He smiled when my eyes landed on him. One side of his face pulled tight, and the other half showed half of his teeth. He would be a handsome man if he wasn’t so… gut-wrenching. One look at his eyes had me trembling. I tried to stand, but that’s when I felt my hands tied to an iron bed frame alone with my ankles. I looked around, and panic set in when I realized where I was.
The Hampton Mansion.
Old dolls stared down at me from the bookshelves, and the iron frame creaked every time I pulled on the restraints as if it were laughing at me. The old floral wallpaper had started to peel, and a jack-in-the-box sat in the corner.
Jack had been out of the box for a while. The spring that connected him to the box was rusted, and the paint on his face had chipped. He had one eye, and his hands were up in surprise, but a few of his fingers were gone.
It was the creepiest thing I had ever seen in my life, and Easton had bought the place. He wanted to live here! If I made it out of here alive, I was going to tell him this room needed to not be rebuilt and completely forgotten.
“Sweet Nora,” Willard ran his burnt finger down my face, and I flinched. “You don’t recognize me,” he said, turning away from me. “I understand. I…I don’t look the same. You were much younger the last time you saw me. I came back for you.”
“Listen, I don’t know who you are,” my voice wobbled as he stared at me through the eye on the burnt side of his face. It looked melted off, dripping like paint or wax. “But I don’t know you. My name isn’t Nora. It’s Luna. I’ve never seen you before. I swear. Just let me go. I promise I won’t tell anyone about this.”
His brows pinched, and he tilted my chin back, bringing his face closer to mine as he inspected me. “They haven’t told you.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. “Please, I don’t know you. I don’t know. Leave me alone.”
“I can’t do that, Nora.”
“My name isn’t Nora!” I screamed. “What do you want! Huh? What the fuck do you want?” I pulled on the ties against my wrists, and the rope burned my skin every time my skin rubbed against it.
“I had to get you away from those people. They weren’t safe.”
I decided to keep my lips shut. Whatever I said, it wouldn’t have mattered. This guy was a lunatic, and he thought I was this Nora chick, whoever that was. I was going to die in an abandoned house, freezing to death, and be attacked by an evil ghost. I knew I shouldn’t have listened to all those ghost stories. I knew it.
He looked out the window, pushing the old, discolored lace curtains to the side. They were ragged and torn from age.
“I escaped for you,” he said. “I carried your picture with me and came for you. I told you I would,
Nora. I told you.”
“I don’t know you,” I said between tears, fighting the urge to wail with fear. I didn’t want to give the man the satisfaction of seeing me scared. He’d probably get off on it.
“You know me,” he said. “You just don’t remember. I do. Ms. Williams, that fucking old lady was the reason you were taken. Rocky and Kathy, they helped keep you from me.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, shaking my head left and right. This man was mental.
He sat on the edge of the bed, the dirty mattress dipping from his weight. “Your mother had just given birth to you. You were beautiful. A little pink bundle of joy that fit in the palm of my hand, but I had done a lot of bad things, Nora, including killing your mother. She set me on fire though, so the bitch deserved it.”
I had no idea what this man was talking about. He was clearly delusional, but at least I knew where his scars came from.
Not that it mattered, but I had been curious.
“The police arrested me for my… passionate flare for setting fires, and they took you away from me. I’ll never forget Ms. Williams carrying you away. Your mother’s sister took you in. Tessa, I believed her name was. I didn’t want to hurt them, since they cared for you so much, but don’t you understand, Nora? You’re mine. You’re my baby. It’s my turn to have you now.”
I turned my head and puked, emptying my stomach of this morning’s breakfast all over the bed and floor. It smelled rancid. It couldn’t be true. It couldn’t be. My parents would have never lied to me like this. I look just like my mom. This man was lying; I shouldn’t believe him. He kidnapped me from the hospital.
He was wearing scrubs and had his hair combed back.
“I always said I’d come back for you, and I meant it, Nora.”
“I’m not your daughter,” but he knew my mom’s name.
“You know, you have a large inheritance. You’re the last of the Hamptons.”
“That makes no sense. If you claim to be who you say you are, then your last name is Hopkins.”
“Yes, but your mother’s name was Hampton.”