Twisted Love (Twisted, #1)(17)

“Simple.” Jules pulled a pen and notepad out of her bag and started scribbling. “We come up with a list of emotions, and you try to make him feel each one. It’ll be a test of sorts. Like giving him an annual physical to make sure he’s functioning properly.”

“Sometimes,” Bridget said. “The way your mind works scares me.”

“No,” I repeated. “Not happening.”

“It does seem kind of…mean.” Stella tapped her gold-polished nails on the table. “What emotions did you have in mind?”

“Stel!”

“What?” She cast a guilty look in my direction. “I’m curious.”

“Off the top of my head? We’ve already seen him angry, so happiness, sadness, fear, disgust…” A wicked smile slashed across Jules’s face. “Jealousy.”

I snorted. “Please. He’d never be jealous of me.”

He was a multimillionaire executive with a genius-level IQ; I was a college student who worked two jobs and ate cereal for dinner.

No contest.

“Not jealous of you. Jealous over you.”

Bridget perked up. “You think he likes Ava?”

“No.” I was tired of saying that word. “He’s my brother’s best friend, and I’m not his type. He told me so.”

“Psshh.” Jules waved away my protest like she would a mosquito. “Men don’t know what they want. Besides, don’t you want to get back at him for what he did to Owen?”

“I don’t,” I said firmly. “And I’m not going along with this crazy idea.”

Forty-five minutes later, we decided Phase One of Operation Emotion would commence in three days.





I hated myself for caving.

Somehow, Jules always convinced me to do things against my better instincts, like that time we drove four hours to Brooklyn to watch some band perform because she thought the lead singer was hot, and we ended up stranded in the middle of the highway when our rental car broke down. Or that time she convinced me to write a love poem to the cute guy in my English lit class, only for his girlfriend—who I hadn’t known existed—to find it and hunt me down in my dorm.

Jules was the most persuasive person I’d ever met. A good quality for an aspiring lawyer, but not so much for an innocent friend, i.e. me, who wanted to stay out of trouble.

That night, I climbed into bed and closed my eyes, trying to sort through my racing thoughts. Operation Emotion was supposed to be a fun, lighthearted experiment, but it made me nervous, and not just because it erred on the side of mean-spirited. Everything about Alex made me nervous.

I shuddered, thinking of how he’d retaliate if he found out what we were up to, and thoughts of being flayed alive consumed me until I fell into a light, fitful sleep.

“Help! Mommy, help me!”

I tried to scream those words, but I couldn’t. I shouldn’t. Because I was underwater, and if I opened my mouth, all the water would rush in, and I would never see Mommy and Daddy and Josh again. That was what they told me.

They also told me not to go near the lake by myself, but I wanted to make pretty ripples in the water. I liked those ripples, liked how throwing one little stone could cause such a big effect.

Only those ripples were suffocating me now. Thousands and thousands of them, dragging me further and further from the light above my head.

Tears trickled from my eyes, but the lake swallowed them and buried my panic until it was just me and my silent pleas.

I’m never getting out never getting out never getting out.

“Mommy, help!” I couldn’t hold it in any longer. I screamed, screamed as loud as my little lungs allowed. Screamed until my throat was raw and I felt like I would pass out, or maybe that was the water rushing in, filling my chest.

So much water. Everywhere. And no air. Not enough air.

I thrashed my arms and legs in hopes it would help, but it didn’t. It made me sink faster.

I cried harder—not physically, because I couldn’t tell the difference between crying and existing anymore—but in my heart.

Where was Mommy? She was supposed to be here. Mommies were always supposed to be with their daughters.

And she had been there with me on the deck, watching me…until she hadn’t. Had she returned? What if she was sinking beneath the water too?

The blackness was coming. I saw it, felt it. My brain went fuzzy, and my eyes drooped.

I didn’t have the energy to scream anymore, so I mouthed the words. “Mommy, please…”

I jerked upright, my heart beating a million drums of warning while my faded screams soaked into the walls. My covers twisted around my legs, and I threw them off, my skin crawling at the sensation of being entangled—of being trapped with no way to free myself.

The glowing red letters of my alarm clock told me it was four forty-four a.m.

A pinprick of dread blossomed at the base of my neck and slithered down my spine. In Chinese culture, the number four is considered unlucky because the word for it sounds like the word “death.” Sì, four; sǐ, death. The only difference between their pronunciation is a tone inflection.

I’ve never been a superstitious person, but chills swamped me every time I awoke from one of my nightmares during the four a.m. hour, which was almost always. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d awoken during a different hour. Sometimes I woke up not remembering I had a nightmare, but those blessed occasions were far and few in between.