True to his word, he used it now only to cut me down. The bonds around my wrists remained fastened tight, but at least they were no longer forced up above my head. As soon as he severed the rope holding me up, my legs gave out and I crumpled to the hard ground like a rag doll.
My arms feltas if they were on fire as feeling came rushing back, like physical flames were licking up my arms along with the returning blood filling my vessels. I knew this was the moment – you know in all the movies, how the heroine finally gets her chance to run away, to save herself, to fight back?
I felt that moment slip away as I lay on the cement, incapacitated and utterly unable to fight for anything exceptthe shaky breaths I struggled to drag into my lungs.
“Come now, dear, you don’t look at all excited for dinner.”His voice was quietly amused. He stood over me, enjoying the sight of me defeated. Twice, I tried to push myself up from the ground; each time, my arms gave out beneath me and I fell back to the cement floor.
He let me struggle for five minutes or so, before reaching down a hand and roughly yanking me upright. Looping an arm around my back, he dragged me over to the metal chairs inthe corner of the room and threw me down onto one. When he released me I nearly slipped back to the floor, but managed to steady myself with my bound hands at the last minute.
He sat down in the other metal chair, watching me as I tried to rally the little strength I had left in mybody. My breathing eventually slowed and my limbs began to regain most of their feeling. I was wiggling my fingers and toes, testing out the sensation in them, when he abruptly stood and pulled me to my feet.
“Come.”
We walked – thankfully, I didn’t need his help this time – through the basement and up a set of wooden stairs tucked against the far wall. Emerging into a dimly lit kitchen, I was shocked to discover that I knew exactly where I was.
The layout was a little different, but all of the appliances, woodwork, and furniture were the same. Hell, the walls were even painted in that unmistakable jaundiced yellow.
This was the first floor apartment of the old Victorian.
We were directly under my apartment – I’d bet my life on it. Had he been living here all year, so close to me all this time? The thought made me shiver.
He led me through the kitchen and into the living room. This was clearly his lair: the walls were covered not just in photos of me, but also in newspaper clippings. The headlines were varied, spanning years and occasions, butall centered around one thing: Me.
Local Woman Killed in Car-Jacking, Daughter Lives to Tell the Tale
Seven Year Old Gives Condemning Testimony in Court
Car-Jacking Killer Sentenced to 25 Years in San Quentin
Captain Brooklyn Turner Leads Varsity Field Hockey Team to Victory
UVAFreshman Brooklyn Turner Makes Dean’s List
He hadn’t just been following me for months – he’d been watching me foryears. I forced myself to stop looking, but my eyes soon locked onto something even more disturbing. There were at least six computer monitors set up along the wall, with each screen divided to show several camera angles. They were live feeds, streaming video from inside my apartment upstairs.
Every room had been bugged.
I tried to ignore the monitor on the far left, which was dedicated to my bedroom. Or, more specifically, to my bed. There was a camera trained on every side, capturing every angle. When I thought about all the times Finn and I had been together there, all the things Skinner had witnessed, I had to choke back the vomit that was working its way up my throat. He’d violated a space I’d thought was sacred, completely private, and I had the unbearable desire to shower – as if I could scrape myself clean of the feeling of his eyes on my skin.
Ifelt dirty, vulnerable.
He eventually pulled me away, a smug smile on his face. He’d wanted me to see this – to understand just how deeply he was embedded in my life.To know that he’d seen everything, heard everything.
“Aren’t you going to ask how I did it?” he said, his tone anticipatory.
This is what he gets off on,I realized.He’s an egomaniac. He wants – heneeds– to impress me. To frighten me. To think he’s the master puppeteer, pulling my strings and controlling every facet of my life.
That’s his weakness,I thought.Pride.
“No,” I said, making my voice uninterestedjust to goad him.
He fumedsilently for a minute, then continued as if I hadn’t spoken.
“Isn’t it amazing what the Internet can do nowadays? You’ll never guess how easy it was tofind your little Facebook page and to track down your apartment address through the university directory. Everything I needed to know about you was right there at the tips of my fingers – not to mention how easy it was for me to order all this helpful electronic equipment. Free, two-day shipping for these babies,” he laughed, gesturing toward his elaborate setup of computer monitors. “No background checks or identification required.”
I stared at the wall, trying to block out his words.
“There are YouTube tutorials for everything; there’s even a how-to guide for bugging someone’s house with cameras, right there online for anyone to watch.” He laughed maniacally, nearly giddy with his own success.