“You’re never gonna get away with this,” Sophia repeated.
“I already did.” He got out and came to the back door.
Jess turned to Sophia and quickly whispered in her ear, “He wasn’t shot.”
“What?”
“There was no blood, no bullet wound. He’ll be okay.” Jess got out of the car quickly, leaving Sophia no way to ask more; Jess’s words had brought some relief, but Connor could still be badly hurt.
Seth grabbed her by the arm and dragged her out. “Get out. All of you. Head to the camp.”
Sophia cast a look at Seth’s menacing black car, the memory of it hurtling after her ramping-up fears. His nasty plans were coming to fruition and she felt helpless to stop him. She still had the bump on her head, which now seemed a minuscule sign of the violence he was prepared to do. He had fired a gun at Connor. Had smashed him over the head. Had burned down the inn. Seth Murray was a psychopath. And she was in his control.
She realized he’d been on the mountain all this time. No wonder the cops hadn’t found him. She had to give him credit for concealing the car like this, but they couldn’t stay up here forever, and when they left, he’d get caught. She just had to avoid being raped—or worse—until then. For a moment, she wondered how he’d gotten to the inn, but the obvious answer was that he’d hiked. It wasn’t that far.
They climbed up to his camp in the trees, Mark and Jess leading the way, with Seth right beside their captive. They sometimes passed a narrow deer trail and she wondered about sprinting down one, but running barefoot through the woods in the dark wasn’t the brightest idea and Seth kept a possessive hand on her arm. The twigs and rocks underfoot hurt her tender flesh again and again.
She didn’t see the camp until they were nearly inside it, for Seth had hung camouflage netting on the two sides that weren’t sufficiently hidden by natural foliage. A small cliff wall backed to the camp on the side farther up the mountain. Opposite that and overlooking the valley below, several large rocks served as chairs, and this was where Seth forced her to sit. From that vantage point, she saw that a precipitous drop lay mere steps away, and only then did she realize they were just atop the rock face that she’d seen from Sunrise Meadow. The camp seemed virtually permanent. It was only detectable if stumbled upon, or if someone below had a telescope and knew where to aim it, which wasn’t likely.
Down below, the sound of sirens caught Sophia’s ears. A moment passed before she saw the flames from Sugarloaf Inn and a column of smoke rising into the night sky, visible for being lighter than the blackness it rose into. As she watched, the flashing lights of rescuers moved along Comus Road below, heading for the flames. A pang struck her at the destruction she’d inadvertently brought down on Connor and his family.
It paled next to the possibility of lasting damage to Connor himself, and she vowed to spend the rest of her life making it up to him. And doing something about the man who’d caused it. She cast a hate-filled glance at Seth. At least she wasn’t alone with him. She didn’t think he’d rape her in front of the others, though that had been suggested the first time they’d tried to grab her. But now she’d met the other two and had some sense that they weren’t as far gone as Seth.
But then Seth ordered the other two to leave the camp, and her heart sank when they disappeared into the darkness, Jess casting a concerned look over one shoulder.
Seth turned to Sophia with a gleam in his bruised eye. She shuddered.
* * *
As they tromped through the woods, Jess took Mark’s hand and squeezed. He smiled down at her, then stopped to give her a long, deep kiss. For a moment they forgot the world around them and the world of trouble they were both in. The minutes passed as they savored the last peaceful moments they were likely to have anytime soon. An air of doom surrounded them. Or at least, that’s how Jess felt on breaking the kiss and leading him toward her car, which they got into, closing the doors but not going anywhere, him behind the wheel.
Mark’s hand moved up her thigh.
“Not now, sweetie,” she said, putting a hand on his. “We have bigger problems.”
With a smirk, he pointed out his bulge and asked, “Bigger than this?”
She smiled despite herself and put her hand there. “You gonna be able to concentrate on what I say with my hand there?”
“Nope.”
She pulled it away and turned to face him. “Okay, seriously, we need a plan.”
“For what?”
“For not spending the rest of our lives in jail. Sophia knows who we are.”
“Yeah, but if Seth gets away from here with her, she’ll never be able to tell someone.”
“Connor also knows.”
“Seth whacked him pretty good. He might have amnesia.”
She rolled her eyes. “My purse is back at the inn and will survive the fire, from the look of all those flashing lights. They know, Mark, or they will. And they have your DNA.”
He sighed in resignation. “Okay, so they know. We’re fugitives. Hmm. That’s kind of sexy, dontcha think?”
“Stop it. I’m being serious.”
“Yeah, I know. There’s gonna be plenty of time for that later. Why don’t we fool around for now?”
She had to admit he had a good point. “I think we need to get the hell out of here, and by here, I mean Comus. We don’t have long. Ryan knows what my car looks like, which means we need another one. Since my car and us are missing from the inn, Lacy and Mark are top suspects.”
“Yeah, okay, you’re right.” He frowned and turned to start the car when she laid a hand on him.
“Wait,” she said before biting her lip. “There’s a good chance we aren’t going to get very far.”
“All the more reason to go.”
“Yeah, but if we get caught, maybe we should do ourselves a favor.”
“Like what?”
“Like keep Seth from raping Sophia. A judge might be more lenient on us.” Jess saw the look of compassion in his eyes and leaned over to kiss him. She would’ve scorned him for that sensitivity a day ago. That Sophia was a decent girl was hard to miss and she felt a sudden pang about her former rival’s possible fate at Seth’s hands.
“So what do we do?” Mark asked.
“Get out of here and call the cops to tell them where Seth is. That gives us a chance to get away and her a chance to get rescued.”
“We don’t have our phones,” he observed.
She nodded. “Yeah, and I don’t think they even have pay phones around here these days. We’d need a landline at a house, but ours are being watched. Shit.”
“We could turn ourselves in.”
Jess pursed her lips. “I’d still like to give us a chance.”
He squeezed her hand. “Me, too.”
“The only other alternative is to go back up there.”
Mark nodded. “He’ll be pissed.”
“Fuck him.”
He looked far away for a few seconds, then looked into her eyes. “We really fucked up, didn’t we?”
She sighed. “Yeah, but at least we can put a stop to his shit going any farther. C’mon, let’s go.”
He took her hand. “Not yet. If this is the last time we’re ever going to be together, I want you one last time.”
Jess was about to protest, but then he pulled her over and planted one of those kisses on her and she let him do whatever he wanted.
* * *
Seth leered at Sophia, his crooked teeth doing little to aid his appearance, which was worse than usual because it had been days since he’d taken a shower. Greasy hair caught the firelight just like the sheen of oil on his face. Sophia had caught a whiff once or twice and nearly gagged. She thoroughly enjoyed the shiner Connor had given the bastard and was looking forward to Seth having a black eye. Maybe she could give him another one to match.
“I finally have you all to myself,” he said.
With a withering look, she scoffed, “Don’t get used to it.”
He gestured around them at the trees and slopes. “You think anyone’s gonna find you here? Because they’re not.”
“Keep telling yourself that.” She paused. “You do a lot of that, don’t you? Telling yourself some stupid bullshit, like that you have any chance of being with me, for real. Yeah, you can rape me, but you’ll still never have me.”
“Watch your mouth,” he snapped. “I’ll have you all right, and you’ll learn to love it.”
“Dream on. You know what they do to rapists in prison? You’re gonna find out.”
“You know, for someone who’s helpless up here, you got a lot of attitude.” His eyes narrowed. “It’s because of that fucker, Connor, isn’t it? I saw you two fucking. You think you like him, or something?”
Her cheeks turned red at the horror of Seth having seen her naked, not to mention while she was having sex with someone. She didn’t know how and wasn’t sure she wanted to, though the ignorance was killing her. Ignoring that with an effort, she replied, “I sure as hell don’t like
you
.”
“Say that shit to me again and I’ll fucking slug you. Understand?”
She tried to hide her fear in case that encouraged him. Lightening the attitude, she asked as if rhetorically, “Is that how you treat all your women?”
“Don’t matter how I treat other women. You’re the only one for me now.”
“I feel so honored,” she said, unable to resist rolling her eyes. “What did I do to deserve that?”
He looked at her in amazement. “You don’t remember? Shit, you don’t, do you? Remember that time in class, when I was in a bad mood and you sent me that note asking what was the matter? Anyone but you, I woulda ignored that. I didn’t mean to tell anyone, not really, but you were being so nice and all. You pulled me out of that bad mood with those notes you were sending me. Shit, you even had me laughing.”
She remembered the incident, in spring of her junior year. The look on his face now was tender, even fond. She realized it had been a long time since she’d seen him as a person instead of a stalker, or a monster. He was still those things to her, but maybe if there was enough person left in there, she could reason with him.
“No one ever did that for me,” Seth continued. “No one. If anyone else found out I was hurting, they just made it worse. But not you. You made it better. I thought you were pretty cool before that, but you got to me that day, sweetheart. Been in love with you ever since.”
Quietly, she said, “It didn’t mean anything, Seth.”
“Like hell it didn’t. Why would you spend a whole hour,
a whole hour
, cheering me up if you didn’t like me?”
“I was just being nice. People do that.”
He snorted. “No, they don’t. Just on TV. It’s fucking lies that people act that way. Except for you. You did it for real. Now you know why I love you.”
She shook her head. “You don’t love me, Seth.”
“Yeah, I—”
“No you don’t. You don’t even know me.”
“Sure, I—”
“Stalking me is not knowing me. Spying on me is not knowing me. Watching me have sex with someone else isn’t knowing me, and by the way, that’s totally creepy and such a turn-off! How am I supposed to trust you after something like that? After kidnapping me? After attacking Connor? After setting the inn on fire and leaving him inside like that? How could you do that? You could’ve
killed
him. What about all of this is supposed to make me love you?”
Sophia felt like she was on a roll now but stopped to let him absorb all of that. For a moment, Seth looked surprised, the anger gone. The remorseful look on his face surprised her but encouraged her. If she could just get through to him…
“You already love me,” he muttered, “so those things wouldn’t have changed anything.”
“Of course they would change things. You can’t just go around doing whatever you want to people and assume they’ll still love you.”
His eyes brightened. “You
do
love me!”
“No, I don’t. I was just making a point.”
“I don’t believe you. You’ll love me soon enough either way, just like I love you.”
“Stop saying that.”
“No, I’ll never stop saying that. You just don’t know it. You’ll see I’m sincere. Why would I do all of this if I wasn’t really in love with you? That’s ridiculous.”
Shaking her head, she said, “You’re imagining all that, Seth. You have a crush, nothing more. We all get them, but you’ve gone way too far. The police are looking for you.”
He smiled. “See? There you go, showing concern for me. I know you care. Stop insisting you don’t. I like some games from a woman but not about that. Not about love.”
“It’s not love, Seth.”
He waved that off. “And I did those things for you, for us, so we can be together.”
“Well now that we’re
supposedly
together, what are you planning to do? Live up here on Sugarloaf Mountain all your life?”
“Of course not, baby. Once the cops cool down, we’ll get out of here. Head somewhere nice, like Florida. Maybe Paris. Or Venice. You like Europe?”
She rolled her eyes despite trying not to do anything that might set him off again. “You’re gonna drag me against my will past TSA agents at the airport and without me having a passport with me? Good luck with
that
. Do you even
have
a passport?”
He flushed. “Yeah, okay, you got a point. We’ll do Florida. Wherever you wanna go. We’ll figure it out later.”
“I want to go
home
, Seth.”
He sighed in annoyance. “Home is wherever I am, Soph.”
“No. Home is where I say it is. And I say it isn’t with you. And it’s not on this fucking mountain.”
He turned to the tent and began setting up the portable stove. “Yeah? Watch how good I can cook something for you. I can make you right at home. You’ll see.”
As Seth got to work, Sophia decided to stay quiet for now. She’d gotten through to him a bit, or at least enough to keep his hands off of her, to see her as a person rather than an object. She didn’t know how long she could keep that up, especially when she caught sight of the blaze far below. Flashing lights surrounded Sugarloaf Inn and all she could do was hope that Connor was okay, her heart pounding with fear for him.