Текст книги "Never Die Alone"

Автор книги: Lisa Jackson

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No way! No frickin’ way!

She threw her weight backward, pulling with all her strength, trying to cut off his air supply or sever his windpipe or break his damned neck.

Letting out a garbled growl, he stamped his powerful legs, then threw them both back against the wall, squeezing her body between his muscular back and the rough cement.

Bam!

Pain jolted down her spine.

Her teeth rattled.

The breath was forced from her lungs in a whoosh and a groan.

She felt her grip begin to slip.

No!

She held on as he pounded her, taking a step forward, then throwing all his weight backward once more as he clawed at the rope and gasped.

“Die, bastard!” she hissed.

“Zoe?” Chloe cried.

Crack! The back of her head slammed against the wall.

Pain exploded through her skull. Lights flashed behind her eyes. She thought she might pass out and the rope began to slip in her hands.

For the love of God, just die!

As Chloe cried out again, Zoe snapped back to awareness and yanked hard on the rope. She wound it tighter until her shoulder muscles screamed and the nylon cut into her fingers.

The beast responded by clawing at the rope. Sputtering and moaning, he staggered away from the wall, a little less steady this time.

She braced herself, pulled back so hard that her arm muscles ached.

His muscles bunched. With a muffled roar, he threw himself backward again. She banged against the wall and he pinned her, squeezing her against rough concrete. Every bone in her body rattled and her bare skin felt scraped raw.

She felt the rope slipping. No, no, no!

Desperately she clung on. Tried to breathe.

“Zoe!” Chloe screamed from the shadows in the corner. “Help me!”

Oh, Jesus, what do you think I’m trying to do?

Zoe’s fingers were cramped and bleeding. She dragged in a breath, determined to hold on.

The monster’s back slackened. He stumbled slightly and then caught his balance as he gasped and sputtered. He was strong, but his knees were giving out.

Good! Gritting her teeth, she wound the rope around her fingers and yanked even tighter. Both his hands were on the noose, scraping and pulling. He rocked to and fro, his legs wobbling.

That’s it, you sick whack job. Die! Take your last damned breath.

Wobbling, he sank to his knees.

Still, she clung to the rope as his throat rattled, a hiss of air still escaping. Damn it! With all her strength, she wrenched the cord so hard she was certain the bones in her hands would break. She didn’t care. “Chloe!” she yelled. “Get yourself free.”

More wailing.

Sometimes her twin was such a wimp!

“Pull yourself together! The scissors. Cut yourself free! Come on, Chloe! Do it! Do it now!” She was barking orders as the big man teetered on his knees. “Die, you son of a bitch,” she growled into his ear as gravity dragged him to the ground. “Just frickin’ die!”

As he slumped to the floor, pinning her leg, she didn’t let go, wasn’t about to take any chances. Still holding tight to the cord, she searched the gloom and ignored the pain screaming up her thigh. Damn it all to hell, he was a heavy bastard.

With difficulty, she unwrapped the cord from one hand, then in the gloom, gripped both ends with the other. Slapping and sweeping the floor with her free arm, she frantically searched for a weapon.

When he moaned, she tugged the rope again, but her strength was nearly zapped. Chloe was still whimpering in a far corner. Shit! As usual, Zoe had to do everything. Scrabbling wildly with her free hand, she hit something sharp. Metal. The scissors!

She slid backward and kicked at the beast of a man with her free foot to roll him off her leg. Finally, she let go of the cord around his neck. Then she curled her bloody fingers through the eye ring of the scissors, turned, and with all her might, stabbed him in the throat. The blades went deep into the soft tissue, right into the welt created by the cord.

Chloe screamed.

Zoe wasn’t finished. With an effort she pulled at the eye rings of the scissors and forced the blades open, trying to slice whatever tissue she could. Then, she slammed the scissors shut again.

The beast roared over a sickening slurp of blood and muscle and tendon. Zoe hoped to high heaven that she’d severed something important—the carotid, his jugular, his spine. The ensuing sucking sound curdled her blood, but she couldn’t think about it. She only hoped the bastard bled out quickly, for both their sakes.

Zoe crawled across the floor toward the sound of her sister and found Chloe naked, bound, and trembling against a wall. Her eyes were wide, her breathing shallow and rapid.

“Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God,” Chloe babbled, quivering and pale. “You killed him.”

“I hope so.”

Chloe started crying.

“Pull yourself together!” Zoe ordered and started cutting her sister’s hands free with the scissors. Her fingers cramped and she, too, was shaking, but she forced the bloody blades open and closed, then sawed with them as Chloe stared in horror. “Come on, come on,” Zoe ordered herself, and shot a glance at the motionless blob that was their abductor. The cords were tough, and part of her longed to crumple into a pile like her sister, but adrenaline and fear spurred her on.

And Chloe was no help at all. “I can’t, I can’t, I can’t,” she chanted, her eyes wild and teary. “Oh, no . . . no, no!” She began to pant, gasping for breath.

“Shit.” Zoe winced, working one prong of the scissors into the coils of a fat knot.

The cord over Chloe’s wrists weakened and finally gave. “Come on, help me with your ankles,” Zoe ordered, but Chloe was shivering and wild-eyed, panting and damned useless.

“Chloe!” Zoe gave her twin a sharp shake, then worked at the ropes around her twin’s ankles. “Come on. We have to get out of here. Now!”

“No. Oh, God. He . . . he!” She was staring petrified over Zoe’s shoulder, and for a split second Zoe thought the freak had awakened and was dragging himself up to pounce again. A quick look confirmed he was still unmoving. Hopefully dead.

Still, her twin was frozen in place. “I . . . I can’t . . . he . . .”

“Stop it!” Zoe ordered.

“I . . . I . . . I can’t.” Chloe sobbed, staring at the naked man prone on the floor, blood still pumping in a dark pool blooming around his body. “I—”

Slap! Zoe swatted her twin on the cheek.

“Ow!”

“You can and you will,” Zoe insisted, finally untying the rope around Chloe’s ankles.

As Chloe started unwinding the cord from her neck and kicking her feet free, Zoe spied a ladder propped upward, extending through a hole in the ceiling.

Zoe pulled Chloe to her feet. “Come on, let’s go!” Even in the garish half-light she could see a red welt rising on her sister’s cheek. Zoe didn’t have time to care. Served the ninny right. Propelling her sister toward the ladder, she took one last look at the freak still bleeding out. “Get going!” she commanded. “Up!”

“Geez, you didn’t have to hit me.” Chloe was rubbing the red spot above her jaw.

“Yeah, I did. Now! Up, damn it. Climb!” What was wrong with her twin?

With maddening slowness, Chloe began the climb up the teetering ladder. Come on, come on, come on! Zoe mentally urged, right on her sister’s heels. Impatient, she pushed her upward on the unsteady rungs. As Chloe reached the top, the great unknown, Zoe heard a pained groan come from behind them, an ugly noise rising from the shadows.

Her heart sank.

The freak wasn’t dead.

CHAPTER 3

“What’s wrong?” Olivia’s voice was a balm, always had been. Soft and sensual, with a bit of a Southern drawl. Sexy as hell.

Bentz sat on the edge of their bed, felt the mattress beneath the thin quilt sag. He’d tried to enter the bedroom quietly so as not to disturb her, but of course that had been impossible. “A case.”

“Father John.” Not a question.

“Yeah.”

Sighing, she rolled over and hit the bedside lamp. In the soft illumination he saw the concern in her large eyes, the dusting of freckles over her nose. “Want to talk about it?” Yawning, she swept a few blond curls from her face.

“Nah.”

“You never do.”

He chuckled, leaned over, and brushed a kiss across her cheek. God, she was beautiful.

“You’ve had a beer?” No judgment. Just a question asked as she pulled herself onto her elbows and cocked her head to one side.

“Or two.”

“So the case is really bad.”

“I hate that bastard.”

“I know. We all do.” She was wearing an oversized T-shirt but was still incredibly feminine.

He chuckled at her pout, unbuttoned his dress shirt, peeled it off, and became serious again. “This guy, a fake priest of all things. I thought he was dead. I mean . . .” He pulled his T-shirt over his head and yanked off his pants. “What the hell? Couldn’t he have had the decency to die in that damned swamp?” Angrily, he balled the dirty shirt. “I mean, all of my cases are bad. You know that. Hell, I work homicide. But some of them, some of the killers, like this one, make it personal.”

“You’ll get him,” she said, smiling up at him in the shadowed room with its gauzy curtains, huge bed, and coved ceilings. “You always do.”

“I thought I already had,” he muttered, tossing his shirt into a darkened corner where a hamper stood near the closet. He missed, of course, the tee catching on the side of the hamper. Not that he cared. He thought of all the cases that he hadn’t closed, the killers who’d gotten away. There were several where he’d known who the criminal was but hadn’t been able to gather enough evidence to put the bastard away. And there were a few where a criminal was convicted, the case against him sufficient, but still Bentz had wondered if the right man had ended up behind bars. Those, thankfully, were not even a handful.

“Hey, can’t you forget about it for a few hours?” Olivia said. She’d let one long leg slide from beneath the quilt, and reached up to touch his cheek. With a gleam in her eyes and a lift of one already arched brow, she added, “I’m awake, and the baby’s asleep.”

He couldn’t help the grin that grew from one side of his jaw to the other. “Why, Mrs. Bentz,” he asked, “are you trying to seduce me?”

“Never,” she said, but dropped the hand from his face, slowly tracing his neck and chest to fall into his crotch. “Uh-oh.” Feigned innocence.

Jesus, he loved her.

She let a finger trail between his legs.

His erection, already at half-mast, stiffened.

“You’re wicked,” he said, and leaned over to kiss her.

“Only for you,” she said into his open mouth as he scraped back the blankets with one hand and stretched out beside her. Her arms surrounded his neck and she kissed him with a passion that had been with them since the first time they’d made love. Yes, they’d had their bumps in the road. Their relationship had been far from perfect. But the heat between them, that raw lust and deep yearning, had never faltered. And now, as her hands sculpted his muscles and his blood quickened in his veins, he closed his eyes, lost himself in her, and wished that the lovemaking would never end.

“Come on, hurry!” Zoe said, pushing her sister from that hellhole. The ladder had opened to the stone floor of a small one-room building that was more shed than living space, and she’d had to push her sister up and out. After they had made their way up the metal rungs, Zoe had taken the time to pull the ladder to the ground floor of the darkened shed. If the psycho in his rubber apron somehow had the grit and strength to wake up and try to follow them, he’d be trapped in his own lair.

Fitting, Zoe figured, as she knocked over a chair and tripped while ushering Chloe outside to the darkness of the night.

“What about him?” Chloe asked, her voice tremulous with fear.

“He’s dead.”

“You killed him?”

“Yes! Move it! ”

“Good. Twisted psycho-freak!”

The old door scraped as Zoe tugged it open. Then she led her sister into the dark night. The cabin was dilapidated, ready to topple onto the sparse, weedy clearing around it. A forest surrounding the small patch of ground seemed to block out any light. From here, there were no visible neighbors, no signs of civilization. If only she could hear the hum of traffic on a highway or the clack of a train on tracks or the deep moan of a foghorn on the river. But there was no sound beyond their tattered breathing, the steady patter of rain, and the sough of wind rushing through branches of nearby trees. Then a dog, as if disturbed from slumber, gave a sharp “woof.”

“Where are we?” Chloe whimpered, sounding as if she might start crying again.

“Don’t know. Come on!” Grabbing her sister’s hand, she started running along what seemed to be a path cutting through a dense thicket of trees. The night was warm and wet, rain falling softly, summer in Louisiana evident in the earthy smell and dense vegetation. From somewhere in the distance she thought she sensed the roll of a river, the smell of water.

There was no moonlight. Clouds blocked some of the stars and snuffed out most of the light.

“We . . . we need to call someone,” Chloe said as they sprinted.

“Good idea. Got your cell?”

“No, but—” The slumbering dog was now awake and barking wildly.

“Neither do I. Just keep moving.”

“But my feet . . .”

“Yeah, I know.” Zoe’s feet hurt, too. They were running barefoot through the woods, not a stitch on, probably getting bitten all over. Although the lane was now overgrown with tall grass, the gravel long driven into the ground, the twin tire tracks were still visible. Zoe stubbed her toe and bit back a curse. The weedy lane had to lead somewhere, she figured, to a county road or private drive or something. Their only course was to follow its winding path through the looming trees.

Every once in a while she glanced over her shoulder, worried that somehow the freak would escape from his own prison and break free, running them to the ground. Impossible, she told herself. You killed him. You’re a murderess.

“Good.”

“What? What’s good?” Chloe asked in the darkness, her fingers still clutched in Zoe’s hand.

“Nothing.”

“Oh.” Disappointment. “Shit!” Chloe squealed and ducked as a creature of the night flew by. “Oh, God, was that a bat?”

“Don’t know. Don’t care.”

“An owl. That was it. Tell me it was an owl.”

Who cared? “Sure. An owl. Don’t worry about it. We’ve got to find someone to help us.”

“We’re naked!”

“I know. That’s the least of our problems right now.” Zoe kept pressing forward, hoping beyond hope that they would find safety and that the abomination who had captured them was dead. Why the hell had the freak kidnapped them? What was he doing at the workbench, cutting up the wire and ribbon? And why did he sing that stupid birthday song? Nothing made any sense. How did he even know it was their birthday? Who the fuck was he? “Come on,” she stepped up the pace, her mind racing faster than her bare feet. Obviously they’d been targeted because of their birthdays. He had known. How? Had he been following them? Stalking them?

Happy Birthday, dear twinsies . . . Wasn’t that what he’d sung? As if the two of them being twins and sharing a birthday was significant. Holy shit, what was going on? “Hurry, Chloe,” she whispered urgently as the forest seemed to close in on them. It was her twenty-first birthday and, for the first time in her life, Zoe Denning personally felt the presence of evil in the world.

Pain screamed through his neck and throat.

An even deeper anguish came from the knowledge that the bitches had escaped.

For the first time ever, he’d lost both victims. He closed his eyes for a second and gathered himself. Willing the fire around his neck to subside, he reached up and felt the blood drying on his throat. He’d been lucky there. That cunt Zoe had tried to kill him with his own damned shears and rope. His lip curled in disgust at his weakness. But he wasn’t dead yet.

Wincing, he rolled over and climbed to his feet. His head was clearing at last. A quick survey and he saw the devastation in the basement, the cracked light, the scattered ribbon, the bloody scissors that had been meant to end his life.

He let out a hard growl as rage engulfed him. Didn’t they know he was doing them a favor? Taking their lives before they turned into adults? Saving them from the horrors of being separated, wrenched apart?

He’d been careless. Complacent.

And Zoe had gotten the drop on him.

Un-fucking-thinkable.

Blood had crusted down his neck, and he knew he was lucky to be alive, but the fury that consumed him didn’t allow him time to give himself a pat on the back. Not when the twins had gotten the better of him, left him for dead and found a way to break free. Fuck. Wait until Myra found out. Shit, he could already hear her taunting him, reminding him of what an idiot he was.

“Son of a bitch!” he roared, but his voice emerged as a whisper, a painful mew. He realized whatever that bitch Zoe had done to him with the rope around his neck and the scissors thrust into his throat was going to keep him from speaking very loudly, at least for a while. Not that it mattered, but it pissed him off.

Furious, his blood pumping, he pounded a heavy fist on his worktable.

She’d get hers.

He’d see to it.

He had to get them. Chase them down. Bring them back. Finish his work. He checked the clock. There was still time.

But a headache pounded behind his eyes and his throat felt as if all the demons in hell were gnawing at his flesh, chewing on him from the inside out. With difficulty, he staggered for the ladder and found it missing. “Goddamn it!” he hissed, then closed his mouth as pain exploded in his neck. With difficulty he peered upward and saw the foot of the ladder visible in the open door of the crawlspace.

How had he let down his guard, letting them escape?

Despite his wounds, he found the stool near his workbench and placed it under the opening in the ceiling. Standing on the stool, he reached up, took aim, and swung his belt over the protruding leg of the ladder. Eventually he was able to hook the buckle over the bottom rung. Slowly he pulled, but the belt slipped, fell back, the clasp nearly hitting him in the face.

“Shit!”

Again he swung the belt upward and hooked it. This time the connection was more secure. He tugged. The ladder moved. Gently, he pulled, forcing the ladder to the opening and levering it through. One final tug and gravity took care of the rest; the ladder slipped down to him. He secured the feet and a second later he was clambering up and checking the small cabin for signs of the twins. Nothing.

Outside the darkness was thick, no moon glow or starlight. A misting rain filled the air. He closed his eyes and strained to listen to the sounds of the night. Over the pounding of his own damned heartbeat he heard a hoot of an owl and the steady croak of a bullfrog and the rush of wind through the trees. But no frantic footsteps. No hushed voices. Nothing to indicate the twins were nearby.

Fuck!

Frustration burned through him with a savage heat, and even though he was stripped bare, wearing only the damned apron, he began to sweat. Had he lost them? The twin girls who could ID him? His teeth ground together as he searched the darkness. They couldn’t be far. He hadn’t passed out for that long, less than fifteen minutes, and they were both naked and on foot.

He didn’t think twice as he rounded the shed where his dog was going ape-shit, barking and howling loud enough to raise the dead. For a second, he thought about releasing Red, but he didn’t want to take the time and his van would be so much faster. He reached into a deep pocket of his apron and found his keys. There was only one way out of this place, and the lane was long.

“Hurry!” Zoe stage-whispered, still yanking on her twin’s hand. The rain was coming down harder now, fast and furious, so loud that she could barely make out the rush of the river. The sudden noise of a dog barking wildly in the distance alerted her senses. “Come on.” She couldn’t get away from that horrid cabin fast enough. Sure she’d left their captor bleeding out, probably dead already, but the all-consuming fear that they somehow wouldn’t escape kept her racing on the uneven track.

“Ow! Shit!” Chloe stumbled and let out a groan.

“What?”

“I think I cut my foot. Goddamned rock.”

Too bad. “You’ll be all right.” Zoe kept pulling on her sister, forcing her to run.

“I . . . I don’t know.” Chloe’s whiny tone was back. “How did this happen?” she demanded, breathing hard. “Who was that psycho? What did he want from us?”

“Who knows? As you said he’s a psycho.” But whatever his sick plans were, they included their birthdays.

“Jesus, he was going to kill us, Zoe. I know it!”

“Just keep going,” Zoe said, tugging her sister along as a new noise cut through the night. A rumble of sorts. “Wait!” She skidded to a stop, wet grass and gravel sliding beneath her feet.

“What? But I thought—”

“Shhh!” Over Chloe’s complaints and her own breathing, Zoe thought she heard the sound of a motor, a car’s engine. Trying desperately to locate the direction, she closed her eyes, straining to listen. “You hear that?”

“What?”

“A damned car or truck or—oh, shit! Maybe it’s him!”

“What? No, I thought you killed him.”

“I thought I did, too.”

“Where is the car?” Chloe looked over her shoulder, one way and then the other. Even in the dark night Zoe saw the wide whites of her sister’s eyes, felt her fear. “I don’t see anything. No headlights, no—”

“Just run!” Zoe yanked hard on her sister’s hand. They had to leave the road. Zoe couldn’t believe the freak could have survived her attack, but maybe he had an accomplice. Chloe was right, no headlights shined in the wet night, but the uneven growl of an engine bore down on them, and it was coming from the direction of the cabin. “Come on!” Zoe tore through the dark woods, dragging her sister with her. From the way Chloe lagged behind it was clear that Zoe had always been more athletic, while Chloe more of a student. Tonight it didn’t matter. Chloe was going to have to dig deep and push herself if they were going to escape this living nightmare.

Panic reigned as the sound of the vehicle’s engine came nearer. Oh, God, please let him drive past. Let him think we’re long gone. Maybe they should hide, just stop and use the cover of darkness as their cloak, but that seemed like inviting danger. No doubt he had a flashlight or lantern and some kind of a weapon. A gun or machete or whatever.

Run, run, RUN!

Dragging her sister, Zoe veered off the road, over a berm of weeds and grass. Finally the rain was letting up a little, clouds moving, a bit of moonlight offering some visibility.

“We should’ve listened to Mom,” Chloe said as they stumbled and raced to the edge of the woods. “We should’ve gone to her apartment.”

Shoulda, woulda, coulda.

“Then this dickwad wouldn’t have found us.” Chloe was breathing hard, panting.

“Too late.”

“Or I should never have broken up with Tommy. If he were here, he would know what to do—”

“Tommy’s a prick and we don’t have time for this!” Why the hell was Chloe thinking about her exboyfriend now?

“But he loves me!”

“Oh, for crap’s sake, just hurry!” Together they scrambled through the undergrowth. Thorns pricked, nettles stung, the sharp edges of pinecones cut into their feet as they hurtled blindly through the trees. Chloe thought she heard and smelled water ahead, maybe a creek or river or—

Thunk!

“Ow! Shit!” Chloe yelped, her hand sliding from Zoe’s as she fell. “Damn it all to hell.”

“Shh!” Zoe ordered, sliding to a stop and turning back toward her sister. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled and she whipped around. Was there someone else here? Suddenly she felt dozens of pairs of unseen eyes watching her. Which was crazy. No way. She took a few steps toward the sound of running water. Aside from the lunatic she’d left in the cabin and whoever was driving the car, they were alone . . . right?

Craaack.

A twig snapped.

Zoe spun quickly, searching the darkness. “Chloe?” she whispered.

No answer.

“Chloe!” Which way was her sister? She had to be nearby. “Where the hell are you?” Her voice was a raspy whisper as she squinted into the shadows. “Chloe?”

“Over here!” Her sister shouted from the suddenly quiet copse. But her voice came from a few yards off, as if she were moving away from Zoe.

“Where are you?” Zoe whispered.

“Here!”

The engine had quit running and now . . . Oh, God, Zoe saw the sweep of a flashlight’s beam flickering through the foliage. How the hell had he found them? It’s not the freak. He’s dead. You killed him. You had to have killed him. He couldn’t have survived.

“Maybe it’s help,” Chloe ventured.

“No!” Zoe wasn’t convinced. “We’ve got to get out of here,” she shrieked, her arm scrabbling in the air, searching in the direction from which she thought she’d heard Chloe’s voice. “Run!”

“Don’t leave me!” Chloe cried.

Zoe turned and plunged into the dense growth, racing toward the sound of her sister’s voice. A few steps in her legs met the resistance of something heavy and cold. By the time she realized it was a fallen log, she was going down.

Crap! She tumbled down, rolling to a stop against a stump. “Oooph!” Sharp pain splintered through her ankle.

“Zoe!” Chloe cried as the beam of the flashlight strobed through the trees, searching.

No!

They were seconds away from being discovered, and Zoe couldn’t let the searcher find her twin. No way! Zoe stood a chance against whoever was hunting them down, but she had to think fast to save her sister. Forcing herself back onto her feet, she tried to keep weight off her tender ankle as she waved and yelled and screamed to divert the hunter’s attention from Chloe. “Hey!” she shouted at the beam of light. It moved quickly, bouncing as if whoever was holding it was running. “Hey! Over here!”

But the light didn’t swing in her direction. Instead, it veered over into the brush many yards from her, toward her sister. Horrified, Zoe watched the watery beam shift and circle, homing in.

Suddenly the beam landed on Chloe. Cowering and ghostly in the light, she seemed rooted to the spot, frozen in fear.

“Chloe, run!” Zoe screamed as she struggled to see the hunter in the thin moonlight. It was a big, hulking form. The hairy man in an apron. The monster was alive! Somehow he’d survived!

Sick inside, she screamed at the top of her lungs for her sister to get on her feet and escape. “Go! Run!”

But it was too late. In the next instant the freak pounced on his prey, springing with the agility of a lion.

Chloe let out a shriek as the light cut out.

Oh, God!

“There’s still time!” he growled, his voice a gravelly whisper in the damp night.

Instinctively, Zoe had lurched toward her sister, but now, trapped in the muddy darkness, she froze. She’d lost her bearings! She stared into the night, willing her eyes to focus in the moonlight. As her eyes adjusted she saw him hovering over her shocked twin. It looked as if he were striking her again and again, but as her focus sharpened Zoe realized he was tying Chloe up. The beast was subduing her, trapping her, just as a spider traps its prey . . . for later.

Zoe sank onto the wet ground, her fingers scrabbling over the earth and mud, searching for a weapon—a rock, a stick, anything. What had he said? There’s still time? As if there were a deadline. Her fingertips located a root, but she couldn’t dislodge it. Damn it, there had to be some stone or . . . nothing!

“Help!” Chloe cried, and Zoe sprang to her feet only to feel an excruciating pain skitter up her leg. Jesus!

“Zoe! I can’t—”

And then Chloe’s voice cut off, as if she’d been gagged.

“Let’s go,” he croaked.

“No!” Zoe screamed, hobbling toward them. Terror rushed through her as she watched him haul her sister to his shoulder and begin walking toward the road. “I’ll be back,” he growled in that horrid voice. “Don’t worry. The party won’t start without you.”

Zoe took a step forward, intent on chasing him down, on somehow maiming him and saving Chloe. After all, she’d done it before, but his chilling words echoed through her brain.

The party won’t start without you.

The party?

And then she knew for certain that this was all about timing—about their mutual birthday. Whatever his twisted plan was, it involved both sisters, not just one, otherwise he wouldn’t have taken the time or chance to kidnap them both. The bastard needed both of them to do his sick work, and that gave Zoe some power. The only way to save Chloe was to save herself first.

With a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, Zoe pressed into the forest. The pain in her ankle was crippling and her chances of outrunning him were nil, but she had to try to escape and lure him away from Chloe. She had to make sure the clock kept ticking. Then she’d double back and save her sister. There wasn’t much time, but this, she felt, was her only option.

As she ran, she heard him give chase.

She had a head start because he’d taken the time to put Chloe into his vehicle. Dear God, if Chloe had the brains and the ability, maybe she could drive away and get help! But those thoughts were futile. Chloe was too passive, too introverted, too damned weak to help herself. Chloe was the classic victim. That’s why it’s up to me to save her, Zoe thought as she hobbled through the dark woods.

Closer he came, crashing through the underbrush.

Oh, Jesus!

He was gaining on her!

Over the rush of water and the rasp of her own ragged breathing she heard the pounding of his footsteps, snapping twigs as he rushed forward.

Her heart froze.

Keep moving. Just keep running.

Lunging forward, she brushed branches from her face. Thorns scratched against her bare legs, but she kept moving, plunging through the darkness. Her heart was beating frantically, pulsing in her ears when she heard his breath coming in hard, fast gasps.

So near!

So damned close.

Even though her twin was tied up, she hoped Chloe was using this distraction to try and escape.

Hurry, hurry, hurry!

“It’s no use, bitch,” he said, his voice so close to her she flinched. Oh, God, he was right behind her! Adrenaline spurred her legs faster just as she felt fingernails swipe over her bare shoulder and fall away. “I’ve got you!” His foul stench told her that he was close, inches away. He took another swipe at her, this time grabbing her arm. Zoe leaped, trying to break free of the pincer of his grip. Her shoulder wrenched as she yanked her arm back and his moist hand, sweaty and probably bloody, slipped away.