Page 75 of Executing Malice

I swallow audibly before giving him the date. I give him the exact date and the articles I was mentioned in. I know each one by memory. I watch his long fingers fly across the keys. Rapid and sure pulling up my claim.

All I can stare at is the black ink across his knuckles. The name I can just make out in the cold hue of the screen. The neatly woven braid fastened securely around his wrist right next to my red ribbon he’d stolen the other day at the bank.

“Have you been living in my attic?” I ask instead, my brain a jumble of chaos too messy for a single train of thought.

It certainly explained how he was always in my house, always there when he shouldn’t be. But...

“How long?”

He’s ignoring me as he pulls up article after article calling for help locating the family of a girl found badly hurt in the Red Hollow Woods, near Jefferson. There’s a colored photo of me in one of Reed’s oversized T-shirts and baggy sweats. I’m younger, but my face hasn’t changed.

“No,” he’s mumbling to himself as he pulls up another screen with another article describing my miraculous rescue. “This isn’t right. It’s not...”

But he’s not the only one upset.

He’s not the only one confused and a little more than mildly panicked. I just learned a strange man has been living in my house. In my attic. That he’s been secretly recording my every movement for possibly months. He’s now drugged me, tattooed me, pierced me. He follows me to work. Refuses to show me his face.

And now I’ve enraged him.

I’ve always been afraid of sharing my past with people, but none of them have reacted with such anger. Such outright fury. It dawns on me that I may have trusted a truly dangerous man. I’ve watched enoughCriminal Mindsto recognize when an unsub’s delusions have been shattered. It’s when they become unpredictable, desperate to get that fantasy back.

I remember my knife in his pocket and my stomach goes cold. Sweat clings to the back of my neck. My limbs go numb as I watch him hammer into the keys and mutter to himself about this not being right.

Heart drumming in my ears, I hazard a slow, careful step back. I just need to get to the hatch. Once I get down the stairs, I can run. I can call Reed. But I need to get out of this airless space. Get away from him.

Regulating my every breath to the best of my abilities, I inch another step. My heel-toe progression seems to be working. I’m getting closer. I can almost reach the opening.

My gaze swings over the sprawling space, linger on the neatly made bed. Everything in the room is neat. It’s dusted and clean. I can’t imagine how long it must have taken to do all this with me just a floor below oblivious.

I think back to the first time I noticed him. It was just beginning to get warm. I can’t pinpoint the exact month, but it’s been long enough that I feel like an idiot for not noticing there was a whole ass man living in my ceiling.

“How did I miss this?” he’s muttering as I dart a quick glance in the direction of the door.

They’re not stairs. I need to turn and crawl out backwards. I need to time it so I don’t fall. Last thing I need is aMiserysituation with my legs broken trapped in a house with a possible psychopath.

I reach the edges of the trapdoor, eyes fixed on the man bent over his keyboard. I turn bare feet, putting my back to the opening and slowly crouching.

Everything seems to be going well. I even think I might actually make it ... until I place my weight on the top rung.

The groan may as well have been a bomb going off in the crippling silence. It detonates through the room as loud as my heart hammering in my throat.

My head jerks up right as his snaps around and for a split second, neither of us move. Time itself seems to stand still as we both realize what’s happening.

Then, he’s lunging out of his chair, and I scream. The sound is sudden and unexpected. It bursts out of my chest as I throw myself the rest of the way towards the bottom.

“Leila!”

I don’t stop. I’m about halfway.

My foot slips. I miss a step. I don’t know how far I am, but I hit the hardwood full on my back. The wind rushes from my lungs even as I wheeze. Pain spiderwebs down my spine, scatters down my arms and legs. My head spins wildly in a blur of muted colors. For a second, I lie there paralyzed, coughing and watching as my stalker scrambles after me.

“Don’t move!” he’s snapping at me.

But fuck that!

Still desperately sucking on air I can’t seem to keep in, I twist over onto my hands and knees and crawl. The motion takes the world with me in a spiral. It churns my stomach, but I ignore the swaying walls and floors and keep going. My goal is to get back up onto my feet and run to the front door only ten feet away, but I can’t seem to find the strength to do it.

The thump of his weight hitting the bottom spurs me. I scramble up, sway when the floor shifts beneath me, but catch myself on the wall.