Page 51 of Phobia

“I appreciate that,” I replied with a chuckle, running my hands through his hair.

He snagged me around the waist and pulled me into his lap, kissing my neck, seriousness edging out his earlier playfulness. “I just want you to be happy.”

“That’s all I’ve ever wanted for you too.”

“I’m happy when I’m with you.”

“Then it looks like we’re stuck with each other.”

“Nowhere I’d rather be.” His dimples flashed and I pressed my lips to his, trying to pour all of my love and happiness into that kiss so maybe he’d feel a fraction of what I felt, what I’dalwaysfelt when it came to him. Larkin Galvan, my best friend and the absolute love of my life.

Chapter 7

For the first time in forever, I was happy. Beyond happy. Elated. No—in love.Openly and with zero regard for what anyone had to say about it. I didn’t give a fuck what anyone thought about me or who I chose to spend my life with. My only regret was waiting so long to embrace that mentality and inadvertently hurting Jamie along the way.

But all of that was water under the bridge. We had a new lease on life together and I was bound and determined to make the most of it.

Part of that, as much as I hated revisiting the past, was trying to get closure for the other families of the monster’s victims.

Even thoughhewas dead, dismembered, and scattered in the mountains of New Hampshire, I still needed to find his cache of photos. Most of all, I needed that fucking map. People needed bodies to get closure. Families wanted to lay their sons to rest. They were dead because of me and now I was their only hope of finding peace. How fucking twisted was that?

Still, it was something in my bones I knew I had to do. In a roundabout way, it was my way of making it up to Jamie, by doing right by all the others who came before him, the ones Icouldn’tsave.

I’d combed through Sunderland looking for that damned truck, up every alley and backstreet, along the dirt roads on the outskirts. I even checked the tow yards and the police’s impound lot. Nothing. No sign of the beat-up brown truck that had been lurking outside Grandma’s house a week after her funeral. While I hadn’t seen him in the truck, specifically, I knew his MO. He always went for older trucks that he could buy with cash because it meant no GPS tracking and an easy way to transport victims. Ithadto have been him, scoping out the place before he reared his ugly head.

The monster caught me off guard a month later when I was in the middle of packing up Grandma’s things. Between classes and dealing with lawyers, I hadn’t really put much thought into her house or the stuff inside. Once it was officially mine, I figured I better get my ass in gear before winter set in and the roads would be too shitty to make the trip up to Sunderland from Tennebrose.

I’d left the front door open so Jamie and I could haul boxes in and out easier. I still thanked God that Jamie had already left with a carful of donations when the monster crawled out of the past and back into my life. Except he probably knew that. Knowing him, he’d been watching us from the shadows, waiting for the right moment to strike.

A hunting knife dug into the side of my neck from behind a second before the stench of tobacco and cheap bar soap enveloped me.

“If you scream like a bitch, it’ll be the last thing you do,” he growled in my ear.

I froze in place, heart beating wildly against my ribs.He found me.I knew it without even looking. It had been years, but his voice was the same, brimming with a vile hatred that haunted my nightmares. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Is that any way to talk to your old man?” He snorted and the pressure on the knife shifted, sliding around my neck but not slicing as he moved in front of me. “See you’re all grown up now.”

“What do you want?” I said through my teeth.

“Figured now that meddling bitch is dead, you’d come on the road with me again. Pick up where we left off.”

All I could do was stare at him, clenching my teeth even tighter before my mouth dropped open like a fish. There was no question he was evil as fuck, so I guess I was trying to decide if he was joking or if his insanity had reached new levels during our time apart.

“Don’t you remember all the fun we had, kid? Don’t you want that again?” Insane. He was truly fucking insane.

“I don’t want anything to do with you,” I replied as clearly as I could so he couldn’t misconstrue my words. “The second you leave, I’m calling the cops. You deserve to rot for everything you did, you sick fuck.”

His mouth twisted into a sneer beneath his dark beard. “Aw, don’t do that. See if you do that, then I’m going to take your favorite toy away before I skip town. What’s his name? Jamie? Yeah. You two seem real close.”

A wave of dread crashed over me like ice water. He recognized Jamie. After all this time, he still fucking recognized him! Jamie’s greatest fear was that he’d come back and now here he was, threatening my best friend’s life once again.

A smile broke across the monster’s face. “Yeah, I figured that’d get your attention. Don’t tell me you turned out to be a fag after everything I taught you? You know how fucking disgusting they are. How unnatural.”

I didn’t trust myself to answer, so I ground my molars together until my jaw ached.

“What do you think? Should we surprise him when he gets back? Let him see what a good time is all about? I’m sure you didn’t get a lot of practice around this place, so I’ll tell you what—I’ll hold him for you and you can do whatever you want with him. Knives, fire, acid. Hell, I’ll even let you fuck him one last time.” His dark eyes lit up. “Your first one should be special. It’s the most memorable, after all.”

Rage replaced any sense of fear. My vision tunneled until a veil of black washed over everything.