Page 52 of Phobia

I didn’t remember reacting or even making a conscious decisiontoreact. One minute the monster was standing there, a knife at my throat and that gut-wrenching smile on his face, and the next he was doubled-over, holding his hands over his face as blood gushed between his fingers. A dull pain registered in my forehead but it was nothing compared to the pounding in my temples as blood and adrenaline surged through me.

Snatching the knife off the floor, I jabbed it in his kidney and grabbed a fistful of his shirt, steering him toward the basement.

“You broke my fucking nose!” he hollered, unconcerned about the fact he was effectively my captive now.

“Shut the fuck up!” I pushed the knife in harder, surprised at how little resistance there was as the tip cut through the shirt and slid into his flesh. “Get down there,” I snapped, shoving him down the basement stairs. I had to act fast. Sunderland wasn’t that big and Jamie would be back at any second.

Bleeding from his nose and his side, the monster staggered through the basement. “Now what?”

“Sit over there.” I directed him to one of the support posts.

As soon as he flopped onto the concrete floor, I took a tentative step away from him, scanning the immediate area for something to tie him up with. I found a combination of rope and bungee cords in a bucket, leftover from some gardening project Grandma had started in the spring and never finished because of her chemo treatments.

I secured his wrists to the post when the floorboards overhead squeaked.

“Lark?” Jamie yelled up above. “I’m back. They gave me some tax donation receipt thing. I don’t know if you need it or not.”

The knife flew to the monster’s throat so fast, he flinched away from it, glaring up at me.

“Don’t even fucking think about it,” I whispered before yelling up to Jamie, “I’ll be right there.”

Returning his glare, I nudged his throat with the tip of the blade, a silent reminder to keep his trap shut while I grabbed a roll of duct tape. Slapping it over his mouth, I shoved the knife into my waistband and headed up the stairs, meeting Jamie with a forced smile. “Thanks for dropping that off.”

“No problem.” He gave me a brilliant smile and got back to work packing up a curio cabinet.

We loaded another carful of boxes and called it quits after I claimed I had a sociology paper to write. He never knew what ugly secret was hiding in the basement that day and God willing I’d never tell him.

I spent the next two days pacing my room and downing whatever alcohol I could get my hands on, alternatively trying to clear my head and forget everything that happened. After trying to forgethim, forget my past, it came rushing back in fragmented pieces, ripping holes in my mind like shards of broken glass.

On the second night of his captivity, I drove back to Grandma’s house. In my time away, he’d gotten out of my shitty restraints and ambushed me as soon as my feet hit the basement floor. We wrestled over the knife, ending in me slicing my hand open while somehow getting it away from him. I managed to get him tied up again, this time without the bungee cords, and I beat a hasty retreat back to Tennebrose, finishing a bottle of tequila along the way that did nothing to calm my nerves.

All I could think about was Jamie. He could never know what happened, how close he’d been to the man who tried to kill him. He’d finally gotten a handle on his anxiety, but with Halloween coming, I didn’t need to stir up any more problems for him.

As soon as I saw the geese I had what I thought was a brilliant albeit drunken solution.

Farmers used guard geese to protect smaller flocks. I could get Jamie a goose. It would keep him safe, at least until I dealt with the monster, then the goose could take a hike and I’d be there to protect what was mine. A sheepdog fending off the wolves.

Parking my SUV, I crept up to the flock as they lay on the banks of one of Tennebrose’s landscaped ponds, unaware of how vital they were to my best friend’s safety.

My wrestling match with the goose went as well as it did with the monster. The bastard really did bite me, repeatedly, before flying away, leaving me in a heap on the cold ground.

Thanks to my efforts, my hand started bleeding like a son of a bitch again, so I made my way to Jamie’s residence hall with every intention of providing the security measures the runaway goose could not.

Now that the monster was dead and gone and I didn’t need to worry about Jamie’s safety, I could focus on finding that fucking truck and the trophies inside.

But it was gone.

I had no idea where else to look and without any sense of direction, I turned my own car around and headed back to Tennebrose—to Jamie. Halloween was closing in on us and I was on high alert when it came to his mood. He seemed to be doing ok, overall, but now that he knew the truth about the stranger who tried to murder him, I didn’t want to take any chances of him having a panic attack or something.

As much as I may have wanted to give the other families closure, at the end of the day, Jamie was the only thing that truly mattered.

Chapter 8

A week had passed since Larkin finally confessed his childhood horror and in that time he’d more or less moved in with me, without discussion. I mean, we already spent a lot of time together, but from that night on he made a point to sleep at my placeeverynight. Not that I was complaining.

It was everything I’d ever wanted. I just wished it didn’t come with such a horrible string attached. On the one hand, I felt some form of relief, knowing the stranger wasn’t a stranger at all, that I didn’t have to side-eye everyone who approached me too quickly or looked at me too long, wondering if they were going to strangle me out of nowhere. I didn’t have to wonder whohewas. I knew now—he was Larkin’s father—and I wished Ididn’tknow all at the same time. Because now I was side-eyeing my best friend, wondering if whatever evil was insidehimhad wound up inside his son.

But then Larkin would smile, dimples on full display, and I’d convince myself there was absolutely no way Larkin was anything like his barbaric father, that the first ten years of his life hadn’t impacted him in any way beyond giving him equally, if not more, horrific nightmares than me and a desire to protect people from those who would take advantage of them. A true sheepdog.