I could no longer hide the fear in my voice, and Simon could see it. A malicious smile crept across his lips.
“No amount of begging or pleading is going to get you out of this,” he said, his voice low and cold. “You'd do well to just accept it.”
“No, no, I'll never accept it! Never! Let me go, let me go!” I screamed.
“You're starting to get hysterical now, Alicia,” he said. “And I don't like that. Now, I won’t touch your lovely face, and as I told you before, I don't want to damage that beautiful body of yours, but if you make me angry ... I will. Now calm down. Angie, go get the 'special' wine. Alicia needs to go to sleep again so that we can get her out of here and move her to the cabin.”
“Perfect,” Angie replied as she walked out of the room. “I'm sick of hearing her whining.”
“Now, Alicia,” Simon said after Angie had left the room, “I need you to stop being hysterical. You need to accept that you and I are back together. Mm, I can't wait until we're in that cabin alone together. I've hungered for your body for so, so long... I can't wait to get those clothes off you, and to see you naked again, and to put my hands all over you...”
My skin was crawling with revulsion as he spoke, and all I wanted to do was run screaming from this place – but I couldn't. I was trapped, trapped in this nightmare from which there would be no awakening.
“In fact, why don't we get started with a little teaser for now?” he hissed seductively. Only, it wasn’t seductive at all. It was sinister. “I want a kiss from you, Alicia. A nice, deep, passionate kiss, like you used to give me. How does that sound?”
“I'll bite your tongue off if it comes anywhere near me, you psychopath!” I barked.
“Now that's not the right attitude to have toward your lover,” he said as he started walking slowly toward me. “You're supposed to treat me with tenderness and kindness, you know. Otherwise… you may feel lacking.”
“Lacking how, you crazy monster?” I snapped.
He pulled out a long, razor-sharp hunting knife from a sheath hidden behind his back.
“Lacking in flesh,” he snarled. “Now if you don't give me a genuinely passionate kiss, you're going to find yourself missing things you won’t be able to get back. Do you understand?”
“Don't do this, Simon; please don't do this,” I begged.
“Kiss me now, or I promise you, I'll cut one of your fingers off right now. Do you think I'm bluffing?”
“Simon, please, don't... don't!”
“Kiss me...”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Everett
“What on earth are you talking about, Panetti?” I asked, dumbfounded.
Panetti simply pointed to the pictures pinned on my board of Simon and Angie.
“That's Mr. Mask, and that's the girl who cooks the stuff up in her apartment,” he said. “I assumed you guys knew that. Why else would you have pictures of them on your wall?”
Then the implications of what this meant hit me like an uppercut to the jaw. Angie—the woman who had taken Vivienne away last night—was Simon's accomplice.
My heart stopped for a moment and then started pounding with panic in my chest.
“Panetti,” I said, my voice hoarse with anxiety. “One question: do you know where either of those two live?”
“I don't know about Mr. Mask, but I've been to that woman's apartment before to pick up drugs.”
I jumped out of my chair and grabbed him by the wrist.
“Then you're gonna show me where it is, Panetti – right now!”
Chapter Thirty-Five
Vivienne