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The sound of an approaching vehicle, the tires crunching over the gravel, snapped me out of it. It wasn’t Blake. He was still here, his SUV parked out front like usual.

A visitor, then?

A quick glance at Chance proved he was still out of it, so I risked venturing away for a bit to see who it was. My curiosity was sated at the sight of the black and white of a police cruiser. The blue and red lights on top were off, but still reflected brightly beneath an afternoon sun. I wasn’t sure how long I had spent sitting with Chance, but it couldn’t have been that long.

I couldn’t be in two places at once, and Chance was more important than anything right now, so I chose to stay where I was rather than chase after the police. For now, I could hear what was happening. The creak of the cruiser’s doors as they opened, then the rattling slam as it was closed. Gravel crunching beneath two pairs of boots. The crackle of radios overshadowing unintelligible voices.

‘Police,’ a man’s voice called, and there was the thud of a fist banging against the door. ‘Open up!’

The front door opened on creaky hinges that screeched with the effort.

‘Officers, how can I help you?’ Blake’s sickly sweet voice, the very same one that had hooked me all those years ago, trickled over to me.

‘Sir, are you Blake Dodd?’

‘What is this about?’ he asked, blatantly avoiding the question.

‘We received a call about a possible crime in progress at this residence. May we come in?’

I could practically hear Blake’s teeth grinding from here, and I smiled. Good. Let that panic set in, Blake.I hope you’re fucking sweating.

‘I’m not comfortable with that unless you explain what this is about.’

‘We already have, sir. We have enough cause to enter the premises without a warrant. Don’t make this harder than it has to be. Now, are you going to let us in, or do we need to enter with force?’

Blake huffed, not bothering to hide how put out he was, but the door screamed obnoxiously as he opened it wider. ‘Knock yourself out. I’ve got nothing to hide.’

Liar.

Blake’s confidence set off alarm bells inside my head. I was suddenly very sure that they wouldn’t find anything. He hadreinforced the door to the basement and soundproofed it all so well that all he needed to do was push a cabinet in front of it to hide its presence. There weren’t even any windows to prove there was a basement level either. The police would look around, find everything in order, and then leave. Their fellow cop was not going to be rescued today.

Fuck.

I listened, silently seething as the police searched the cabin, only to exit within a few minutes.

‘Everything seems to be fine, here,’ another officer said, also a man. ‘Sorry to have bothered you, sir.’

‘It’s not a problem,’ Blake said, back to that sickly sweet voice that made me want to hurl. ‘You’re just doing your job, and I’m happy to help.’

‘Have a good rest of your day,’ the first cop said, and then they climbed back into their cruiser and drove away.

He was going to get away with it.

No…I wouldn’t let that happen. The police might be useless against him, but he wasn’t immune to me. It was clearer than ever that I would need to take matters into my own hands.

But first, I would need to get stronger. It had taken far too much energy to scratch out Blake’s name on that note. I needed to be able to do more, inflict more damage, to make him believe he was going insane. Well, more insane than he already was.

Years of planning accumulated inside my head, fantasy after fantasy pushing forward, just begging to see the light of day. I was more than happy to put them to good use. Eager, even. I had been waiting a long time to see Blake pay for his crimes, but it was so close now I could practically taste it.

And I was going to be the one to make him suffer.

Chapter 9

Chance

Ifelt like I was suffering through the worst hangover in history. You know the one, where you didn’t know what day it was, you couldn’t tell what hurt, but everything did at the same time, the world was spinning out from beneath your feet until your entire body jolted because it felt like you were falling. And then there was the memory loss, the inability to determine what had happened or why. The constant nagging in the back of your mind that something was missing, that you were forgetting something important, but it stayed just far enough out of reach that you couldn’t quite figure out what it was.

I was currently stuck in the forgetfulness stage, and my head hurt too much whenever I tried to piece things together, so I simply stopped trying. Maybe I’d feel better after a bit more sleep…