* * *
An unknown amount of time later, I started coming to. I rubbed the back of my head, which was sporting a very lovely bump.
"Where am I?" I looked around the room trying to take inventory. I was on a bed in a room that contained, a bed. Someone evidently forgot to call the interior decorator.
I went to the single door in the room and tried the knob. Locked, imagine that. The room had walls that were windowless and white. It also sported plain beige carpet. I really hoped I didn't have to stay there long, because I'd quickly become bored to death with nothing to look at.
Deciding nothing in the room was going to help me get out of the situation, I took stock of myself. I was still wearing my clothes, so that was a positive. It meant he didn't remove my knives.
Evidently, I was dealing with an idiot kidnapper. Who doesn't check the victim for weapons? I searched my pockets and ended up pulling out my wallet and some little silver circular thing that was stuck in one of my front pockets. It had to be part of the anti-theft device from the store and the girl just didn't get rid of it. No matter, I didn't think it'd help. The wallet wasn't really a help either, so I put it back.
After who knows, maybe ten minutes, maybe an hour, I heard something outside the door. I situated myself in the middle of the bed, waiting for, I was guessing, Carl to enter. The door opened and the man himself stood there.
"Carl, long time no see. I have to tell you the decorator you hired totally failed on this room."
"I'll have to let my friend know you don't approve. He's letting me borrow his cabin for a little while. He thinks we're having a romantic weekend away together, which of course we are. He just doesn't know I had to force you to join me." He came further in the room and shut the door.
"Oh, does that mean I'll get to see more of the house sometime soon?"
"We'll have to see how you behave. If you're a good girl, you can go anywhere you want."
"What exactly qualifies as a 'good girl' in your mind?"
"It's more that I have to be able to trust you won't try to run away. That part is actually for your safety. We're out in the middle of nowhere and I don't want you getting lost. I think having a gun with me at all times should keep you pretty well under control though."
I thought to myself, oh yeah, tell that to the last guy who held a gun on me.
"What exactly do you want to happen here, Carl?" I asked. The situation seemed pretty clear, but I wanted to hear him admit he was a psycho.
He started talking while he paced the room. "What I want is for you to realize what I've known for seven years now. We belong together. I stayed away when you first arrived in the office because of how young you were. Then I wasn't even that upset when you did get another boyfriend years ago, since I knew he didn't strike any passion within you. I felt it was good for you to branch out and see that others weren't what you wanted," he paused very briefly to collect his thoughts.
"After that I was happy with the way our relationship was. Neither of us seeing anyone, but we saw each other every day and sometimes we did things together outside of work. As the men in your life went, I was the one who got most of your time. I waited years for an apartment to open up in your area and two years ago, one opened up directly across the street from yours. It was a sign that we were meant to be. I bet you didn't even know we were neighbors.
"Everything was pretty perfect until Agent Barnes came into the picture. Then you were always out with him, letting him touch you and kiss you on the cheek. I couldn't stand it. So I tried to get you to stay away from him, but that only seemed to make him more determined to keep close to you. Today, walking around all lovey dovey with your parents was the last straw. You have to realize he's not for you."
He finally stopped talking and I thought he was done, not just taking a break. If his little speech wasn't so creepy, I would've taken a nap during it. He had to be one of the most clich? stalkers in the world. I wondered if there was a?Stalking for Dummies?book out there that he took pointers from. Part of me felt bad for him because the love he appeared to strongly feel was positively not reciprocated.
That being said, I had to say again for the millionth time, "Of course he isn't for me. How many times do I have to tell you? There's nothing romantic going on between us."
Carl glared at me. "I know you stayed in his hotel room last night and I watched you guys today. He got to meet your parents and you were walking around holding hands. You can't tell me there isn't anything going on."
"Other than him trying to annoy the hell out of me, there is nothing going on. The hand holding was because I lost a bet. He figured it'd make me mad. The only reason he was out with me and my parents is because he knows the city better than I do.
"If you've been watching me so closely, you know I basically see my apartment and our office. What was I supposed to show my parents?" I paused a second to catch my breath. Then I remembered something. "Speaking of watching me, you sent me pictures of a man's murder. Why in the world did you kill him?"
"Oh that. I didn't actually kill him. I saw you in the deli talking to him and another man I know now was Jimmy Zuba. I didn't recognize Jimmy at first and you were getting a little too cozy with him. So, after you and Nathaniel left, I followed Zuba and the other guy.
"Zuba went straight back to his hotel room, but the other guy got into a car with Olaf Schwartz, so I followed them. I saw Olaf stab the guy after they had an argument. I took the pictures to prove my innocence in case anyone saw me and could put me at the scene. I took a lot of photos and most of them included Olaf in the shot. Since I had the pictures, I thought sending them to you as a warning would work."
I needed to get depolarized. Whatever magnetic frequency I was putting out required some adjustments. I was attracting lunatics in droves. I really needed to get out of the room, and I only saw one way to do it and I didn't like it.
"I understand, Carl. You feel a strong connection to me. I won't lie, I can feel it too, maybe not quite as strong as you do, but it's most definitely there." I vomited a little in my mouth saying the words. My body felt like it rose a few degrees in temperature, and I hoped a flush wouldn't develop to reveal my lies.
"I knew you'd understand," he said, walking over to me and caressing my cheek with his hand. He then leaned in and gave me a kiss where his hand had been. It took everything I had not to flinch and keep a smile on my face.
"You know, Carl, I'm really thirsty. Could I get something to drink?" I was hoping he'd let me go with him, but even if he didn't, I'd settle with being away from him. I needed a chance to think and the anger I felt with him in the room was causing my brain to misfire.
He placed his hands on each side of my face and started stroking my hair a little. "Of course. I should've brought something down for you. I hit your head pretty hard. I'm really sorry about that, but I wanted to make sure to get you knocked out on the first try, so I didn't have to hit you multiple times. Let's go upstairs. I'll show you the rest of the place while I get you some water."
"That sounds great," I said, in shock that he was letting me out of the room that easily. Either the man was really gullible or he had something up his sleeve. From how the night had gone, I was betting on gullible.
He opened the door and led me out a small hallway to a staircase. "Up you go."
We made it up the stairs and came out to one really big open room. From there I could see the living room, kitchen, dining room, a bathroom and a couple of bedrooms. The doors to all the rooms were open, so there wasn't any question about what was inside the rooms.
"Wow, this is a really nice place." I said, still taking it all in. It was a cute cabin, I could admit that much.
"Yeah, my friend uses it as a hunting retreat sometimes. It's really nice when you want to get away from the hustle and bustle of the city." We walked over to the kitchen and I got my promised glass of water.
I was actually thirsty, so I drank it quickly. The overheating going on in my body didn't
get any relief, but my mouth no longer felt like it was full of cotton.
"What now?" I asked, curious how far he'd planned things out.
"Well, I know everything about you, but if we're going to get married, you should probably learn a little something about me." He took me into the living room, where we sat down and he told me his life story.
After only thirty minutes, I was wondering how much more I could take. I found out after an hour, that an hour was without a doubt my limit. I decided to try things nicely first, if that didn't work, I was drawing the knives and making a run for it.
"Carl, we have everything worked out between us. Why don't we head back to the city now?" I asked as sweetly as possible with eyelash flutter included.
"No, we can't. We're having a romantic weekend getting to know each other. When we go back on Monday we can tell everyone how happy we are together and start planning the wedding."
I mentioned he was delusional fifty times already, right? He immediately went back to telling his story.
A whole weekend was not in my cards. I calculated my distance to the exits and decided the front door was my best bet. It was still about fifteen feet away, so I needed a diversion. He was sitting on my left side, which made it easier for me to slide my hand into my right side pocket.
I was careful not to make any big movements, much like how I'd acted when I was dealing with Schwartz. My hand gripped my trusty throwing knife and I slowly dragged it out. I then pressed it between my thigh and my hand, away from him, taking a second to calm myself.
The breathing exercises weren't working, so I decided to act. Not wanting to really hurt him, just scare him enough to allow me to escape, I raised the knife up quickly and sliced it across his arm, dropping the knife as I did. He screamed and I stood, trying to make a run for it. While running, I pulled out the knife from my other thigh sheath to have handy just in case.
I got the door opened before I heard a gunshot and felt a pain in my right calf. I fell to my knees in agony.
"Avery, this is not what was supposed to happen. Why couldn't you just be happy?" he asked.
"Because I'm not a psychopath," I yelled, turning to him. I threw my knife, knowing that with the pain I was in I wouldn't be accurate. As it was flying through the air, he fired his gun again. That time it hit me in my shoulder. I collapsed to the ground on my side.
The pain elevated to excruciating levels. Before I totally blacked out for the second time that day, I swore I heard someone scream, "Drop the gun now!"
CHAPTER 29
If I wanted to hear your opinion, I'd remove the duct tape