A buzz sounded through the panic room, and a chill crept over my skin. Whoever was outside was using the intercom.
Drawing a couple more deep breaths, I climbed up off the floor and opened the panel beside the door, which would show me whoever was outside. Unsurprisingly, it was the gas-masked attacker who'd just missed me as the door closed.
Biting my lip, I stared at the screen. Did I know this person? Or were all the gas-masked fucks just hired muscle? I sure as fuck wasn't letting him in, regardless of whether I knew him or not. So I didn't know what the point of buzzing me was.
And yet he buzzed again.
My temper got the best of me, and I stabbed the talk button on my panel. "What the fuck do you want?" I snapped.
"Open the door, Madison Kate," the man responded. His voice was muffled by his mask, his identity still a total secret. He was head to toe in black, even wearing gloves, so there were no distinguishing tattoos or marks.
I scoffed a bitter laugh. "Yeah sure, let me just open the door and let you murder me. Shall I make it easier and just shoot myself in the head so you can save some bullets?"
There was a long pause where I imagined my attacker might be pondering how useful that would be. If my offer hadn’t been dripping in sarcasm, that was.
"Open the door, Madison Kate," he repeated after a moment. "I won't hurt you. I'm trying to keep you safe."
My jaw dropped. Then realization washed over me. This was my stalker. My actual stalker. In the fucking flesh. Holy shit. Holy shit!
"Madison Kate, they can't keep you safe," my stalker continued, his tone totally flat and even. Not a shred of emotion carried through, and that just scared me all the more. "Look at what happened the other night. You almost died because those boys don't care about you. Not really. Not like I do."
What. The. Fuck.
All the messed-up, sick, and twisted things my stalker had done over the last year crossed my mind in a flash. The dead animals. The Barbie dolls. Drew getting her throat cut, me getting drugged and locked in a trunk, the human heart, the mutilated blogger... the list went on. And then there were the crimes against my mom. Her attack and rape. Her pregnancy.
Fuck. Holy fuck.
Terror flowed freely through my veins, making my whole body tremble, but I didn't take the bait and reply. Instead, I turned my back on the door and made my way over to the surveillance desk. There were eight flat-screen monitors mounted on the wall, and a tap to the keyboard brought them all to life. In an instant, I had eyes on the entire estate, but I couldn't see my guys anywhere.
I spotted plenty of unconscious or dead assailants, all in black and none of them looking remotely like my guys... So that was something.
"Madison Kate," my stalker at the door called out again. I must have left the intercom turned on. "Just open the door and come with me. I won't hurt you. I've never wanted to hurt you. Just look at all I've done to keep you safe."
My gaze scanned the screens again as I desperately searched for my guys and still came up blank. Fuck. Where were they? Had they gotten out of the house? That was the logical thing to do when the vents were pumping gas through the house. They'd have gone outside to stay conscious.
Unless they hadn’t made it that far.
Shit. Now what the hell did I do? Were there guns in the panic room? Of course there would be. There was a gun in the cutlery drawer; there would definitely be at least one in the panic room.
"Do not keep me waiting, Madison Kate," my stalker snapped, finally showing some emotion. It was anger, but still. It was something. "You do not want to piss me off."
Sneering, I returned to the door panel. "Or fucking what? You're gonna stand there and stamp your feet like a brat? You can't get in here, and you fucking well know it. You lost this round."
I was confident his primary objective was me. He wasn't here to kill the guys; he was here to abduct me. So as long as I was out of reach, we were at a stalemate. Right?
"Very well, you want to play hard to get." My stalker sounded almost amused. How was it that being amused was scarier than angry? "I'll fetch some more incentive, then. Don't go anywhere, my sweet. I'll be right back."
He didn't wait for me to reply—if I even had anything to say—just spun on his heel and stalked away from the panic room with determined strides. His gait was strong and confident with not even a hint of a limp. That crossed Officer Shane off my list of suspects.
After he disappeared from my door camera, I raced back to the surveillance panel and followed him from screen to screen.
"What the hell are you doing?" I muttered aloud, chewing at my lip as he passed through the den and exited out to the back patio. A burst of movement on another screen grabbed my attention, though, and I spotted Archer locked in a hand-to-hand fight with one of the black-clad attackers.
My heart in my throat, I watched enthralled as they traded punches, but instantly I knew something was wrong. Archer's movements were too slow. Sluggish. And he was massively favoring his right side, like he'd taken an injury there recently.
Even so, he was getting the upper hand on his opponent. Until my stalker entered the frame. How I knew it was him, I had no idea. Call it a hunch.
I gasped, internally screaming because there was nothing I could do to warn Archer. Every fiber in my being wanted to scream at him to turn around, to look behind you! But it was futile. They were in the gym, way too far for me to get up there. I could do nothing but watch as my stalker picked up one of the dumbbells from the weights rack, then struck Archer in the back of the head with it.
Archer crumpled, a smear of blood showing vividly against the light blue floor as my heart tore in half.
My stalker turned his masked face directly towards the surveillance camera, and I knew perfectly well he was sending me a message. Not only was this my fault for taunting him, he was also telling me he knew exactly where the hidden cameras were. But of course he did. He'd been hacking the footage and tampering with angles right up until Leon and Danny secured our network, after all.
"Holy shit," I whispered, my voice fading into a bit of a whimper.
In the gym, my stalker used the assistance of the guy Archer had been fighting and between them, dragged my man out of the room. Once again, I followed them from screen to screen, even though I knew full well where they were going.
By the time they’d dragged Archer's unconscious body along the narrow corridor outside the panic room, my face was wet with tears and my stomach churning with bile. Where were Kody and Steele? Were they even still alive?
The intercom buzzed, and I staggered over to it with dread in my veins. He had me. He totally had me, and he knew it. There wasn't anything I wouldn't do for my guys... Including give myself up.
"Let him go," I ordered my stalker as I turned the intercom back on. I wanted it to come out as an order, but my voice was croaky and thick with despair. Archer was still out cold, facedown on the floor at his captor’s feet.
"Open the door, Madison Kate," my stalker replied. "Or I'm shooting your not-so-new husband in the head." He drew a pistol from the back of his waistband and aimed it at the back of Archer's head.
"You shoot him, and you'll never get me out of here," I bluffed, choking over the words. Every instinct in me wanted to open that door, but I knew Archer would curse me out six ways to Sunday if he were conscious.