Total pages in book: 158
Estimated words: 146477 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 732(@200wpm)___ 586(@250wpm)___ 488(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 146477 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 732(@200wpm)___ 586(@250wpm)___ 488(@300wpm)
Pity appears in those dark eyes, and my chest instantly starts to ache. “I do,” he says, his tone shifting as though those two little words gutted him to speak out loud. “I’ve gone over this a million times. I’ve scoured every inch of my property for any sign that somebody was there. I’ve searched my surveillance cameras and checked the alerts. There’s nothing. I come up blank every damn time.”
“So, you think that I just walked into the kitchen, grabbed a knife off the counter, and started hacking away at my ribs, cutting deep gouges into my body without a single care as I chatted away to my imaginary friend?”
“Don’t put it like that.”
“Then how the fuck else am I supposed to put it?”
He shakes his head, not knowing how to respond, and honestly, I don’t even know what I’m hoping he will say. Anything will set me off right now. “I think you hallucinated the whole thing, just as you did with the bodies in the morgue. I think you went through the motions. I think you had the knife, and as you pictured your stalker touching and claiming your body, you pictured the way he would cut you. Only it was your hand making the cuts.”
I shake my head, tears filling my eyes all over again, refusing to believe that I could ever have the ability to cut myself in that way. “No. You’re wrong.”
“Doll, I think you used the knife to cut the bedsheets into ribbons, and I think they were the ropes that you imagined.”
“I couldn’t have cut myself,” I tell him. “Not when my wrists and ankles were bound so tight.”
“Harper,” he says with a heavy breath, the heartbreak clear in his tone, probably fearing that I will try and send him away again. “I’ve worked in SWAT for over a decade. I have rescued countless victims in hostage situations who have had their wrists and ankles bound with rope, tape, wire. You name it, I have seen it all, and no matter what was used to keep them bound, there are always marks left on the skin. Sometimes so deep it cuts right through to the bone, but doll, there wasn’t a single mark on your wrists. Not even a hint of redness.”
My mind takes me back to that moment, to the fear I felt as he tightened the rope around my wrists. I felt it bite into my skin. “That’s not possible,” I whisper, hating every moment of this. “It was real.”
“No,” he tells me. “It wasn’t.”
His words are like a blade straight through my spine, and I sag against the hospital bed, turning away from him as the tears roll down my cheeks. I silently replay every moment I’ve had with my stalker. The night he broke into my bedroom and caught me in a towel. The private booth in the club. The messages left on the bodies.
It has to be real. I feel it in my chest. But Knight is adamant, looking at me with that sad stare that makes me feel as though I’ve somehow done something wrong, like I’m a misbehaved child who’s about to be shipped off to spend the summer with her strict grandparents. Only instead of strict grandparents I’ll be shipped off to, it’ll be some kind of asylum.
“Please, Harper,” he whispers, still clutching my hand. “Let me help you.”
I don’t dare look back at him, terrified of what agreeing to help will actually mean, but more than that, how can he help me if I don’t know what to believe? I want to trust him. I want to pick up the shattered remains of my heart and ask him to help me put it back together, but on the other hand, I’m too scared to hand it over again, not knowing what lurks in the darkness ahead.
“Okay,” he finally says when I don’t respond. “I’m going to give you a minute to process all of this. Just let me know when you’re ready to talk or if you just want me to sit with you, and I’ll come right back in.”
And with that, he gets to his feet and strides out of the little hospital room, taking my whole heart and soul along with him, leaving behind nothing but a shell of a woman restrained to a hospital bed.
38
HARPER-RAYN
As the sedative wreaks havoc on my system, consciousness comes and goes, and honestly, I’m happy for it. I’d prefer to sleep through it than to have to sit here by myself, overthinking everything Knight has just dumped on me.
How could he possibly think that I would take a knife, tear his blankets into ribbons, and then cut myself? Not even if I was shot up with the most potent drugs and completely tripping would I ever do that. It’s not possible.