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)
“Then . . . Then how are you here?” I ask, my chest heaving as my voice shakes.
“Because I am not him,” he says. “I bleed just as you will when I finally make you mine.”
Confusion swarms me, and I clutch my bag to my chest as though that could somehow help me, realizing this is as real as it gets. This man isn’t the same one I made up in my head. This isn’t the masked stalker who I thought I rode in the club, the masked stalker who took me on Knight’s bed. This man before me, he’s as real as I am and using my trauma to bring my stalker to life.
“Who are you?” I demand, clutching the keys so tight that they cut into my palm.
He laughs again as though truly enjoying my fear, getting off on it somehow. “It was too easy to get your notes from the good doctor. You gave her everything. His size, build. His mannerisms. You even drew me a picture of his mask. You offered up every crazy detail from that messed-up head of yours, and now, there’s nothing stopping me from making those little hallucinations real.”
He steps toward me, and I find myself paralyzed by fear, unable to move as he closes the distance. “Why?” I say, the word falling from my mouth in a panicked whimper.
“Because I can, my sweet kitten,” he says, lifting his hand and brushing his fingers down the side of my jaw before trailing them down to the base of my neck and slowly closing them around my throat, squeezing. “Because claiming you would be nothing more than a grand prize.”
He squeezes a little tighter, and my knees start to shake, and when he tilts his head just a fraction to the right, I realize this man is nothing short of a psychopath. “You won’t get away with this,” I say, gasping for air.
Despite the mask, I just know he’s smirking at me. His confidence tells me that he thinks he already has. “Haven’t you heard? You’re crazy,” he says, his eyes flaring on the word as the satanic, fanged mask inches closer to my face. “You could scream it from the rooftops, but who’s going to believe you now?”
He laughs as horror blasts through my chest, and as I hear the sharp whoosh of a blade being freed from its sheath, I scream.
“There’s no escaping me now, kitten,” he says as I gasp for air, his fingers digging into my throat. “I’ve got you right where I want you.”
I squirm under his hold, clawing at his hand, and as my body finally runs out of oxygen and darkness dances behind my eyes, the sharp tip of his blade plunges deep into my waist.
He releases me, and I hastily gasp for air, sucking in the sweet oxygen as agony tears through my waist. I drop heavily to the dirty ground, and as blood pools around me, the masked man simply turns on his heel, wiping the blood from his blade on the thick material of his black pants. Then as he walks away, his words repeat on loop inside my head.
Who’s going to believe you now?