Terrorscape (12 page)

“What kind of bird?”
“A Mary bird, I guess.”

That was incredibly lame. But he laughed, bless
him. “She's right.”

“Can you speak any Latin?” The second those
words were out of her mouth she realized how stupid
that question was. “I mean, apart from what you said
before. At the ice-breaker.”

Jade leaned his arms on the table.
He has nice arms
,
she found herself thinking.
Strong
.

“What did you have in mind?”
“Anything, I don't care.”
“Alquid. Mea non refert.”
“What does that mean?”
“Anything. I don't care.”

It took her a moment to get it but then she heard
herself laugh, and she covered her mouth suddenly
feeling very shy. “That's not what I meant.”

“Okay, you're right. Hmm. How about—” He
paused. “
Pulcher es
.”

“And what does that mean?”
“It means, 'You're beautiful.'”

Val stared at him. A faint pinkish tinge crept into
his cheeks and colored the tips of his ears.

 

Blake blushed like that, too.

The fluorescent lights—the ambient chatter—the
smells of commingling food and coffee—it was all too
much. She needed to escape, to run, to flee.

“No I'm not.” Val shook her head, shutting him
out, shutting out the noise, the scenery. “I'm really
not.”

She needed to get out of here.

Luckily, she was saved from thinking of a viable
excuse. Her phone chose that moment to ring. For
once, timing was ruling in her favor. Then she saw the
number on the display was Lisa's.

“Is that Vivaldi?”

Val dug her knuckles into her forehead, which
was starting to throb as the seconds ticked by. She
was aware of Jade looking at her, that horrible
expression of concern was back on his face. She toyed
with the idea of not answering the phone and then
decided against it. Lisa wouldn't stop calling until she
got an answer, and she couldn't sit in this place a
moment longer.

“I'm sorry.” She was sure that he thought her a
fool now. That saddened her, and she was surprised
by that. Surprised that such small hurts could still
sting. “I've got to take this. It's kind of an emergency.”
“Is everything all right?”

He
straightened,
like
he
was
planning
on
standing and coming with her, like a knight errant
who thought he could save the damsel in distress.

No, nothing's all right, and you can't save me.
Not from this.

Val said hastily, “Probably—I hope so. Just a
family thing I'm dealing with. I—we'll do this again,
okay? Some other time?”

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “Some other time.”

She turned her back on him then, not wanting to
see his face. As the sliding glass doors parted and the
evening breeze tickled her damp, perspiring skin, she
said, “All right, what is it Lisa? What now?”

“Oh, I'm not Lisa—and as for what I want, well,
why don't you hazard a guess?”
Val dropped the phone.

It fell slowly, as though in a dream. A nightmare.
She heard his laughter spiral up from the speakers
like curls of smoke.

Shit
.

She dropped to her knees, flinching as the damp
soaked through her jeans as she groped for the phone.
When it rained, it poured in Washington. The same
was true for this sad mess she called a life.

The line was silent when she held the phone up
once more to her ear. She couldn't even hear him
breathing. Had the sim card been damaged by the wet
grass? Part of her still clung to the hope that she had
hallucinated
the
entire
exchange:
even
madness
would be preferable to…
this
.

“Lisa?” The counter on her phone's screen silently
ticked away the duration of the call. “Lisa? Are you
there?”

“It's just me, Val.” His voice. Oh, God, it was his
voice.
“Save
your
breath.
You
have
so
few
remaining.”

His words, and the implications riding behind
them, shook her straight to her core. “W-what did you
do to Lisa?”

“Hardly anything. Not compared with what I
plan to do to you.” He paused a moment, an eloquent
pause to let that sink in. “She was very cooperative,
your Lisa, and with so little prompting, too.”

“You killed her.” Her knees were wet again; she
had fallen back into the knot of grass and clover. She
didn't care. “You killed her, didn't you?”

He said nothing.

“Oh, God,” she said hollowly, “and Blake—and
those
girls—you
killed
them
happening
.
“You
bastard.
You
calling the police right now.”
all.”
This can't be

monster.
You—I'm

“I wouldn't do that, Valerian. Tell me, how is
Washington this time of year? Cold?”
He's guessing. He can't know
.

“I wouldn't know.”

“Pity. I'd like to know how heavy a coat I should
bring when I come to see you. Something light, I
should think. Easy to move around in. Something that
won't show blood.”

Val tried to speak and let out a weak, coughing
gasp
instead.
This
was
worse,
far
worse,
than
anything she had imagined. Because it took someone
psychotic,
someone
totally
and
unequivocally
heartless, to imagine something this terrible. “S-stay
away from me.”

He made a sound she couldn't interpret, or
indeed, had no name for, but it chilled her straight to
the bone. “Try and stop me,” he said, in a low voice
that made all the hairs on her body stand on end.
“You are about to discover just how formidable a
hunter I am, my dear.”

Part of Val's mind splintered away and at the
breaking off of that crucial piece, all the pent-up
horrors and fears she had tried to fruitlessly to keep
locked away after all these years rushed out to flood
her consciousness like a broken dam.

“No. I beat you. You can't do this. I
beat
you.”

“Not quite.” In a quiet voice she could scarcely
hear over the sound of her own frenetic heartbeat, he
said, “I hope you still remember how to run.”

He cut the connection before she could respond.
Chapter Eight
Checkered Fritillary

She felt as if she were in a cage and the mesh
walls were closing in, squeezing, suffocatingly tight.
His presence was like that, smothering and electric.
Irresistible. Surely this was how the fly felt just before
it was incinerated by the zapper.

Val hugged herself. His voice, so seductive, even
as he threatened her life. Intentionally fucking with
her mind. How could he still have such an effect on
her even now?

Mary noticed her shiver and in her casual way
asked if something was wrong.

“I'm just worried about…exams.”
“You shouldn't worry. You're smart.”

“Not that smart.” If she were smart, she wouldn't
have gotten herself into this mess.

 

“I'm sure you'll do fine.”

And with that, Mary launched into a tirade about
her own assignments and exams while Val made a
halfhearted attempt to look like she was listening as
she got dressed.

(Save your breath. You have so few remaining.)
Washington was a big state, she told herself.
There are hundreds of towns.

 

But how many area codes? He has Lisa's phone
.
He
has my number
.

 

▪▫▪▫▪▫▪

 

She was on her way to class when she saw him.

It was so sudden, so unanticipated, that Val came
stumbling to a complete stop. She couldn't have
moved if she wanted to. Her limbs were completely
petrified. All she could think was,
How did he find me
so quickly?

He was standing in front of the Coffee Shack in
the Student Union, where she had met Jade last week.
He was looking around, one hand thumbed through
the belt-loops of his jeans as the other toyed with the
metal chain around his neck. Under a black leather
jacket that glistened like motor oil in the silvery light
was a charcoal gray shirt.

Something that won't show blood
, Val thought.
He looked so…different.

Oh, but the real difference was in his face, in his
eyes. With his gaunt cheekbones, the five o'clock
shadows casting the angular planes of his face into
stark relief, he looked—she gulped—hungry.

A few girls were eying him curiously, with
obvious interest, and she realized with a sick sense of
horror exactly how he'd gotten his victims to come to
him, because he had tried the same tactic on her all
those years ago to great effect. When she'd been
innocent. When she hadn't known any better.

He acted like a libertine of Europe with a genteel
Southern propriety—and had all the morals of an
emotionless psychopath. The two former masked the
latter, like leaves covering a snare. You didn't notice
the steel jaws until they were impaled in your flesh,
and by then it was already far too late to run.

Val wanted to scream at them to run, run while
they could. Run while they still had a life left to run
for.
He's not playing at being dangerous. He
is
dangerous.

But then, that unrestrained aspect of him had
been part of his appeal—at least, it had been in the
beginning. Until she realized how deeply it ran, past
recklessness, straight into a moral void.

Until she learned that he could kill.
Until she learned that he could like it.

She kept her eyes straight ahead—
don't look, don't
look, don't look
—trying to ignore the ache in her chest.
She didn't dare breathe. Any movement or sound
might draw his attention. He had already glanced her
way once, in passing, lumping her in with the scenery,
and even that cursory glance had stilled her heart's
beating because she remembered being its focus.

She had never been more aware of another being
in her life. Breathing in her terror of him as if it were
more sustaining than air itself, Val felt as if her mind
were not her own.

Almost there
.
And then—
She tripped.

Her books fell with a heavy slam that echoed like
a gunshot in the emptying quad. She could have not
called his attention towards her more effectively if she
tried. Those gray eyes snapped back to her and his lip
curled slightly in amusement. Not because of who she
was, but simply because she had fallen; because she
was weak.

Val averted her eyes and scrambled to catch her
papers before they could be blown away by the wind.
Nobody moved to help her, though a few—the few
who had even taken notice—laughed in aside to their
friends.

Through the dark screen of her hair, she hazarded
another look at him. He was still watching her. His
gaze had turned speculative and slightly menacing.

Her pulse throbbed like an open wound. She
clutched her books to her breast and got unsteadily to
her feet, trying not to sway too drunkenly. She
wanted to run, but that would trigger a chase
response. He was the predator, after all, and she the
prey.

Val swallowed hard and kept her eyes ahead.
I am invisible
, she thought.
Don't look at me.

She peeked at him again, obliquely; it wasn't
working.
Oh please, no
.
His arm moved as she went by him.
No!
She
could not suppress her involuntary flinch as she
caught a whiff of his familiar aftershave. Sandalwood
and rose. What was he pulling out of his jacket? A
gun? Surely not. Not on a college campus full of
witnesses. No—a cell phone. She breathed out, not
daring to hope. Just a cell phone. But then why—?

Vivaldi again. Val fumbled in her coat pocket,
almost numb with relief by the distraction, and then
froze when she saw the caller ID.

Slowly, she lifted her head—and she nearly
screamed when she saw his expression as he waved
Lisa's phone at her in quiet triumph.

That look sent her body running before she had
even fully registered its subtle threats and nuances.
Only when she had gone into full motion did she
realize that it was the look of someone who was about
to kill without mercy or remorse, and the look of
someone
who
would
enjoy
it.
He
hadn't
been
bluffing; he really was going to kill her.

(I hope you still remember how to run.)

She didn't have to look back to know that he was
chasing her. She could hear his swift and heavy
footfalls, picking up at an alarming rate.

People were staring. For once, she didn't care.

 

▪▫▪▫▪▫▪

Harper Hall was a two-story building that housed
two of the chiefly-used lecture halls for the soft
science lectures, in addition to the experimental
psychology and neuroscience laboratories and the
offices of the professors and graduate students of that
department.

Surrounded by a meticulously-tended garden of
juniper hedges, cypress, and mulberry, the grounds
were a labyrinth of shade and greenery. Better yet, the
inside was just as disorienting.

Val cut around the boxy hedge, heading for the
side entrance. She wasn't too familiar with the
buildings yet she knew first hand that the middle
hallway connected perpendicularly to two adjoining
halls in an H-shape that tended to leave one with a
niggling sense of vertigo. Hopefully, he would think
so too. Val gritted her teeth and picked up speed and
cut sharply around the corner, taking the next sharp
turn to head down the hall that contained the
professors' many offices.

So someone can hear you scream?

His voice mocking her—real or imagined? She
didn't look behind her, didn't check to see if he was
following. If she didn't look, the monsters wouldn't
get her and she would be safe. But only if she didn't
let herself be turned into a pillar of salt first.

At the end of the hallway was an elevator. She
slipped inside so abruptly that her sneakers squeaked
against the marble tiles. She flinched at the sound and
slammed the button for the second floor, watching the
end of the corridor with her heart in her throat. She
felt winded. It had been years since she'd actively
gone running. She had lost a lot of the muscle tone
and endurance that made her so good at track in high
school.