“I'll be right out here if you need anything.”
A flutter of worry bubbles up in my stomach. Ethan will be a long way away if anythi
ng goes wrong tonight. I tell myself I've had plenty of self-defense lessons. I'll be fine.
I step out into the night. Old snow crunches under my feet as I leave the safety and warmth of Ethan's car and go into the building. The inside isn't much better than the outside. The heat's obviously been turned off for the night but at least the stairwell is well lit. I'll be able to find Suite 302 without too much trouble.
I have to walk to full length of the building and as far away from Ethan as I can get without actually leaving the premises to find the door I'm looking for. I stand there nervously for a moment before opening it. Something in my gut tells me to run. Tells me that I need to get back to Ethan as quickly as possible and never look back.
But that would mean admitting I was scared. That would be admitting defeat.
So I open the door.
The light is off in the room. It makes the silhouette of the man against the window that much more striking. For a moment, I think it's Dante, that this whole thing is his elaborate attempt to tease me. That would make sense. It makes me smile, and I step forward, hearing the door close behind me.
“Dante?”
The man turns from the window and the lights flicker on.
It is definitely not Dante. In fact, it's the last person in the entire world that I want to see.
“Hello, Cara.”
Raw fear steals my voice and I step back. This is the voice I hear in my nightmares.
“No...” I whisper, my limbs not responding to my thoughts anymore. “No...”
“That's no way to greet an old friend,” he says, frowning slightly.
“What are you doing here?” I whisper, grabbing at the doorknob, desperate to get away, but it's locked behind me. Someone must have locked it when it shut. I'm trapped in the room with him. With John Norwood, the man who ruined my life and haunts my nightmares. I keep trying the door, even though I know it's futile.
“I'm here to see you.” He moves forward, stepping further into the light of the room. He's the same height as Dante, but that's the last similarity between them.
Norwood has thin blonde hair where Dante's is luxurious and dark, a paunch in his stomach where Dante is all muscle, and age where Dante is young. But it's the eyes that are the real difference between them. Dante's are dark and wild, but with a kindness and warmth that keeps them bright. John Norwood's are brown, but evil and cold. There is no warmth or charm, no redemption to the darkness residing underneath. They are flat, like a shark's.
The eyes are so emotionless that I am surprised that my mother ever saw love in them.
In my initial terror, he looked exactly the way I remembered him, but a second look reveals the changes. On the edges of my vision I catch glimpses of the bald patch covered by a bad comb-over, and the weight around his middle. There are more wrinkles around his mouth and less strength to his shoulders. However, for the most part, I still see him as the man he was over a decade ago. My mind is unable to see anything but the man who took my mother from me.
Norwood reaches out and strokes my cheek with his fingertip. The motion is soft and gentle, but it spurs my panic. I press hard into the door, wishing I could just pass through it like a ghost. I wish I were a ghost. It would be better than being trapped here with him.
His hand traces the curve of my face, down to my throat, caressing me softly. Without warning, his fingers tighten around the delicate base of my throat, squeezing just hard enough to make the primal fear of suffocation very real.
“Did you think you could hide from me, Cara?” he growls, bringing his face close to mine. His breath stinks of mints and cigarette smoke. “Did you think I wouldn't find you? That you would be safe here?”
I squirm, trying to get away. When I was younger, he was gentle with me, but I saw the marks he left on my mother. I saw the bruises. I went with her to the doctor's appointments where she said she tripped. I knew what evil he was capable of.
“So pretty, just like your mother. You whimper just like her too, you know.” He smiles a cold smile. “I wonder if you'll look just as pretty stretched out on the road.”
I decide right there that I'm going to kill him, even if it's the last thing I ever do.
Norwood laughs at my struggles, tightening his grip. My vision is fading and my limbs won't move the way I want them too. He waits until my vision is just a tiny pinprick of light before releasing me. I fall to the ground, shaking and gasping for air.
“I'll kill you, you bastard!” I screech, my throat raw from his hand.
“It's good to see you have your mother's fire,” he says with a chuckle. He squats down in front of me. His disgusting eyes are the only objects that aren't fuzzy in my world. “I was afraid you would have lost it having the mob protect you at every turn. I'm glad to see your mother passed that on to you.”
“Don't you talk about her,” I growl. Speaking hurts my throat.