Chapter Eight

Larissa

I stared at the balcony where Caspian had stood. He still looked the same. A memory flickered to life. He was on the sofa in the clubhouse drinking a beer. When he looked at me, a rush of heat pooled between my legs.

Don't go. You're going to college in the fall. It's time to live a little.

I started toward him. Almost immediately there was a loud screeching noise in my head. I gasped, grabbing my head with both hands as I darted behind a tree. I tried to block the noise, but I knew I couldn't. I wanted to pull the inserts from my ears. The pain would be even more excruciating if I tried to remove them again. Besides, they were too deep. When the loud noise finally stopped, I gasped for air, dropping to my knees.

Then his voice spoke to me. "Larissa, you know the rules."

I focused on what I needed to do. "Yes, sir. After I kill them, only then will the pain stop."

"You saw them at the party. What were they doing?"

"Caspian was making a deal with the senator. Ezra was drinking at the bar. Jude flirted with a woman." I'd worn a dark wig and a mask, never looking them in the eye. Jude laughed at something the woman said, flirting outrageously with her.

"Were they thinking about you? Missing you?"

"No."

"Does that make you angry that they didn't try to save you?"

I frowned. They acted as if I didn't exist. They hadn't protected me. They hadn't even tried to rescue me. None of them had. Amon was the one who helped me see the truth.

"Yes, it makes me angry!" I hissed.

"So it should. Now, return to me."

"Yes, sir."

Don't think, I reminded myself, or the pain would start again. Amon would think for me. He was the only one who cared about me. He fed and clothed me. He saw to all my needs. The Morelli brothers were evil, and I had to kill them before they killed me. Amon had saved me from them.

I stopped at the fence that ran along the edge of their property, slipping the white dress over my head. Beneath it, I wore darker tights and a top. I stuffed it into the backpack I had left, slipped it over my shoulders, and easily climbed over the stone fence.

I sat on top for a moment, staring at the lights glowing from the house beyond the trees. A long-ago memory surfaced of us chasing each other through the trees, kids playing without a care in the world.

No, that had only been a figment of a young girl's imagination. They never cared about me. They'd toyed with me, then laughed about how gullible I was. Eventually, Amon said they would each take turns with my body in horrendous ways until they'd had enough. Then, they would move on to someone new.

He'd stripped off their masks and had shown me who they were underneath. Just for me, so that I would know, he had taken secret videos of them torturing and then murdering their victims after they were through with them. Demons from hell, and I would never be safe from them. If they knew I was alive, they would try to capture me. Then, they would torture and kill me, too.

They would do the same to me that they did to those other women.

That's why I had to kill them first.