Hard Rider

But there was that gleam in his eyes again—like the edge of a knife glinting at the edge of the spotlight beating down on me. I’d been thinking about paradoxes back in the hotel room with him, and now I understood that I was his paradox—the girl who meant everything, and yet nothing at all.

Part trophy, part empty vessel. I slumped in the chair. I was going to be sick.

He stood beside me. He was wearing opera gloves. Fuck, Gunner had it right—this guy thought he was the Phantom.

“So I turn’d to the Garden of Love,

That so many sweet flowers bore.”

He touched my hair, peeling it away from my face. I tried to bite him and he jumped. Then he laughed and stepped behind me.

“And I saw it was filled with graves,

And tomb-stones where flowers should be:

And Priests in black gowns, were walking their rounds,

And binding with briars, my joys and desires.”

His thick, musky breath was on my ear. “That’s a poem about death. The death of love. And loss. And, ultimately, disappointment.”

He pushed off the back of my chair and I fell forward, just barely catching myself with my feet. I teetered precariously, my stomach flopping. I was so close to the edge of the stage. If I plummeted off, I’d land right on my face on the exposed concrete below. I’d crack my head open, my brains would fly out, and I’d die. I’d die.

I didn’t want to die.

My stalker jerked me back, tilting me onto the chair’s rear legs so I was staring straight up at him like he was some kind of deranged dentist on Halloween. Goddamn him, I was shaking. I was shaking and scared, and he could see it. I didn’t want him to.

I wanted to be brave. To look as unaffected as he did. But I couldn’t do it. I was too raw. Too human.

Bully for me.

“Do you know why I’m disappointed, Sandra?”

I recoiled. “Sandra? Who the fuck is—”

He drove his knee into my right hand, pinning it to the chair’s frame. Beneath my bloody bandages, my burn sizzled.

“Don’t lie to me. Don’t you fucking do that. Not again. Not anymore.”

I bit my tongue, holding back the tide of bile and fury that wanted to gush out of me all at once. If I was going to live through this, I was going to have to breathe. Maybe even play along. I closed my eyes and inhaled deep through my nose. Breathe. Just breathe.

When I opened my eyes again, I steadied my voice and asked, “Why?”

He let me down onto the stage again. Onto solid ground. Bliss. But then he jerked my head back by my hair and agony ripped through my skull.

“I’m disappointed because the first time I killed you, you didn’t die.”

The first time?

I stared at him, breathless, unable to even blink. My lips were dry and cracking. I could feel that the lower one had split already—probably back in the hotel room when he’d hit me. I pulled the scab apart with my teeth, but didn’t dare say a word.

I wanted to ask. I needed to ask. But more than that, I needed to live. And that meant playing his game.

I just wished I knew what the fuck the rules were.

I tried. “I’m sorry?”

“You should be,” he hissed. I’ll never forget the way he looked at me. The hatred in his eyes. “I spent so much time on you. Making sure...”

He released me, disgusted. I took a moment to compose myself. C’mon, Tanya. Think. How are we gonna get out of this one?

“It’s no coincidence I found you,” he muttered. “Even though I wasn’t looking. Even though I’d practically forgotten you.” I kept quiet, and he continued. “I was looking for her. For Chelsea. Your spawn, and my...”

He looked right into the spotlight. “My sick rose.”

I remembered what he’d said the first time we’d met. How he’d killed his mother. Suffocated her with her own panties, the sick freak. Chelsea—my Chelsea? I knew her mother was dead, but...

Holy shit. This was Chelsea’s brother?!

Looks like I’m not the only one trying to escape the past.

“You ruined everything that night,” he snarled, turning on me once again. “When I saw you up there, reveling in the whore that you are... I didn’t understand. Tell me,” he shrieked, fingers sinking into my throat. “Tell me how you came back, you bitch!”

I struggled to make a sound, even though I knew there was nothing I could say. He was insane. Bona fide crazy. Tears sprang to my eyes. Was this what was in store for me and Gunner? Was this what our kind of dark and twisted love turned into?

My head was starting to throb—no oxygen. I remembered this feeling from when I’d nearly died just a few days before. When that fire had raged through my apartment... When Gunner had waltzed back into my life and saved me like it was nothing. I wanted him to do that now. I wanted him to show up and take me away, breathe life into me all over again...

Please...

“I know how to get rid of you now, mother,” he spat so close to my face. I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to see him—his mask—his rage. “You’re a myth. A legend. The Lilith of our time. Mother of monsters, demons. This time, I’ll be right here. I won’t leave you. Not until I’m sure you’re dead.”

Just as blackness began to overtake me, he let me go. I wheezed in a breath that hurt worse than him strangling me had. I was choking on my swollen throat. I could barely swallow.

But I could see just fine. See the psycho in front of me as he took something out of his pocket. Smell the sudden stench of phosphorous in the air. A blue flame pricked along his finger. He’d lit a match and now held it in front of his face.

My heart threatened to stop beating. I looked down at the ground—really looked at it for the very first time. It was smeared with something red. Something like what he’d left for me in Gunner’s house.

He was going to blow me to smithereens.

“It’s just like Father always said,” he murmured, staring into my eyes. “Fire fixes everything.”

“Please,” I rasped. “Jesus—fuck—please! You don’t have to...”

He dropped the match. The stage erupted around me. Beside me. Beneath me. A ring of fire leaping higher than I was tall. My own personal hell.

In mere moments, I was consumed.

Chapter 21

Gunner

“This is central dispatch. 10-33 Code 1 in progress, building fire on 32nd and Marathon at the old Washington Theatre—”

“Son of a bitch,” Simon muttered as he pulled the car into reverse, squealing out of the parking space like a bat out of hell. My stomach felt like it was being pushed back into the seat as he put the car in park and burned rubber out into the street.

“He has her, Simon,” I said, my heart pounding in my chest. I could almost picture Connor there, standing over her body—that fucked up mask with its perpetual frown looking down at her while he laughed. “That piece of shit has my sister.”

“Get on the phone and call the cops,” he snapped. “They don’t know that she’s there. They need to know that they’ve got someone inside, otherwise they aren’t going to send anyone in there after her.”

My fingers felt numb as I tried to dial those three simple numbers. I kept seeing Tanya lying dead in the reflection of my screen. Simon hit his brakes hard, sending us into a sharp turn as his back tires skidded over the asphalt.

“We’ll be there in no time so long as I don’t get pulled over.”

I shook my head, putting the phone to my ear as I heard the sound of the 9-1-1 operator’s voice come over the line.