Sweet Liar (Candy #2)(80)

I vaguely heard the motor of Drew’s car start before he pulled away. My heart nearly beat out of my chest when Victor reached down and roughly pulled me up by my arm. Wordlessly, he dragged me with him as he walked toward the driveway with me stumbling alongside him.

I was cold and wet, and my hands were coated with blood oozing from the tiny cuts in my skin.

“I don’t suppose you know anything about an advertisement being placed in the paper inviting the entire county to dump their discarded Christmas trees in my yard?” he asked.

I turned halfway and looked at him. “I was wondering why all those trees were here.”

His expression darkened at my answer. If he didn’t like my playing dumb about the trees, he was going to like it even less when he asked about the safe.

As I looked down at the last few feet of walkway I had to cross before we entered the house, my stomach lurched and my mind scrambled for a way out as the distance between me and his doorway narrowed.

Once he got me inside, behind closed doors, what would he do? How far would he go to get what he wanted? It was that thought that had my adrenaline pumping when I turned and yanked my arm free, surprising him with a burst of energy as I ran for the front yard, hoping the trees would slow him down. As I pushed through them, the pine needles scraped against my clothes until they detached from the branches and clung to me. I heard it clearly when Victor growled in annoyance and plunged forward, coming after me.

As I lunged over the trees, it was hard to believe there were so many, and I didn’t know if my prank was helping me or hurting me. The trees were here because of me and they were slowing Victor down, but they were slowing me down too. My legs burned as I pushed on, driven by panic, moving forward because stopping wasn’t an option.

I looked toward the end of the property line and saw that the trees thinned out and ended at the edge, where the neighbor’s yard began, and so that was the direction I headed in.

Victor grunted as he ran from somewhere behind me, ordering me to stop. His footfalls sounded closer than before. Fear shot through me, making me scream as I pushed through the trees, their branches reaching out for me, like arms holding me back.

The neighbors were close. I was sure someone would hear me if I yelled loud enough, and my voice cracked as I pushed it to its limit, my cries cutting through the silence.

I was a few yards from the end of the yard, nearly to the neighbor’s property, when something sliced into my calf. The pain made me gasp, and I stumbled forward and cried out when a tree branch tugged against the muscle in my leg, making it feel like it was on fire. Frantic, I reached down to free myself but my head was yanked back, and a hand came over my mouth before I could scream again.

Victor pulled hard on my hair, fisting it in one hand while covering my mouth with the other. My chest heaved, and the scream lodged in my throat echoed inside my head. Mindless fear had me thrashing against him.

“Quiet,” he ordered. A second later, his hand left my mouth and his arm came around my waist, lifting me like I weighed nothing at all as he forced his way back through the trees toward the front door.

When I screamed again, he shook me so hard my head snapped back, and everything went dark for a moment.

Victor broke through the trees with little effort. I was resigned somehow, terrified but also numb to my fate. I couldn’t stop this. He was taking me inside his house, a place I suspected would give birth to all my future nightmares.

If I survived.

***





Victor set me down on the couch in his living room, the same couch I’d sat on with Jonah the night I discovered he’d been lying about who he was. I could smell the tree sap on me, and see the blood and pine needles sticking to my clothes and skin. I was still breathing hard from running and from the nerves that pressed in on me. The wound on the side of my calf, where the branch had pierced me, burned. It ached and stung in equal measure, and blood trickled down my leg.

Victor left for a moment and returned with a glass of water. I only stared at it, confused by the gesture, but then I thought of the drug Drew slipped me and I didn’t move to take it.

Shrugging at my refusal, Victor set the untouched glass on the table and sat down across from me. He pushed his long hair out of his eyes as he casually withdrew a handgun from inside his coat.

Carefully, he placed the gun on a small table beside his chair. It looked like the same gun I’d found on the floor in my house, the one I’d shot him with.

“Tell me where the safe is, Candace, or tell me where the files are if you’ve moved them.”

Despite the way my hands trembled and my stomach rolled, I didn’t avert my gaze. I had no intention of telling him anything. But I didn’t know how I would hold up if he decided to physically hurt me or picked up that gun and pointed it at me.

I fisted my hands in my lap and said nothing. My gut bunched so tightly, I thought I might throw up.

He shifted in the chair and his forehead wrinkled in annoyance, but he didn’t look surprised that I wasn’t giving him what he wanted. In the quiet living room, I could hear his phone vibrating in his pocket as clearly as I heard my own heart pulsing in my ears, but he ignored the phone.

Abruptly, he stood and walked toward me, making me flinch. He knelt down in front of me and waited until I finally looked up and met his icy stare. A moment later, his hand shot out and gripped my calf. I jolted when his finger pressed into my wound, right where the branch had stabbed me.