.
I wish you still were.
Eric pointed to himself. “I got high and jumped off a fucking bridge! I thought I was dead too! It was a miracle I survived. When I came to and I was still breathing I knew for certain then that I’d been spared for a reason. A higher power thought I was more useful here on earth. I got sober right after that and decided that part of God’s plan was exacting revenge for Conner.”
“I...I didn’t even think you liked Connor that much,” I said, my lips moving with slightly more ease. Conner and Eric were always arguing. About money or drugs or even whose turn it was to rape me.
“No!” he cried, slamming his fist through the wall, plaster fell in crumbles to the floor. He turned back around and stomped back over to me, sending one of his pointed toe dress shoes sailing into my stomach. I heard something crack and I couldn’t even fold in on the pain so I just had to lie there and take it. “You don’t get it. Connor was...he was more.”
“What?” I coughed. “Were you...in love with him?”
“I...” he started, pausing to take a deep breath to recollect himself. “That doesn’t matter. Not anymore.” Eric stormed over to a table at the far end of the room and picked something up off of it. It was only when he was crouched in front of me again that I could see the object he’d picked up was a black leather bound book. More specifically, a bible.
“You know, he’s going to come for me,” I said. “Preppy. He’s not going to let you get away with this. He’s probably almost here already.”
“I’m counting on it,” Eric answered with a calculating smile, seeming a lot less concerned than a man in his position should be. “You know that I’ve been fucking with him for years don’t you? I even blew up his car. By the time I was ready to try again, hopefully blowing something up with him inside, the news broke that he was dead and I can’t tell you how disappointed I was that I wasn’t the one to kill him myself, but then another miracle happened and not only was he alive but you had come back. My prayers had been answered.”
I tried to wiggle my fingers. I needed to get out of my restraints if I wanted any chance of escaping but they were still too numb.
“You see this?” he asked, holding up the bible. “This is what replaced Conner and my unnatural thoughts toward him. This replaced heroin.” He stroked the black leather cover lovingly. “I lost Conner, but I found someone much better.” He looked over to me. “I found Jesus.”
“So it’s not you, it’s Jesus who wants you to kill me?” I asked through the pain in my twisting guts. I wanted to keep him talking as long as possible to give Preppy time to find me.
HOW he was going to find me was another story.
I didn’t even know where I was.
Eric clucked his tongue and shook his head slowly from side to side. “I’m not going to kill you. Well, not right away. Now that I’ve found the Lord, I’ll need to exorcise your demons from your body first. Free them from your inner workings.” He held his arms out to the side and looked up to the ceiling with his eyes closed, breathing in deeply as if he were smelling something other than the mildew and dust permeating the room. He opened his eyes and lowered his gaze. “I’m going to save you, Andrea,” he whispered.
“You’re gonna save me, with that?” I eyed the bible in his hand.
He slammed it shut, stood and walked back over to the table. Eric rolled his eyes. “No, stupid girl. Not with the bible.” He picked up a knife with a thick black handle, its long serrated blade glinted against the light as he turned to inspect it, running a finger over the sharp edge. His smile fell, straightening into a flat line. He pointed the blade my way.
“With this.”
––––––––
Preppy
I tracked Dre from the app on my phone, telling Bear where to turn until we found ourselves an hour from Logan’s Beach in a town called Estero Springs, driving the van through a gate with a sign that announced we were entering a State Historic site.
“I still can’t believe you GPS’d your wife,” King said.
“You can tell me what a stupid fucking idea it was after we find her,” I barked.
“Fuck, no. I’m gonna stick one in Ray’s neck the second we get home. Shit, maybe the kids too.”
“I lost signal!” I grunted, tossing my phone to the floor.
“What does that mean?” Kevin asked from behind me.
“It means that it stopped working,” I said.
“How?” Kevin asked. “It’s a chip in the back of her neck. The only way it would stop working would be if someone cut...”
Bear shot him a look and Kevin’s voice trailed off.
“She’s got to be around here somewhere,” I muttered as we parked behind a neat row of rounded trees. “Stay in the fucking van,” I ordered Kevin who was in the backseat. “Call us if you see anything coming or going. We moved deeper into the park. “The last trace was somewhere right in that direction,” I pointed north.
I pulled my gun. The unfamiliar terrain was the only thing stopping me from running full speed into the dark to find my girl.