Page 102 of Stand: Part One

Please, no.

Please don’t let it be her.

Please be wrong…

And then Darren paused the video, immortalizing half of her face on the screen. It was still partially covered, but the blue diamond collar around her neck was unmistakable.

Kayla.

“No,” I whispered, my hope shattering into a thousand pieces.

I felt my body start to shake, the tremors riding up my arms and into my shoulders as I tried to blink the quickly forming tears away. But the dark energy radiating from Darren’s body had my heart accelerating into overdrive.

He knew. Just like I’d suspected. He knew.

But he didn’t know everything.

“When was this?” I asked, swallowing back my trepidation.

“The day after we picked you up from the storage facility. I hadn’t even reported it stolen yet.”

I held back my sigh of relief. She had acted quickly.

Good girl.

In that case, this was from months ago, and Kayla would be long gone by now. But I couldn’t let Darren believe in my hope for that. As far as I was concerned, Kayla was dead. And she would fucking stay that way.

Shaking my head, I leaned back and steeled myself away, forcing my mounting fear back into the shadows of my mind. I needed to fight back while I still could.

“No,” I repeated more forcefully. “I can see what you’re trying to imply, but that’s impossible. She’s dead. She has to be.”

“Clearly, she isn’t,” he retorted, his calm tone a terrifying warning.

“That’s not her,” I argued. “I refuse to believe it.”

Darren gripped my hair and shoved my head forward, forcing my gaze to the computer screen.

“I don’t give a shit about what you believe, Jaden,” he growled into my ear. “The only beliefs that actually matter around here are mine, and right now, I’m feeling pretty fucking vindicated.”

“You’re wrong,” I spat.

“I’m not, and you fucking know it.”

I tried to shake my head again, but with his hand tangled so tightly in my hair, it was impossible. “It’s not her!” I shouted.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!

Darren yanked me away from the screen and brought his mouth to my ear, the words he spoke making my entire system implode with horror.

“You lied to me.”

I whimpered, my eyes clouding with tears while my stomach ripped itself to shreds. This had been the reckoning he’d been referring to. The one thing I had hoped he would never be able to uncover. But I was a goddamn fool.

“No,” I murmured in denial, like I could still somehow convince him otherwise. But I knew in my heart his mind was already made up. He had made it up a long time ago. Nothing I said was going to change a damn thing now.

In a single breath, I found myself being slammed face-first onto Darren’s desk, my chest pressing painfully into the hard wood beneath it. With his hand at the back of my neck, he kept me pinned in place while a rage I hadn’t felt in so long radiated off him in waves.

The sharp sound of a knife being unsheathed abruptly sliced through the air, and I suddenly found cold air caressing my bare skin as Darren cut through the back of my sundress with a single swipe.