Fear. It’s something we all face at one point or another. Some fears are small and insignificant but real all the same. Like the fear of spiders. We develop an irrational fear that they’ll kill us if we allow them to come too close. Those fears can cause us to freeze up, make us unable to walk away.
Yet those fears are nothing compared to when you come face-to-face with death. Not the irrational fear of spiders and death, but of something very real. When the odds are against you. The only chance you have is hope, as weak as it might be. Hope gives you the extra surge of energy to fight for your life. Hope propels you forward and keeps you from giving up.
I yanked my leg away from his hand and half stumbled, half threw myself up the final step. The hallway at the top of the stairs was dark, but a soft glow of streetlight spilled from my room.
I sprinted to my bedroom and slammed the door shut.
Not that it made any difference.
Using his body weight, Lindsey’s stepfather hurled himself against the door, pushing me back slightly. I could’ve sworn he snarled when he did it, like a giant rabid dog ready to tear me to pieces.
I tensed my leg muscles, hoping it would be enough to keep him out. Purely delusional on my part. The force of his weight against the door caused my sock-clad feet to slide across the carpet.
The pressure against the door slackened for a second, then he threw his body against it again and I flew backward, screaming.
“You’re not escaping this time, bitch.”
The backs of my thighs hit the bed hard, and I tumbled backward onto it. The bedroom light clicked on. I barely managed to twist around before he grabbed my hair and arm. He then pulled me up by my hair to stand.
The sharp tip of a knife instantly dug into my lower back. Not enough to cut me, but enough to prove a point.
I let out a startled cry. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because I can’t risk you remembering everything.”
“I don’t even know what you’re talking about.” Not that it mattered if I knew what he was talking about or not. He couldn’t just walk away after attacking me in my parents’ home. The odds of me telling the cops, even after I promised I wouldn’t, were too high. I just didn’t get why he was doing this. He wasn’t the man who’d put me in a coma. That man was dead.
But then that night came back to me. He was the one who had attacked me in Nolan’s house soon after I found the letters. But I hadn’t just found the love letters to Nolan’s mother. I had found a bunch of legal documents. I didn’t understand most of them, but one thing was clear—Sarah and Nolan hadn’t shared the same biological father.
“You were Sarah’s father, weren’t you?” I said, more to myself than to him. I didn’t wait for him to reply. “She and Tanya have been dead for five years now. Why now? Why did you wait so long to look for the documents?” I suspected that was what this was all about.
The knife dug in a little deeper, piercing my skin. I cried out in pain. Warm blood trickled from the wound. This time I couldn’t get away like I had in the kitchen. He was making sure of it. If I tried anything, he would stab me. And if the wound wasn’t enough to kill me, it’d be enough to take me down so he could finish the job.
“I couldn’t risk the truth getting out. I was married to my first wife when Tanya got pregnant. We had used condoms, so the risk of the baby being mine was small. After she found out she was pregnant, we ended things. But I loved her and that never changed.
“My first wife and I divorced several years later, and I moved away. A few months before that asshole murdered Tanya”—the pain in his voice was unmistakable—“I moved back to Northbridge with my second wife and her kids. I didn’t expect to see Tanya again, but I bumped into her, and just like that, we resumed our old relationship. But as much as I loved Tanya, I couldn’t leave my second wife. If I divorced her, I would have lost everything. Tanya knew that. That’s why she stayed with him.” He practically spat the last word.
“Did…did her husband ever suspect?” But even as I asked the question, I already knew the truth.
“Before the day he confronted me, we had never met. I knew Tanya from high school. The asshole moved here after college. I don’t know how he found out about us, but he did. He confronted me the night he killed Tanya and the girl.”
“Her name was Sarah,” I bit out. “Your daughter’s name was Sarah.”
“Yes…Sarah.”
“Why didn’t you stop him? Why did you let him kill them?” Tears clouded my vision. I didn’t bother to blink them away. There was no point.
“I had no idea he was going to kill them.” His voice came out as a croaked whisper. “He was drunk and angry. I had no idea what he was capable of. Had I known, I would have done anything to save them.”
I couldn’t tell if he was telling the truth or if they were just pretty words he felt he needed to say. And it didn’t matter either way. The end result would be the same.