And the softness of his voice was all the scarier, because the words came down like a verdict with an eerie calmness and resolution that made my stomach twist.
They can’t hear you.
I couldn’t help the tears that pooled. Jesus Christ.
“What do you want?” I cried.
I couldn’t slow my breathing, dragging in more air and more air and the sound being the only thing I could hear in the room. He was so fucking calm. Was this entertaining?
“What do you want?!” I yelled.
I let my eyes fall closed, tears streaming and realizing it could be hours before Arion made it back up to the house, and no one at the party needed to come up here. There was the pool house with the bathroom, and it had a small kitchen that was stocked with all the snacks and drinks they’d need.
A golf ball rose in my throat, and I felt like I was going to vomit. I shook my head, my fight dead. “What do you want?”
I felt his hand touch my hair, and then the ribbon was pulled and all my hair fell from its ponytail.
“Oh, God.” I start batting at him and trying to get his hands off me. “Just stop. Please stop.”
I fell to a squat, partially to get away from him and partially because I felt sick. I clamped my hand over my mouth to try to sustain the rolling of my stomach.
“It’s a joke,” I said to myself, losing my fucking mind. “You’re doing this as a joke. It’s just a joke.” I started shaking. “It’s a joke.”
I felt him squat down in front of me, his breath close again. “Then why aren’t you laughing?” he whispered.
I snarled, getting angry again.
Why was he whispering? Did that mean I knew him? Was he afraid I’d recognize his voice?
I forced myself to calm down, finally able to pull in a long, deep breath.
“Are you…are you going to hurt me?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
He doesn’t know?
“Do you want to?” I pressed.
“Kind of.”
His masked voice was like a breeze through the trees.
“Why?”
“Because I’m sick,” he answered.
What? No one was that self-aware. Especially psychopaths.
He took my upper arms, and I stiffened as he pulled me up, both of us standing again.
He moved in, his shirt brushing my arms. “Because I can’t feel guilt, sadness, anger, or shame as strongly as I can feel fear anymore, and there’s no stronger fear than when I scare myself.” He brushed a tear off my face, and I jerked away. “I never know quite what I’ll do,” he finished.
Everything he said sounded like a threat, only worse. As if he had zero control over himself, and he was just as much a victim in this as me.
Fuck you.
I shoved his body again, and my nails caught his neck as I kicked and yelled for help.