Twisted by Hannah Jayne(22)

Chelsea: I mean ur real parents.

The breath caught in Bex’s throat and she felt her lungs collapsing, constricting. What did Chelsea know? Her eyes were watering, and she could hear the sad wheezing as she clawed at her chest and tried to breathe.

The Wife Collector.

Her father.

Do U think ur parents miss you?

Her mother.

What did Chelsea know?

The scream was out of her mouth before she knew it.

“Bex, Bex!” Michael flicked on the light and Bex cringed from it, the brightness burning her retinas. He and Denise flew to her bedside, eyes wide, concerned.

“Relax! Relax, look at me.” Denise kneeled in front of her, her hands on Bex’s, squeezing. “Keep your eyes focused on me. Try to breathe slowly.”

Bex felt as if she were breathing through a pinhole. The tears were streaming down her face and her lungs screamed, sending a searing heat up the back of her throat.

I’m going to die I’m going to die I’m going to die.

An image burned in front of her eyes—another headline, another victim: Amanda Perkins: Wife Collector’s 6th Victim?

Bex was seven when she learned the word “asphyxiated.”

Hands on her throat. Her windpipe narrowing, closing. The searing heat, the struggle to breathe, to live.

This is what it feels like. This is what it felt like for Amanda Perkins.

Bex’s lungs swelled with air and she sputtered, coughed. Denise and Michael were staring at her anxiously, Denise on her knees, still holding Bex’s hands.

“What happened?” Bex squeaked, her throat feeling raw and dry.

“Michael, get Bex some water.” Denise focused on Bex. “I think you may have had an asthma attack. Do you have asthma, Bex?”

Michael returned with the glass, and Bex sucked down every last drop before shaking her head. “No, not that I know of. That’s never happened to me before. I mean, not that I can remember.”

“It wasn’t listed in any of the medical reports, was it, hon?” Michael asked and Denise shook her head.

“I don’t think so.”

Nausea rolled through Bex’s stomach. “You have my medical records?”

A smile quirked the edges of Denise’s lips. “Of course we do, honey. Your caseworker sent them over before you arrived so we could enroll you in school. We needed your vaccination records and all that, because we wanted to be sure that you’d have everything you needed once you”—she paused and bit her bottom lip—“came home.”

Bex was worried that her caseworker hadn’t changed the names on her reports—was worried until she heard the pull in Denise’s voice when she looked at Bex, eyes soft, and said, “home.”

She was Bex Andrews and this was her home.

She was just Bex Andrews.





Twelve


The fight to breathe had taken everything out of Bex and she slumped. Her cheeks were flushed, and little prickles of heat and sweat beaded at her hairline.

“You going to be okay, honey?” Denise asked.

Bex nodded. “I think I’m going to take a quick shower.” She glanced at the clock. “Is that okay?”

“Of course it is. Just take it easy, and try to get some sleep.”

Bex turned the water on lukewarm, half-certain that the droplets would sizzle on her fiery skin. Instead, she broke out in gooseflesh, her teeth chattering as she let the water pour over her head for what seemed like hours. When she stepped out of the shower, the house around her was uncomfortably still. She knew it had to be her imagination or the whoosh of her own blood pulsing in her ears, but she swore she could hear Denise’s and Michael’s breathing—a steady in-out, in-out—and it felt like the house breathed with them. The walls pulled closer, then pushed out slightly, the whole house a live entity that gave Bex the creeps.

“I’m safe, I’m safe, it’s okay,” Bex chanted as she slipped into a fresh pair of pajamas, hoping for sleepiness that wouldn’t come.

She pushed her hair back and glanced out the sweeping bay window that overlooked the drive and the street out front. The sky had gone from an inky black to a wistful gray blue, almost promising but still shrouded in shadows. One of those shadows—a twitch from it, actually—caught Bex’s eye. A car was parked across the street, one of those ancient sedans that made her think of old cop movies. It could have been the flick of the streetlight or a trick of the dark, but she thought she could see someone sitting in the driver’s seat.

Bex squinted, expecting her imagination was conjuring monsters.

The light didn’t switch, but the shadow did.

Now she could make out hands resting on the top of the steering wheel and the darkened outline of a baseball cap and wide shoulders in the front seat. The driver was leaning forward, head tilted, looking in Bex’s direction.

She dropped onto her hands and knees, heart thundering in her ears. She stayed like that for a quick beat before peeking up again, just enough to glance out and see that the man—she could tell now that the person was a man—was still looking at her window.

He’s probably just a neighbor, Bex scolded herself. And he probably thinks the Piersons are fostering a lunatic child!

She waited for the soft purr of an engine coming to life, something to tell her that the man sitting in his car had been about to go to work on the graveyard shift when he thought he saw something in the neighbor’s window. He would look again, assume it was nothing, then drive his car away, and Bex could be left with her hammering heart and her paranoia.