Page 215 of Reaper

What happened? And how did I get here?

Raising my hands to my temples, I massage them as I try to remember what happened.

I remember talking to Erica and her saying we need a new keg. Nathan and I argued and then I went back and unlocked the back room.

“Fuck,” I curse as my eyes snap wide open again and my body goes rigid.

Zac.

Fucking Zac Crawford drugged and tased me right after I unlocked the door.

Fuck, is Nathan alright? Did he come after me? Shit, I hope Zac didn’t hurt him. I know Nathan can fight, but I have no idea what Zac’s capable of. What if… No, I can’t think that. I can’t go down the ‘what if’ rabbit hole. It will just drive me even crazier with worry. I need to believe Nathan is still alive. I also need to apologize to him when I see him.

A shiver racks me and I can see my breath in the air each time I breathe. I take stock of my body. I’m sore but nothing feels broken, thank God. As I shift, I realize I’m covered in a thick blanket and I’m grateful that the only spots where I feel the blanket on my skin is my arms. Lifting the blanket, I’m relieved to see that I’m still wearing my work clothes. Wiggling my toes, I frown when I realize I’m not wearing my work boots—just my socks.

Shifting, I groan as I push to a sitting position and look down. I’m lying on a relatively thin mattress, but at least it looks clean. Same for the pillow. I swing my legs over the side of the bed and the sound of metal scraping against something reaches my ears. Lifting the blanket, my eyes widen as my anger rises.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!” I snarl.

The fucker shackled my ankle to the fucking bed!

I tug on the chain and damn near growl when nothing happens. Peering over the edge of the bed, my anger rises when I realize he’s also bolted the damn bed to the cement floor! Grumbling, I look closer at the chain and shackle. They’re new. Not rusty like the rest of this fricking warehouse. He’s also used a heavy padlock to connect the chain to the shackle, and I grin. If I can find a couple pieces of wire, I might be able to pick the lock.

Next to the bed is a bucket with a couple of rolls of toilet paper on the ground next to it. My lip curls in disgust at the thought of using it. There are no windows in here but there are a couple of doors in this room. From what I can see through the smallwindows in the doors, or what remains of the windows that is, there are more rooms surrounding this room.

Turning, I stop and stare in shock at what’s in front of me. Before, I’d just noticed the boards when I was looking for windows, but now I’m truly seeing it.

And what’s on them.

My mouth opens and closes a few times, but no sound comes out.

Fuck.

Oh fuck.

Fuck fuck fuckfuck!

In front of me are three very large cork boards on wheels. Each one has hundreds and I meanhundredsof pictures tacked onto them. Most of them are of me but there are also pictures of Ma, Granny, Miracle, Khloe and even of the guys in the club. Like with the room in Zac’s house, he also has pictures of my house and the supper club going up in flames., However, there are more of them here than at his house. He also has a smaller board that has pictures of the Coxes and, surprisingly, Darren.

My gaze snaps back to the pictures of Ma, Granny, and all my friends. If he’s been watching them so closely as well… Fuck… I snap my eyes closed, trying to clear my mind of scenario after scenario, each one worse than the last. Of what Zac would have done to them if he got his hands on them. Of what he’d do to them if I didn’t come to him.

Fuck. This is not good. He’s even more unhinged than we thought. A faint sound thuds behind me and I whirl around, scowling as Zac walks towards me.

“What in the actual fuck, Zac?” I hiss as I gesture to the pictures. “How long have you been fucking stalking me? A lot of these are from when you weredating my best friend!”

He has the gall to just shrug and look smug as fuck. “Khloe was a means to an end. You wouldn’t accept my invitations so Ihad to find a way to get close to you somehow. She was an easy target. When the fire didn’t work, I knew I had to do something else to get you away from that fucking club. It’s a good thing you got rid of your guard dog tonight. I was prepared to slice his throat to get to you,” he says as he pulls out a wicked looking knife.

My blood boils at his nonchalance way of talking about how he’d kill Nathan and about how he had treated my best friend.

“You played with her feelings just to get close to me?! You’d slit my friend’s throat to get him out of the way? You’re a monster. A fucking asshole,” I seethe. “Why the fuck did you do it? Why, Zac? Why would you make it impossible for us to get out of the house and then light it on fire. I could have died that night! My mom and grandma could have died! You’re the reason why I have all these fucking burns on my body! If you really cared about me, then why the fuck would you do something like that?”

He waves his hand nonchalantly in the air. “I would never have let you die,” he says, and I note that he purposefully says nothing about Ma and Granny. His face twists and I think I know where he’s going to go with this even before he speaks. “I’m the reason the firefighters got there when they did. Since you wouldn’t come to me, I came to you and was supposed to be the one that rescued you. Not that fucking kiss ass! He’s the reason you got those burns, it wasn’t because of me.”

“Yes, it was because of you!” I cry out as I raise my arms in the air in frustration. “Youwere the one that fucking lit my house on fire. Not Erik. Not anyone else.You. Everything that happened that night isbecause of you!”

His lips curl in a sneer. “You were brainwashed, Lark. I overheard multiple conversations about what your family thinks of me. They were getting in the way. I needed to take everythingaway from you so that you could be with me and I could teach you the right way to behave.”

What in the actual fuck?!