Page 40 of Rogue’s Path (Sweet Chaos #1)

Dylan

Why does my head feel heavy and woozy? Rogue and I had a drink with dinner, but we didn’t get drunk. Not even close.

My arms and legs feel heavy.

Almost impossible to move.

Like they’re tied down to the bed.

I’m tied down to the bed.

I’m tied down to the bed.

Open your eyes and figure out how to escape.

Where’s Rogue?

It’s a fight to even get my eyes open.

They are open, right? Why can’t I see anything?

Am I dead?

Maybe I died, and I didn’t realize it.

Would you be thinking about dying if you were actually dead? You’re tied to a bed in a dark room, just like the scene in the last book you published. The one your stalker promised to recreate with you.

This better be a nightmare.

The worst nightmare in the history of nightmares.

An epic nightmare that should be recorded in history books.

But it isn’t. You can feel the sweat rolling down your brow, hear your heart pounding in your chest, or the up and down motion of the breath leaving your body in violent pants.

I’m alive.

Rogue will save me?

Why isn’t Rogue here?

Maybe he is, and you just can’t see him. “Rogue,” I whisper. “Rogue, are you there? Wake up, Rogue.”

Maybe he’s still asleep. We were probably drugged.

But how? The food came right from the hotel kitchen to our room. How could he have possibly—That doesn’t matter. What matters is how am I going to get out of here?

You can’t wait for Rogue to come rescue you. Though he feels like he has superhero powers with all those muscles of his, in reality, the hero rarely rescues the damsel in distress.

First, figure out how you’re tied down.

Is it a rope or a chain?

There’s a different weight to chain. A different texture.

Close your eyes and focus.

Why do I need to close my eyes to focus? There aren’t exactly any distractions in the pitch black. I shimmy a little. It’s a rope, not a chain, wrapped several times across the middle of my arms and under my rib cage and just below my hips.

My hands are pinned down with the rope below my hips. If I keep shimmying, I might be able to slide them out. This feels like some sort of weird Pilates move. Why did I only take a month’s worth of classes before I moved on?

Because it was research for a book, and after that you took parkour. Now that was fun, even though I couldn’t get very high up the wall. I blame my big booty, not my general lack of athletic ability.

Shimmy, lift your butt, push it down into the mattress.

I can definitely hear my trainer saying, breathe in and out slowly, feel it in your core.

My core feels it. Am I even getting anywhere?

The light flicks on, sending a quick, shooting pain through my eyes.

When the black spots disappear, a basement or…what is the word for a pantry built underground? I know the word. Why can’t I remember it? It doesn’t matter what the word is. You can look it up later when you get out of here.

There’s only one visible door with a fairly simple lock to pick on it. If you had your lock-picking kit.

Which you don’t.

There’s got to be something among all the junk on the shelves that you can use.

The door rattles.

He’s coming.

Any second, my stalker is going to step through that door.

Stay calm and look for a way out.

You can do this.

You won’t be one of those silly women who screams her head off.

The door opens, and a shadow man with a dead…or passed out woman in his arms stands there.

Please let her be asleep. I can only handle dead bodies with all of the staging found in a funeral home.

“Hello, Dylan.” The man steps out of the shadows.

I don’t know him. “You aren’t the man in the car.”

He laughs and drops the woman on the other metal bed. “Of course I’m not. That would be stupid. Your books taught me how to get away with murder. I soaked up every word you wrote for me.”

Ignore the freaky stuff. Look for clues. “You knew the man, though.”

“Only in the barest sense of the word. I paid a man on one of those odd-job sites to drive a rental car around. He thought it was a joke, but did it anyway. I’m glad you appreciated my efforts.”

Appreciated isn’t the word I would use.

He turns to tie up the woman. “I’ve got everything we need to reenact our latest book. She’ll be the star.”

Wait.

No.

No.

No. He’s going to make me watch him kill her. No. What can I do? Even if I can’t escape, I need to buy time to come up with a plan. Or for Rogue to find me.

“I’ll have everything ready in a few minutes.”

“That’s so boring.”

“What?” He stops and turns to me, irritated that I challenged him.

This probably wasn’t a good idea, but it’s the only one I’ve got.

“I thought you wanted to leave part of us for the world to remember. Repeating something that’s already written is boring.

It would hardly be remembered. But if we wrote a book together, one that could be read for eternity, that would leave our mark forever. ”

“A book?”

“Our book.”

“We should do that. I knew you loved me. I knew it the moment I saw you at the writer’s convention.

I was there for a tech convention and saw you on the way to dinner.

You were so beautiful, and your books were always my favorite.

I’ve read each of them dozens of times. I’ll go get your laptop. We can start writing now.”

Time. I need time. “No. Not the laptop. I only edit or transcribe on the laptop. All my stories are handwritten in notebooks. We have to have the perfect notebooks to write our story on. Maybe something red to remind people of the roses you sent me.”

“I knew you were perfect. Our book is going to take the literary world by storm. I’ll be right back, and we can get started.” He dashes off.

Maybe he’ll forget to lock…Click. But at least he left the light on.

It’s time to escape.