Glancing down, I realized that I had trampled Rellik’s dirty clothing. I picked up his jeans and slid my hand into the bulging back pocket, pulling out a brown snakeskin wallet. I glanced toward the open bathroom door before flipping it open. There were quite a few bills in the money slot, as well as a business card for Silver Lake Psychiatric Facility. It was well-worn, as if it had been in his wallet for years. Why the hell would he have a card like this? The smaller pockets held movie stubs, a hotel key card, and a picture of a girl who looked startlingly like me. I glanced up at my face in the mirror and back at the picture.

I slid the picture back in and pulled out his driver’s license. My eyes danced over the information typed beside his picture.

“Ryder Bentley,” I whispered under my breath as my heart felt like it was going to explode from my chest. How was it possible? Of all the people to run into? It was chance. It had to be. The warnings from Phantom began to make sense. I dropped the wallet onto the ground, and it made a loud clapping sound as it hit the tile. My hand was over my mouth now, and I struggled to keep my composure. Who the hell did I just sleep with?

I fell against the doorframe, my eyes struggling to adjust to the darkness of the room. I pulled clothing from my bag and struggled to get dressed in a pair of jeans and fitted T-shirt before Rellik woke.

I didn’t have a plan, but I knew it was now or never if I wanted answers.

Crazy

Chapter 16—Rellik

Crazy: a mentally deranged person

“Where is she?”

I wiped the sleep from my eyes as I sat up, yawning from exhaustion. The voice grew louder from down the hall. I made my way to the front door to see who was yelling. The woman looked exhausted, still wearing pajamas. Her eyes locked on to mine. “Tell me where Katie is right now!”

“She’s not here, Janel.”

“I know about you liking my daughter! Bryce told me all about it,” she spat angrily, my mother stepping in front of her. “Tell me where she is, or I’m calling the police!”

“He told you he doesn’t know.” Mr. Thomas stepped in front of me, folding his arms over his chest. I was thankful someone was finally taking my side.

“How long has she been missing?” I stepped around Mr. Thomas, my concern for Katie growing.

“Like you don’t know.”

“I don’t. I haven’t been able to talk to her since…” I shook my head as I placed my hand on my mother’s shoulder. “My phone. Where is it?”

My mother looked down the hallway behind me before pushing by and heading for the kitchen. She returned a moment later with my phone in hand. As it turned on, it began to beep as messages came through. I snatched the phone from her hands, my eyes dancing over the rapid-fire texts. Katie was desperate to see me, and I knew exactly where she had gone to meet me. I shoved by her mother, practically knocking her down the front steps as I took off into the dark just as the rain began to fall.

I reached the woods, breathless and terrified. Pulling my phone from my pocket, I dialed her number as I made my way through the trees. Approaching our spot, I could hear the faint ringing of her phone, but she wasn’t answering. I yelled her name, shoving the phone into my pocket as I made my way into the small clearing. I stopped short when I saw Katie, lying on the ground, partially submerged in a puddle of blood and rain.

* *

“Get up! Get up now,” a frantic voice called from what sounded like a tunnel. I blinked open blurry eyes and focused on the beautiful brunette in front of me. Her eyes were pleading with me, but I wasn’t sure what it was she wanted. “Get up! Get the hell up!”

“Katie,” I groaned, each word melting into the next like liquid as I struggled to stop the room from spinning, thankful I wasn’t in the woods on the day my world came crashing down.

She grabbed my arm with her hand, her nails digging into the flesh of my bicep.

“Ouch! Fuck!” I sat up and ran my hand over my eyes. “Ella? What the f**k happened? Are you all right?” Her other hand shook as she gripped a small silver gun. “Whoa! Where did you get that?”

“I told you I had a gun in my purse.” Her voice was shaky as she spoke, but her finger was on the trigger. She was looking at me now, the real me. I could feel it like a coldness that crept down to my bones.

“So you did.” I sat up slowly, my open palm toward her so she knew I wasn’t going to hurt her. “Why is it pointed at me?”

“You tell me, Ryder.”

“You went through my things?” I took a deep breath and tried to swallow back my anger. “Why did you do that? Were you stealing from me?”

“Oh, you don’t get to feel violated.” Both hands gripped the gun to steady it.

“So you know my name.” My eyes darted to my duffel bag. “What else do you know?”

Her eyes followed mine.

“What’s with the card for the psych ward? You’re f**king crazy?”

“You’re holding me at gunpoint, and you’re questioning my sanity?” She wasn’t asking the real question.

“Do I sound like I’m joking with you? Who’s the girl?”

“What girl?” I shook my head, slowly leaning a little more forward. There it was, the question that was burning in her mind.

“The girl in the picture who looks just like me. Why do you have it?”

I ran my hand over my mouth, biting back the curse I wanted to unleash. “Question time is over. Either pull the f**king trigger, come back to bed, or leave.”

“No! I have the gun, so I am in charge.”

This wasn’t going to end well, but I knew that before I slept with her.

My eyes narrowed as I slowly reached forward so I wouldn’t startle her. I wrapped my hands around hers as she gripped the gun and pulled her toward me until the cold barrel pressed against my bare chest.

“Do it,” I whispered. “Fucking do it. Tell the world some crazy ass**le locked you in his hotel room and forced himself on you. Trust me, they’ll believe you. But that’s not what happened, Ella. The truth is, you came back to my hotel room willingly. You spread your legs for a f**king stranger without even knowing his goddamn name. You practically f**king begged me for it. And now you’re the one holding a gun and calling me crazy?”

Her grip loosened, and I slid the weapon from her hand. I immediately grabbed her shoulders and flipped over so I was on top of her, pinning her arms next to her head. I adjusted her arms so I was able to grip her wrists in one hand above her head, my other hand against her neck, forcing her to look me in the eye.

“You want to kill me, Ella? Huh? You want to f**king kill me?” My grip tightened as she struggled to turn her head, my fingertips on her jaw so as to not cut off her air supply. Our lips were practically touching, and under different circumstances her heavy panting would have turned me on.

“I didn’t pull the trigger.”

“You f**king should have because if you ever pull a stunt like that again…” My voice trailed off as her eyes filled with tears. “Don’t. You don’t get to be sad. You don’t get to be a f**king victim. You put a f**king gun to my heart!”

“I’m not a victim.” Her eyes narrowed, tears running down into her hair.

I bit back my rage and lowered my voice so my words wouldn’t fall on deaf ears. “That girl…that girl in the picture…” I squeezed my eyes closed, momentarily trying to calm my racing thoughts. I never talked about Katie to anyone. Her memories were mine alone. “She was a victim. She was…everything to me, and she is dead because of it.”

I felt the column of her throat move under my palm as she swallowed hard, her heart racing under my fingers.

“So if you want to play the victim with me, Ella, I will f**king make you one.” I kept her gaze for a moment before slowly releasing my grip on her hands. Her fingers immediately went to the hand that circled her throat, gripping tightly over the bracelet Katie had made me.

* *

“This will be your room. You will share it with Mr. Tryston Locklyn. He’s not very friendly but he keeps his side of the room clean,” The woman smiled as she nodded to the boy across the room. He didn’t look up or acknowledge us. I didn’t know it then, but that boy would soon become one of my best friends known as Trigger.

“Why’s he here?” I asked as I stepped inside of the small bedroom.

“You’ll have to ask him that.” She held out her hand as her eyes danced over my wrist. “No jewelry. It’s against the rules.”

My fingers slid over the bracelet Katie had made me and my insides boiled with the thought of taking it off.

“No.”

“Mr. Bentley, you either hand over the bracelet or I get someone in here to physically remove it from your body.”

“No.”

Trigger flew from the bed and lurched at the woman, her body falling to the ground. “Hide it! Hide it!”

I slipped inside of the bedroom and took the bracelet from my wrist, tucking into a small grated air vent as Tryston was being held down and medication was being given to him through a needle.

I finished my tour of the facility and was served what they claimed was lunch, although it tasted like cardboard. I sat alone as the room came alive with whispers, everyone wanting to know who the new kid was.

A tray slammed down on the table next to me, startling me from my thoughts of Katie.

“What f**ked up shit did you do?” A boy sat down on the bench seat next to me, his dirty blonde hair in his eyes and a dark scar around his throat. “I’m Damon Astor but everyone calls me Hangman.” He slid his finger around the scar on his neck and laughed.

“I’m Ryder,” I mumbled as I picked up my sandwich and took a bite, the bologna tasting sour and old.

“Well, Ryder. There are only two rules for the new guys. If you don’t take your meds, I get first dibs. But trust me; you need drugs to make it through this boring shit. Two, never f**k with Thomas Baker, or as we like to call him PhanTOM. Get it?” He waved his hand, an amused smile on his face. “He’s like a f**king animal. I can f**k with him because he likes me, but if you did he’d probably eat your heart or something. He’s really crazy. Not like you and I, he’s legit bat shit.” His smile grew and all I could think about was escaping this hell hole.

Erratic

Chapter 17—Ella

Erratic: unpredictable

I struggled to calm my breathing, counting erratically as Rellik pushed from the bed and grabbed his shorts, yanking them on as he cursed under his breath. He paced the floor for a moment before he wandered into the bathroom, slamming his hands against the tile, biting out a curse that sounded like a roar. I didn’t have a second to waste as I pushed from the bed and ran for the door. I flung it open, letting it bounce hard off the wall behind it, the sound echoing through the room. I took off in a full sprint, barefoot and without any of my things. As I hit the rows of cars, I struggled against the urge to continue on. Instead I ducked down between the vehicles, pressing my back against the wheel of an old maroon Cadillac.

“Ella,” he called out in an eerily playful tone. I put my hands over my mouth to calm my breathing as I closed my eyes. My mind immediately took me back to those days I had hid inside my closet and begged to not be found. “You’re really beginning to piss me the f**k off.” His voice grew closer as I crawled behind the vehicle and stilled at the rear end of a jeep.

“You surprise me. But I bet I could surprise you too.” I could hear his muffled footsteps nearby. “When I heard from Maric that someone was digging into my past, initially I was pissed. That chapter of my life was closed. But when I saw your face, I couldn’t believe it. It f**ked up my head, Ella. I almost didn’t come back to find out why you were so interested in me. But I never really had a choice. You knew that already, didn’t you?”

I kept my body pressed against the bumper of the jeep, the sun slowly rising and illuminating the world around me. If I ran, he’d catch me. I had no choice but to wait it out and hope for some divine intervention.

“What are the odds of me being there to save you in that alley? I mean, you’d probably have a better chance of hitting the lottery. I know what you’re thinking, I was there buying some pills, and it was just an odd coincidence. I gave myself a plausible reason to be there. I also showed you that my reasoning was validated. It’s quite easy to push someone into trusting you when you don’t have a lot of time.” He laughed, and my stomach turned. How could I not know who he really was? “I never expected that ass**le to put his hands on you. That wasn’t part of the plan. I guess it was a good thing I was there…watching you.” His voice was somber, and he grew quiet for a moment. “The eviction was simple. Did you know you can buy those signs almost anywhere? You should really learn about tenants’ rights, Ella, because that isn’t how the process works. But at eighteen who can really blame you for being so f**king stupid.”

He began to walk again, and I struggled to crawl, stones digging into my knees and palms as I rounded another vehicle.

“Your landlord may be pissed about those screw holes in your door, but since you haven’t paid your rent in a while, I’m sure I only expedited the process.”

I began counting under my breath, struggling to keep my words silent as I begged my heart rate to slow.

“You want me to keep going? It’s really quite impressive. I’ve got to tell you, I was a little f**king pissed about Phantom sticking his nose in my goddamn business. He never really did understand what it was like to love someone. It doesn’t go away, even after death.”