While her back was still turned, I made swift and quiet moves down the stairs to make it across the living room and into my bedroom. Each step closer was a threat, but my feet still moved forward with eyes trained at her back, knowing every turn of the house better than anyone. All the lights downstairs were off, and as soon as I made it through my bedroom door, I slid to my knees, pulled up the blankets, and shoved my hand under the mattress on Ollie’s side.
My heartbeat pulsed in my ears, and my eyes burned when my fingers never touched metal. I lifted the mattress. The gun was gone. Ollie took it with him.
Suddenly, a rope wrapped around my neck and tightened, cutting off airflow to the point I could no longer breathe. My eyes bulged, and I clawed at the rope, trying to pull it free. Leigh shoved my face into the mattress and pressed her knee into my back, yanking back tighter. My chest burned and my limbs fought, terror consuming my every sense as the twine cut into my flesh. “I’m sorry, Mia,” she said, “but you have to go.”
Ethan transported me to this place before. The place where I could drift into a world where only Ollie and I lived.
I felt myself slipping to that place.
My heart thumped.
It was warm and quiet.
My heart thumped.
Only peace and freedom.
My heart thumped.
But green eyes flashed before me. Promises, dreams, and a fight to never let go. My eyes squeezed shut as a single tear slid over the soaked sheets, and I threw my head back until a jolt of pain erupted inside my skull. The rope loosened, and my chest begged for oxygen, gasping and coughing as I flipped around to face her. Leigh launched back at me, and I bent my leg back and kicked her between the legs before standing to my feet.
Before she was able to steady herself, I took off to the kitchen. My cell phone was gone, and I grabbed the home phone off the wall. After dialing 9-1-1, my entire body shook as I snatched open drawers in search of a knife. I’d set the kitchen up, placed everything in their spots, but couldn’t get my mind together to find a single knife. The call disconnected, and I tried calling again in a desperate panic. By the time my fingers clasped around the handle of a knife, Leigh had gripped my hair and yanked me backward as the knife crashed to the floor.
The two of us fought in a power struggle, hair pulling, fists flying, gasping for air as we both begged for a solid breath. Once I managed to maneuver and pin her to the ground with my legs straddling her waist, she punched my left temple, and my entire body flew to the tile. A deep moan from the pit of my stomach escaped. I lifted my head to see the knife had slid across the floor and against the counter.
Inch by inch, I crawled across the floor as blood dripped from my face onto the tile. But the adrenaline and fight to survive temporarily numbed the pain.
“Bloody hell, I underestimated you,” Leigh muttered under her breath. “You’re one crazy bitch.” She stood over me as I laid over my stomach, crawling and eating away the distance between me and the knife as the taunts continued.
Once the tips of my fingers touched the knife, I grabbed it and kicked her legs out from under her. Leigh fell on her back, and I shuffled back over her, pressing the cold metal to her throat. “You walked into the house of a certified psycho,” I reminded her. “You haven’t seen crazy.” Her dark eyes went wide, and she froze beneath me. Digging the edge of the sharp knife into her flesh, tears held in the corners of my enraged eyes as thoughts of slicing her open invaded me. It would be so easy. I had her right where I wanted her. The pulse in her neck slammed against the silver blade, and I couldn’t pry my eyes away.
Struggling to hold myself back, I reached my arm up and over the counter for the phone to call Ollie to stop me from killing her.
He picked up on the first ring.
“I’m sorry,” he immediately said, and the sound of his voice granted the tears to fall from my eyes. “I dropped Leigh off hours ago, but had to go back for anoth—” he paused, hearing my harsh breathing from the other end. “Mia, what’s wrong?”
I bit my lip as Leigh stared at me from the ground with tears in her eyes and a knife to her throat. “Ollie …” I croaked through a whisper. Sucking in a quick breath, I let it slowly release between my lips, my knife-holding hand shaking against her throat, threatening to stab her in the neck and watch her bleed out. The war inside wasn’t over. It would never be over. It was always there, lurking, waiting. Evil thoughts blurred. Visions of her life slipping away, her eyes closing, the void taking over the both of us. It seemed so peaceful. Final. And I was exhausted. “… I’m going to kill her.”
“Who, Mia? Talk to me. What are you doing?”
“Leigh. She broke in. I’m sitting on top of her. A knife to her neck. She can’t leave this house with her life. This is my home. Our home,” I rambled as Ollie muffled the phone and talked low to someone else to call the police. “Ollie?”
“I’m right here. I’m on my way. Listen to me, Mia, I’m begging you. Don’t do this and stay with me on the phone,” his voice was frantic, and Leigh swallowed with tears staining her cheeks. “Are you listening to me?”
A beat passed, and Leigh wiggled under me to try to break free. I pressed the edge of the blade against her flesh, and the teeth bit into her skin. Blood trickled down her throat onto the tile. Leigh stopped. “Yeah,” I whispered.
“Close your eyes, baby,” he calmly said. “Are they closed?” I slammed my eyes closed and tried to inhale through my nose as I fought the urge to cut deeper. I nodded, but he couldn’t see and continued anyway, “Over two years ago, back in my dorm, you came through the vent with this crazy belief that kissing was more intimate than sex. Do you remember?”
I nodded, sniffling.
“Mia?”
“I remember.”
Ollie let out a breath. “Then you slid over my lap, and my heart stopped inside my chest. I couldn’t think. I could hardly breathe, love. But when your eyes hit mine, a change happened. Inside you. Inside me. Your eyes, they lit up, and I was no longer afraid. You went on, talking about science and this forbidden kiss, and all I could think about was the fact you eventually would be gone, and the panic returned. I never wanted to lose that contact. I never wanted to be without you,” he choked and paused to take a breath. “I dragged you closer, laid my head to yours, living in that moment for as long as possible. Because you managed to give me something I’d been searching for my entire life, Mia. You gave me you, all of you, without even realizing it,”—chaos erupted as police broke through the door, guns raised, and the knife slipped from my trembling hand onto the tile as I fell back against the counter with the phone clutched to my ear, tears spilling from my eyes— “The funny thing about it all, you were wrong all along, love. Sex, a kiss … it took way less than that. I only said those things at the time … Because, so badly, I just wanted to kiss you.”
Men in suits and gear dragged Leigh away while another one gripped my arm and pulled me off the floor. The phone dropped, breaking once it hit the tile.
Blue lights flashed up and down our street from outside and through the windows of my home. I sat over my couch with two officers standing before me, questioning me about what happened with a blanket wrapped around my shoulders.