Terrorscape (18 page)

Not yet.
“Such a perfect martyr.”

She braced herself. The knife cut through her bra
straps. Then she heard it fall to the floor with a clatter
as he hurled it across the room.

“But then, we feel most alive when we are closest
to death.”

He shrugged off his jacket, scattering a handful of
green leaves over her prone body. “Basil. Also for
hatred.”

His tongue circled her breast, nudging one of the
basil leaves aside, and her strangled gasp brought
those pale, hooded eyes back to her face. His mouth
closed around the nipple and swallowing, for Val,
became impossible as his tongue did what the sprig of
jasmine had done earlier. She stared up at the ceiling,
with her heart crashing against her chest as if it were
trying to break free.

“No.”
“You don't agree?”
His teeth stung.
“Or you don't believe I could—would—kill you?”

She flinched, her muscles tautening as he blazed a
trail of hot sticky kisses across her skin.

 

“Oh, Val.”

 

He nipped her in reproof. Not quite as hard as
before, but it was still painful.

“You underestimate me.”
His tongue circled her aureola.
“You always have.”

He blew a jet of cool air on her damp skin, raising
goosebumps, and then, in a long stroke that lasted
from
hip
to
ankle,
stripped
off
her
jeans
and
underwear, keeping her legs parted with his knee.
Without breaking eye contact, he lifted his hips so he
could slip down his jeans.

He wore nothing beneath them.

Val started to scream. He covered her mouth with
his hand—the hand he had used to touch himself—
and she felt the head of his penis rub against her
inner-thigh, leaving a trail of damp stickiness in its
wake. She sank her teeth into the fleshy knot of skin
at the base of his thumb and writhed angrily, trying to
get free. To her horror, she felt him jerk and harden.

He slid his fingers between them, to toy with the
nub of flesh that twisted her mind and body both.
Discomfort became agony, with pleasure sparking the
edges like sizzling flame.

Her hips bucked, and his smile turned wry.
“Yellow roses,” he ground out. “For infidelity.”

He cocked back his hips and Val realized what he
intended to do only when he rammed into her,
tearing into her, and the ensuing pain flooded
between her thighs to form a cradle of fire.

She felt the rumble of his satisfaction, deep, all the
way from the very nadir of his belly and she dug her
nails into her palms. He was breathing harder, and
the pupils of his eyes had dilated making his irises
look black. “Scream for me, my flower.”

Sobbing, gasping so hard she could barely speak,
she told him what she thought he wanted to her. She
told him until she was hoarse.

It changed nothing.

 

It changed everything.

Chapter Eleven
Hyacinth

Jade knocked on Val's dorm. His relief when it
opened was palpable, though his face fell when he
realized that the girl framed in the entryway was
Mary.

“Jade! Hey! Long time no see. How's it—” she
saw
his
expression
and
faltered
“—hanging.
Is
something wrong?”

“Is Val with you?”

“No. She said she was going to see a friend. I
guess I thought she meant you.” Understanding
dawned, and her eyes narrowed. “Did she give you
the runaround? Do she and I need to have words?”

“No, nothing like that.” Jade drew in a deep
breath. “Shit. Um, can I come in? Please?”

The anger disappeared from Mary's face, leaving
only confusion. “Sure, but—the room's a mess. What's
wrong?”

“There's something I need to talk to you about.
Inside.” Jade glanced at both sides of the hall.
“Basically, I think Val's in trouble.”

“What kind of trouble are we talking here? Like,
trouble with the law trouble? 'Cause I don't want any
part of that.” She smiled; it was a hard smile, bitter
and jaded. “For obvious reasons,” she added.

Jade flushed. “No. But…it's bad.”

Mary allowed the door to swing open a little
wider, only then noticing that Jade was carrying a
shoebox under his arm. “What's in that box?”

“I'll show you. Close the door.”

 

“Oh heck no.” She slammed the door. “You didn't
bring drugs or anything like that in here, did you?”

“No.”
“A bug? There isn't anything alive in there?”

“No, nothing like that.” Jade paused and said
ominously, “I wish it was.”

“Christ.” Mary crossed herself. “I can't stand it.
My imagination's running wild. Open the dang
thing.”

Jade slid off the lid and tilted it so Mary could
peer inside. She stumbled back with a cry.

“Is that blood?”
“It's paint.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah. Smell it.”

Mary took another step back. “Uh-uh. I don't
think so.”

Jade reached into the box, ignoring the red flakes
of paint that speckled his hands like sores. He showed
her the mutilated chess piece. “I think…I think that
this is supposed to be me.”

“That's sick. So, so sick.” She shook her head. Her
skin lost a few shades of color. “Have you called the
police?”

“Not yet. I wanted to stop here first. I was hoping
to talk to Val—look.”
She read the card he held out. “Valerian Kimble.”
She frowned. “Who's that?”

“Our Val, I think.”

“No. Our Val is Valerie Klein…though the names
do sound similar, I'll give you that.”
“I don't think that's her real name.” Quickly, he
relayed the details of his earlier conversation with Val.
When he finished Mary said, firmly, “You need to call
the police. Now.”
“And tell them what? That someone left me a big
scary box? Maybe when they finish laughing me out
of the station they'll start to feel sympathetic.”
“They won't laugh—that's a threat. And Val is
missing.”

“It's a college town. People who are 'missing' are
usually having one-night stands or are crashed out in
the twenty-four-hour study room for finals. They
won't take it seriously, not unless she's been missing
for a while, several days at least, and they'll say that
this is some kind of fraternity prank.” He held up the
box. “Fucking Rush Week. Do you have internet in
here?”

“Through the ethernet, yeah.”
“Can I use your computer?”

She waved permissively at her open laptop.
“What are you going to do?”

 

“I'm going to Google this. Valerian's an unusual
name. We should get a hit, easily.”

Despite his reassurances, he wasn't expecting
much. Honestly, even though it always worked on TV,
real life was far more disorganized and vague. He
was surprised when the first search result was a
match, for a local newspaper called The Derringer
Tribune. He was even more surprised when he saw
the headline:
TEENAGE GIRL FOUND LEFT FOR
DEAD IN HOUSE OF HORRORS
.

“Dead?” Mary was reading over his shoulder.
“Holy hell.”

 

“Quiet a sec.”

Jade's eyes scanned through the article. He could
feel his stomach plummet with every word. Ignoring
Mary's questions, not that he even registered them, he
pulled up several more articles. Some were from
larger newspapers and after skimming through about
three of them, he was able to assemble the whole
story.

Valerian Kimble (17) had attended what she
believed was a theme party, along with her three
friends including then-boyfriend, James Lewis (17).
The host had been a man named Gavin Mecozzi (21),
a world-class chess player who had been, according to
the article, charged and then acquitted of sexual
assault—Val, at age fourteen.

Fourteen. Just a child.

The party had been the pretext for a hideous
revenge
scheme.
The
party
guests
had
been
encouraged to murder one another under threat of a
more imminent death at the hands of their so-called
host. Charlene Benveniste (18), Jason McLeod (18),
and James Lewis were listed among the deceased.

Lisa Jeffries (18) and Blake Dawson (17) had been
able to escape and alert the police shortly before
Gavin burned the place to the ground. Blake was
hospitalized
immediately
afterward
for
a
knife
wound that had turned septic. Brent Baylor (17),
charged with the murder of James Lewis, had been
captured while fleeing the scene and was currently
pending trial for second degree murder.

Valerian had been fished out from the bottom of
the swimming pool as if she were garbage, bruises
around her neck, lungs filled with water. According to
Nancy Ramirez, the paramedic who had resuscitated
her, the local officials had barely gotten to her in time.
She
had
been
hospitalized
for
a
broken
rib,
hypothermia, and other complications that weren't
detailed but were almost certainly psychological in
nature.

She had been so young—what would trauma like
that do to an impressionable mind?

(He didn't rape me.)
Was that true? Did it matter?
(It's just that I'm too selfish to be alone.)

The bastard had tried to kill her and all her
friends. If he could do that, he could do anything.
(I'm a terrible person.)

The sadness written on her face could fill entire
volumes.
(I thought you wanted me.)

His penis jerked at the memory.
(Not like that—like this.)
How could one girl—one person—go through so
much and still live?

“Valerian has vanished from the public,” he read
aloud, shifting his legs, “out of concern for her own
personal safety.”

“Oh my God.” Mary's voice startled him; he had
forgotten she was there. She was pointing at a picture,
an old school photograph. The girl on the screen had
red hair instead of black, green eyes instead of blue,
but her face wore the same haunted expression.

(My name isn't really Valerie Klein.)

“It's her.” Jade reached out to the image, wishing
it was the real thing. He dropped his fingers, and the
hand made a fist as it hit his thigh. “It's really her—
fuck.”

▪▫▪▫▪▫▪

 

She
awoke
to
the
silvery-blue
light
of
the
predawn alone.

For a moment, she thought it—everything—had
just been a horrible dream. A wonderful, horrible
dream that she could one day forget. She might even
have been able to convince herself that it hadn't
happened, like she did so much else these days, but
then her eyes landed on the sheets in their various
hues of rose, now dappled by peculiar brown stains.

Bloodstains.
Her
blood.

And then she realized that she was naked, her
clothes lying tattered on the floor like rags. What
remained of her clothes. It was the second-worst thing
in
the
world.
The
first
was
the
act
that
had
precipitated the ache of her ill-use; her memories of
the night before were coming in on a tide that bore
insanity and made her want to scream.

She wasn't quite sure how she had managed to
fall asleep, though she must have because the bedside
clock read 4:55 A.M. She remembered him collapsing,
slinging
an
arm
over
her
waist
with
an
easy
possessiveness. She had tried to slide out from under
him after several minutes, because she had thought he
was asleep, only to find herself trapped. He said,
coldly, “I don't recall saying you could leave.”

Then he ensured that she couldn't.

After he finished—more quickly this time, since
her cries of pain seemed to spur him to climax—she
had lain there, mute and paralyzed with fear, while
he caressed her trembling, unresponsive body and
whispered terrible things in her ear. He had told her
in that soft seductive voice generally reserved for
sweet nothings exactly what he had done to each one
of those girls.

She had wept. The thought of those families,
puzzled and bereaved, broke her heart, and she wept
because she alone knew why they had been killed—
she and Gavin, both. She wept, because she knew that
those families' grief would explode into hatred,
because they, too, would blame her as everyone else
had. As
Gavin
himself
did,
after
each
horrible
recollection while stroking her hair and licking the
salty tears from her face.

How dare you run from me. Did you think I would let
you get away? I let you run as far as you felt safe, and then
I hunted for you. You are mine. Your heart is mine. Your
body is mine. Your flesh, and your blood—all mine. You are
my trophy, Val, and I will mount you as I best see fit.

And then he'd laughed.

Until Gavin, she had never seen a man's naked
body. She had never realized how overpowering the
male form could be. How much of a weapon it was.
The female form, by comparison, was naught but an
open wound, easily hurt unless carefully tended.

The tiger lily, now limp, was pressed against her
cheek. Leaves of basil were plastered to her body, and
a few star-shaped jasmine flowers were scattered over
her breasts. There were roses now, too. Yellow ones.
He must have stolen them from the front garden;
drops of dew still spattered their velvet petals.

Yellow roses, for infidelity—and for dying love.
Festering love. Love turned wicked and spiteful and cruel.

She started to sit up. That tenderness made her
sob, and she clapped a hand over her mouth before
the sound could escape because she saw now, in the
gloom, that he was up and sitting at the chessboard,
which he had righted upon the broken nightstand
and set up for play.

Val hugged the sheet to her chest when he rose,
silently, bringing the chess journal with him. Had he
added her name to those long lists of wins and losses?
No doubt which column she would fall under now.
He caught her looking and closed it with a muted
thump that brought her eyes to his face.

“You always struggled so in chess,” he said, “I
wonder if that gave you a taste for it.”

 

“I hate chess.”

She had to force herself to remain still as he
approached. He bent from the waist to kiss her,
raking his nails lightly down her bare back. She could
taste vintage on his tongue; it was port, and the
metallic taste of the tannins, which reminded her so
much of blood, made her want to gag.
“I was not referring to the game itself.”