Chapter 7

7

Scout

As soon as Cash is out of sight, I scramble for my panties and drag them up my legs, moisture flooding into my eyes as I snatch up my purse, already eyeing the exit located in the front corner of the theater. Before I ran sprint down the empty back row, however, I realize there is a phone in the cup holder. Cash’s phone. He left it.

Without second guessing myself, I pick it up—and I run for my life.

Murmurs go up around me as I run as fast as possible, my attention locked on that glowing red sign. Exit. Exit. Exit. That’s all I want to do. Break out of this nightmare that seems to have swallowed me up like a giant whale.

Cash Jenner is my stalker.

I’m such a moron that I didn’t see it before now. I’m a naïve idiot.

All that ridiculous playacting, convincing me he was getting into the mindset of my stalker, when all along it was him. He must be laughing at me. I made it so easy for him to take what he wanted, in the twisted way he wanted. I handed him over my virginity and my trust on a silver platter, like the wide-eyed freshman that I am. He made me feel things that were scary and unexpected, but so consuming that I couldn’t stop absorbing, taking, giving him more.

All the while, he was my stalker.

The man who has been threatening to kill me for months if I even look at another man.

He’s deranged.

I’ve been looking over my shoulder every second of the day because of him.

Unbelievable. I have to call the police. I have to tell my brother. Now. Immediately.

So why don’t I?

Why do I sprint across the parking lot and across three lanes of traffic, instead, vanishing behind the gas station and furiously calling an Uber. One minute away, thank God. I’m covered in cold sweat, my sides heaving in and out. I’m shaking like a leaf. How is this happening? How could I fall head over heels for my stalker? Even now, when I think about the things he said to me, how I want to be preyed on, there’s a part of me that knows he was right.

That’s what scares me most of all.

I want to run away from him, but I also want to run toward him.

Allow him to drag the depraved urges out of my body. Make me his love and his toy.

I’m going to carry you in my arms around campus like a princess, then bang you like a whore. That growled promise continues to circulate around my head, over and over and over, but the one I should be focused on is the line that revealed him.

Scared or not, you’d suck it like one of those grape fucking popsicles you can’t get enough of.

He wouldn’t know that I basically live off popsicles unless he’s been watching me. I’ve never eaten one in front of him, as far as I know. He doesn’t follow me on social media, so he must be watching me from a backup account.

The Uber pulls up in front of the gas station. I peek around the corner of the building, and I don’t see him, so I run toward the vehicle, prying open the rear door and throwing myself into the back seat. It hits me in that moment that I can’t go to my dorm, because he’ll find me and…what? Will he kill me for running away from him? Will he make me a captive?

I staunchly ignore the hot shiver that runs down my spine and lean forward to speak through the plastic partition. Just as I do this, I see Cash. He’s exiting the movie theater with his fists at his sides, chest rifling up and down, looking positively out of his mind with rage. I choke on my fear, ducking down in the seat. “Go, please. Go. Get on the highway. I just need to change my destination a little. I’m sorry.” Through the car windows, I can hear Cash roaring my name and I curl into a ball on the seat, half terrified, half wanting to jump out and run to him.

Who am I anymore? What did he do to me?

“Where to, then?”

“Uh. Umm…” I desperately try and gather my thoughts. “There is a Motel 6 on the south end of the college campus. Take me there, please.”

“Yup.”

A minute later, we’re on the highway and I exhale in relief, sitting up in the backseat.

Think. Think. What do I need to do to stay safe? Undetected?

Obviously, he has been tracking me. But I have his phone, so he shouldn’t be able to see my location now, right? What if he has more than one phone? Or he’s tracking me on a laptop. I bite my lip indecisively for a moment, then roll down the window, throwing my phone out into the night. I can’t take any chances. Knowing it’s a fifteen-minute drive to the south end of campus, I look down at his phone, as if trying to see inside of it.

A person’s life is on their phone.

What’s on Cash’s?

I tap the side button, seeing a code is required to enter.

With a sense of impending doom bubbling in my belly, I enter my birthday and the phone unlocks, forcing me to swallow a whimper. But it’s nothing compared to the sound I make when I look down at the icons on his home screen and see a folder labeled Angel. After I work up enough courage, I tap the folder and the screen is flooded with images of me. Some of me walking to and from class, at the movies, shopping, on the bus, reading beneath a tree, sleeping.

And that last picture was taken from inside my room.

In the dark.

Breath racing out of control, I continue my search, trying to pretend the awful throb between my legs doesn’t exist, because how could something so unconscionable turn me on? How? There are documents in the folder outlining my class schedule, my daily activities, the names of my friends, teachers, every person I’ve ever interacted with, accompanied by notes about each one of them. My likes and dislikes. My shoe, bra and T-shirt sizes.

We’re at the Motel 6 before I realize twenty minutes has passed.

There is an incessant buzzing in my ears, my mouth is cotton dry.

My nipples are hard, like hot metal.

I’m uncomfortably wet—and not just from Cash’s fluids, which continue to leak out of me, turning my panties sopping wet. I have to face facts, there is some animal trait inside of me that Cash found and cultivated, forced me to acknowledge. I’m…excited by the fact that he followed and photographed, threatened and stalked me…as much as I’m horrified by it. But what feeling is more dominant? Excitement or fear?

Love or terror?

I don’t know.

But as I thank the Uber driver and climb out of the back seat, intending to go inside and rent a room for the night, I somehow know I won’t be calling my brother, my parents or the police. I just know that I won’t. Because through exposing Cash, there is every chance I will expose myself as someone who enjoys his ferociousness. His obsession with me.

And deep down, I hold the firm belief that he won’t hurt me.

Something inside me knows that.

At least, he won’t hurt me too bad.

Right?

Regardless, no matter how I feel about him or what he did, the fact remains that he lied to me. Duped me. Made me believe he was helping me catch a stalker, when in reality, he was indulging in his fantasies about me. I won’t ever put up with lies.

I think…I think I want to explore the part of me that comes alive in the eye of Cash’s storm. His aggression and possessiveness. The part that likes to hunt me. But there is no way I can let him get off scot-free for being untruthful with me.

He’ll pay for that before he ever lays a finger on me again.

Maybe instead of going to the authorities, I’ll do something else.

We’ll be equal partners in this twisted relationship or there won’t be a relationship.

So, I’ll show him that.

I’ll give him a taste of his own medicine…and see how he likes it.