The hallway and outside lights go out, cutting off my words and leaving us in complete darkness and total silence. I blink and suck in a deep breath, trying to slow my racing heart. Blood rushes in my ears, momentarily deafening me. What the hell is going on? Looking around, I notice that even the green light to my DVR is off. He’s cut the power. But how? It isn’t storming outside. The stars were out when I looked out my window a minute ago.
“This isn’t funny,” I snap, my chest aching from my heart beating so hard.
The silence swallows me, and I blink, trying to adjust myself to nothing. You know when you imagine a spider crawling on your arm, and you scratch at it as though it’s really there? That’s how I feel right now. I get that feeling creeping up my spine that has my fear rising again. It’s not Seth. He messaged me earlier that he had plans tonight when I asked him if he wanted to come over and watch a movie.
I don’t move. I don’t breathe. Seconds pass before I hear footsteps. But they’re outside my bedroom door not inside. The banister creaks as they grip it with their hand, making their way slowly up the stairs. Oh, God no. There’s more of them. That’s why he hasn’t moved. He’s waiting for help. “Please …” I say as tears begin to sting my eyes, and my anger rises at how hopeless I am. “Just go …”
“Can’t do that,” a voice whispers from my right.
I jump and slap my hand over my mouth to keep from yelping in surprise. A hand gently touches my side, and I begin to shake. “WHAT DO YOU WANT?” I scream this time.
Voices chuckle, and I try to catch my breath. I spin around in a circle. How many are in my room?
“To play a game,” a male voice says softly, right up against my ear. And I jerk away. My body heat rises at the closeness of a stranger in my room, and my hip runs into the corner of my nightstand. Shit! That’s going to leave a bruise.
I reach over, wrap my fist around my lamp that I know sits on it, and throw it across the room. Seconds later, you hear it shatter against a wall. Not wanting to stand here like a sitting duck, I run for my bedroom door. If I can get downstairs or outside … but just as my fingers wrap around the doorknob, a hand twists in my hair, yanking me to a stop. I cry out, my hands flying to the one that holds me. I claw at the hand as my scalp stings from them fisting my hair. “Please … don’t …”
My back is pulled into a hard body and another hand comes up and slaps over my mouth. I try to catch my breath through my nose, but it’s not working.
My chest rises and falls fast, and I cuss myself for not wearing more clothes. I’m your typical cliché in every horror movie. The one I laugh at when she ends up getting stabbed or dismembered in a brutal fashion.
A warm breath hits my ear as the person who holds me leans down to whisper. A shiver of fear runs through me at the same time my thighs tighten. “I thought you wanted this, Becky?”
My entire body stiffens at his words. And not because of how he called me by my sister’s name but because of who said it.
Deke!
My fear is doused like fucking water thrown on a fire and replaced with anger. I start to squirm in his hold and try to twist around to punch him, kick him, anything. When it gets me nowhere, I lean my head forward the best I can and then slam it back. I smile when it makes contact with something, and he growls.
He removes his hand from my mouth, and I suck in a deep breath. “You motherfucker …”
He lets go of my hair, and before I can run to the door again, he wraps an arm around my waist, picks me up like a rag doll, and tosses me onto my bed, face down. My fists grip the already tangled comforter, and I try to crawl away, but he jumps on top of me, straddling my ass, and his force makes my headboard slam against the wall. His weight pushes my body down into my mattress. I try to push myself up with my hands, but he grabs them and yanks them behind my back.
“Deke …”
He crosses my wrists and wraps something hard and rough around them, and then I hear the zipper as he pulls it tight. Shit! The zip tie pinches my skin.
“Stop!” I fight him. He shifts, and then I’m rolled onto my back. I cry out as my hands get smashed underneath our weight.