Cursed (Book 1, The Watchers; Young Adult Paranormal Romance) (21 page)

Chapter 11

We got out of bed
soon after.  Brand went to the kitchen to make us some breakfast while I hopped
in his shower and took a quick bath.  After I fixed my hair, put some make-up
on and dressed in the spare set of clothes I had brought remembering to put my
phone in my back pocket in case Tara needed to contact me, I went down to the
kitchen and found Brand preparing plates with freshly made blueberry waffles
and bacon.

While we were
eating, Brand got a call.  I’m not sure what was wrong but it sounded urgent. 
I was pretty sure it was Rose Marie on the other end.

“Listen, I need to
go to Abby’s for a few minutes.   Would you mind staying here?  I’ll be right
back.”

“Sure go ahead. 
I’ll be fine.”

He raced out the
door like the house was on fire.  I heard the wheels of his Porsche squeal
against the pavement of his driveway as he left.

To be honest, I
was glad to be alone for a while.  Ever since the last attempt on my life, I
hadn’t really had time to myself.  Walking out to the back of Brand’s house, I
went to stand by the lake shore.  The morning air was nice and cool.  It was
September and the first traces of fall were showing themselves with cool
mornings and changing leaves.  I leaned down to pick up a rock and tried to
skip it across the calm surface of the water.  Of course it didn’t work.  It
just sank to the bottom.  But, I didn’t give up trying.  I think it was on my
fourth attempt that it happened.  Something hit me hard on the back of my
head.  The only thing I remember is falling to the ground in a pool of darkness
with a loud ringing noise reverberating inside my head.

I remember someone
pulling on my arms and tossing me somewhere cold and hard.  I tried to make
myself wake up but was only rewarded with another thump across my head sending
me back into the darkness. 

“Lilly,” I heard
the voice but it sounded like it was coming from miles away.  I slowly opened
my eyes.  I was in a large, dark, concrete room tied to a chair by ropes.  A
faint light like from a fireplace made everything glow an ominous red.  There
was a bright blue light standing in front of me.  I tried to focus my eyes on
the shape within the light.

It was Will.  But
it was an eight year old Will.  He looked just like I remembered that night he
saved me from drowning in the lake.

“Will?” I asked,
sure it was just a figment of my imagination.

“They’ll be here
soon, Lilly.  Hang on,” he urged.
     I couldn’t hang on I was too tired.  I quickly fell back into
unconsciousness.

“Lilly.”

Was that Will
again?

I felt someone
touch my face tenderly and whisper in my ear, “Lilly, wake up.”

I pulled my mind
as hard as I could out of the darkness.  When I opened my eyes, I saw Will, the
real Will, kneeling before me with a tortured look of concern on his face.

“Will?”

“Hold on Lilly,
they’ll be here soon.  Don’t worry.”

From somewhere I
heard a metal door open and close.

“I’ll be here with
you.  Don’t worry.  She can’t hurt you.  Just keep her talking until they get
here.”

And then he
vanished, like he had never been there at all.

“Oh, no,” I heard
a female voice whine.  “I hoped you wouldn’t wake up just yet.  I’m almost
done!”

I looked up and
saw Michelle.  Her face was illuminated by the glow of the fire where ever it
was.  She was still wearing the black polo shirt Brand had given her the
previous day.

“What are you
doing Michelle?” I asked trying to do what Will had said, keep her talking.

“I’m getting rid
of you so Brand doesn’t have to keep pretending to like you.  We both know he
likes me more.”

“What? Are you
crazy?”

“No,” she actually
had the audacity to sound offended.  “He just needs to be rid of you so he can
tell me how he really feels without feeling guilty.  With you out of the way,
we can finally be together.”

“What makes you
think he likes you?”

“Well isn’t it
obvious?”  It was then I saw the syringe in her hand.

“Not to me, why
don’t you explain it to me.”

“It’s just the way
he looks at me with all that pent up longing.  And then yesterday when he gave
me the shirt off his back, well, who does that for someone they don’t care
about?”

“Michelle, you
don’t want to do this.  You’re not a killer.”

“Normally I would
agree with you, but I’m running out of time.  The Black and White ball is
coming up and I know Brand wants to take me.  With you finally out of the way,
we can have a good time.  Can you imagine the look on Nora’s face when I show
up to the ball with Brand on my arm?  She’ll have a fit!”

“How do you plan
to kill me?”

“Oh,” she looked
at the syringe in her hands as if she had forgotten about it.  Maybe I
shouldn’t have brought her attention back to the task at hand so soon.  “Can
you believe the molecular biology lab here has all three ingredients they use
for lethal injections?  I wasn’t even sure what they were until I looked it up
online.  See, I don’t want to hurt you, just kill you.”

“What are you
going to do with my body?”

“Don’t you know
where you are?”  She asked taking a step closer to me.

“No.”

“We’re in the
basement of the science building.  They’ve already turned the furnace on since
it’s been chilly the last few nights.  I’m just going to incinerate your body. 
No one will ever think to look for your bones in there.”

“They’ll figure
out it was you eventually, Michelle.  Do you really think someone like Brand
would want to be with a murderer?”

A savage look
transfigured Michelle’s once innocent and shy face.  “Shut your mouth!  You
don’t know him at all.  He’ll be glad to be rid of someone like you.  You may
be pretty but he knows what’s really important.”

“And what makes
you better than me?”

“Well, I’m smarter
for one.  What else does he need?  We’ll connect on a completely different
level than the two of you could possibly ever reach.”

She started to
walk closer to me.  I desperately tried to think of something else, anything
else to keep her talking.

“Do you know what
Brand’s favorite things are?”

She stopped.  “Not
yet.  Why?”

“I just spent the
whole day learning what they are for myself.  Would you like to know a few of
them?”

“Sharing
information with the enemy?” She taunted.

“Well, it’s
obvious you’re going to win.  You might as well learn all you can about Brand
while I’m still alive.”

She folded her
arms over her chest, careful to make sure the syringe needle was pointing up.

“Go on.”

“Well, he loves to
paint portraits.  I posed for him yesterday.  If you get a chance to do that,
I’d highly recommend it.”

“Oh, I will.  Go
on.”

“He loves to
cook.  He’s made me the most wonderful meals I’ve ever had.  He’s modest about
that talent but it’s something you’ll appreciate.  What’s your favorite thing
to eat?”

“Quit stalling!”

“He loves
football,” I said quickly, not wanting to earn anymore of her ire than I had
to. “That’s why we were at the game yesterday.  And his favorite color is
black, like the shirt he gave you to wear.”

It was then I
heard it, the faintest scraping of metal against cement.

“He loves to
sail,” I said, hoping what I had heard was the door to the room opening.  “He
has a boat docked by his house.”

“Yes, I saw that,”
a dreamy look came over Michelle’s eyes.  “We’ll probably take a lot of trips
together once you’re out of the picture.  Maybe he’ll take me to the Mediterranean.  I’ve always wanted to go there.”

“If he loves you
as much as you think, he’ll do anything he can for you.”

Shadowy figures
moved behind Michelle, I couldn’t make out how many but I was thankful to see
them.  I just had to keep her talking.

“His favorite
movie is Casablanca.  You know the one with Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid
Bergman?”

“Everyone knows
that movie.  What else?”

“He sleeps on the
same mattress as the Queen of England.”

Michelle’s hands
dropped to her sides.

“You slept with
him?” The ominous tone in her voice made me instantly regret sharing that bit
of information.

“We just slept,
nothing else.”

“Sure.  That’s
what people like you always say.”

“What do you mean
people like me?”

“Nora always tells
the boys she goes out with that she’s a virgin too.”

“But I am a
virgin.”

“Liar!  Girls like
you always lie!  We’ll you won’t be lying anymore!”

Michelle took a
step closer to me.

What happened next
was a blur of motion.  I saw Detective Randall and another police officer rush
Michelle at the same time.  Detective Randal wrestled the syringe out of her
hand and the other officer soon had her in cuffs.  She protested the whole time
that she was doing the world a favor.

Brand came rushing
up to me and started to tear at the ropes binding me to the chair.

“Brand!” I heard
Michelle yell.  “Brand, tell her you love me not her!  Tell her!  Let go of
me!”  She tried as hard as she could to wrench out of the custody of the
officer dragging her out of the room.  I could still hear her yelling for Brand
even when I couldn’t see her anymore.

When I was finally
free, Brand held me so tight I could barely breathe, but I didn’t care.  I knew
I was safe.

“I’m so sorry. 
I’m so sorry…” he kept repeating like a litany.

Finally I said,
“Stop saying that.  This wasn’t your fault.”

I looked up into
his face and saw his tears for the first time.  His expression was one of guilt
and pain.

“You can’t hold
yourself responsible for a crazy person,” I told him.  “She was delusional
about you, Brand.  It’s not your fault.”

“But it is.  You
just don’t understand.”  He held me even tighter.  Eventually, he slowly let me
go.  It was as if he were saying goodbye to me in that moment.  I could feel
him building a wall between us, but I wasn’t sure why or who it was supposed to
protect. 

Once Michelle was
secured and on her way to the police station, Detective Randall asked me
questions.  I told him all I could but left out the part about seeing Will,
both of them.  When I looked around the room we were in, I didn’t see Will
anywhere.  Had I imagined him?  He seemed so real to me and he knew help was
coming.  But where had he gone?

“I’ll need you to
come down to the police station tomorrow to make an official statement,”
Detective Randall said.  “Maybe we’ll know more then about why she wanted to
kill you.”

“Like I said, all
she told me was that she wanted to get rid of me so she could be with Brand.” 
I felt the arm Brand had around my shoulders tense.  His feelings of guilt over
Michelle’s murderous behavior were understandable but totally uncalled for. 
How could he possibly think he was at fault for her insanity?

“It could be she’s
just insane and gravitated towards you two.  Seeing you happy together probably
triggered something inside her mind and the only way she could be happy was to
get you out of the way Ms. Nightingale.  It’s not an uncommon occurrence. 
Jealousy is a powerful motivator to someone who is already mentally unstable.”

Detective Randall
told me to call him at his private number before I came to the police station
the next day so he could make sure he was there to take my statement
personally.  I thanked him, and Brand took me back to my apartment.

When we got there,
Will and Tara came running outside.  Tara launched herself into my arms
crying.  I hated the fact I had made Tara cry so much lately.  I looked up at
Will standing close behind her and noticed he had the same clothes on that he
did in my hallucination in the basement.  How was that possible?  Or maybe I
hadn’t imagined him being there.

Tara finally
pulled herself together.  “Girl, this is it.  No more almost dieing you hear
me?  My heart just can’t take it.”  She hugged me tighter not wanting to let me
go.  Finally, she went into her take care and protect mode. 

We all went into
the apartment.  Tara sat with me on the futon, Will sat in the rocking chair
across from us, and Brand stood leaning against the kitchen counter with a
distant, detached look on his face.

I told Will and
Tara what I had told the police about what I remembered.  But, I had a few
questions of my own.

“How did you find
me?”

“Your phone.” 
These were the first words I’d heard Brand say since we left Detective
Randall.  “We used y our GPS signal in your phone.  Once I found you missing
from the house, I used my computer to see if you had your phone on you.  After
I narrowed down where you were, I called Detective Randall.”

I pulled the phone
Tara had asked me to keep close by out of my back pocket and stared at it. 
Who would have thought such a simple device would be my saving grace?

“Once we knew
where you were we just had to find where exactly she was keeping you,” Brand
continued in a subdued tone as if reciting something memorized.  “Luckily I saw
her going down to the basement.”

“I saw something
while I was down there.”  I looked at Will.  “I saw you Will. Twice.”

“I was here with Tara the whole time, Lilly.  You must have been imagining things.”

“I saw you the way
you looked that night when you pulled me out of the lake.  Do you remember that
night?”

Will looked
startled by my statement.  “Of course I remember that night.  Who could forget
something like that?”

“Then I saw you
again, dressed just like you are now.  You told me to hang on because help was
coming, and you told me to keep her talking until they arrived.”