You'll Always Be Mine (15 page)

              I mentally slapped myself for not thinking of that earlier. “Yeah, yeah that’s good.” I rushed back into the diner and tapped on someone’s shoulder. “Excuse me, I don’t mean to bother you but do you mind telling me what town I’m in?”

              “Sandra Hills,”

              “Sandra Hills,” I repeated then returned my attention to Sean who was on the other side of the phone call. “I’m in Sandra Hills.”

              “Great, I’ll notify the police right away,” I could tell that Sean was smiling in relief. “I’m glad that you’re okay. Do you think you can hide a little bit more?”

              “Yeah, that can be done.” I replied, “But this guy won’t stop until he has me, Sean. I don’t know how long it’ll take before he finds me.”

              “Everything will be alright, babe. I promise you.”

              “I love you,”

              “I love you too,”

              A smile found its way onto my lips as I let my eyes wander around the diner, in search for the woman who had kindly let me borrow her phone. My heart sunk to my knees when my eyes landed on a familiar person with pale gray eyes. “No,” I whispered involuntarily, letting the phone slip out of my hand and drop to the floor.

              Jacob was talking to the same female who had given me her phone. They seemed to be engaged in a deep conversation. There was no way that this woman would think he was a murderer. He laughed in response to something the girl had said and handed her a few dollars. When he turned his gaze away from the dainty female, his eyes landed on me. His brows furrowed in confusion before he returned his attention back to the female.

              I sighed in relief. Of course, he wouldn’t notice me. Not with the transformation I had given myself. I picked up the phone and held it to my ear once more. “Sean, I love you so much and I miss you so much but I have to go right now, okay?”

              “What happened? What did you see?”

              “He’s here,” I whispered and with that, I ended the call and sauntered my way over to the female behind the counter. I readjusted the sunglasses on my face and handed her the phone.               “Thanks so much for letting me borrow your phone.” I said in a higher than normal tone. Jacob was sitting on the stool next to me but didn’t seem to notice my presence. If he had, he hadn’t recognized me.

              “Oh,” she took the phone from me and smiled, “Anything I can do to help. You want anything to eat or?”

              “I’m good, thanks for the offer.” I watched Jake in the corner of my eye to see that he was staring absentmindedly out of the window. I took this as my moment to walk away. Walk away and never look back. I walked out of the diner without any hassle and continued to walk to nowhere in particular. All I had to do was wait for the cops to come.

              “Hey!”

              I whipped around quickly to see that Jake was standing outside of the diner and was looking directly at me. Fear erupted inside of me as I realized that he had caught on to my little charade by now. He walked a little closer until he was standing right in front of me. “I think you left this,” he said unexpectedly, holding up a wad of cash.

              “Oh no, that’s not mine.” I told him, “Thanks though,”

              He knitted his brows in confusion and studied me a little bit. “If you don’t mind me asking, where’d you get that?”

              It took me a while to figure out what he was referring to me. I touched the side of my cheek where a bruise was forming, “Oh you know, I’ve been doing a lot of handiwork around the house.”

              Jake clicked his tongue as he analyzed me. “What kind of handiwork?”

              “My husband is a real grease monkey,” I lied on impulse, “So, it was nice talking to you.” I turned around and began to walk when his voice stopped me.

              “Wait,” I stopped in my tracks, refusing to turn around to face him. “I bought similar sunglasses for a friend of mine, you mind if I look at it?” he questioned.

              I spun on my heel and faced him, worry boiling inside of me. “Uh, you’re sort of making me uncomfortable.”

              “I just want to see the sunglasses,” he said simply, folding his arms against his toned chest. “Unless you’re hiding something,”

              “No,” I said quickly. I prayed silently to myself that he wouldn’t find out as I slid the sunglasses off my face and handed it to him, “Here,”

              He took it from me and examined them carefully. He smiled once he was finished, “Yeah, looks like it’s the same exact type.” he chuckled as he held them out to me. “They look nice on you.”

              “Thanks,” I did the horrible mistake of looking up to meet his pale gray eyes with my blue ones. It was then, when realization struck him and a hard cold look replaced his amused one. “Liza,” he said softly.

              “No,” I protested, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

              “Liza!” he yelled, latching onto my wrist and tugging me towards him. He pushed the hair that hang down over my forehead back and watched me more closely. “What did you do to your hair?”

              “I cut it,”

              A growl erupted from the back of his throat as he shook my body violently. “Why?” he questioned, tugging me closer. “Why did you ruin it?”

              “I-” I swallowed a lump forming in my throat and shrugged, “I wanted to change.”

              He shook my again, “Why!” he yelled. It wasn’t a question, more of an exclamation. “You ruined it!” he shouted at me, “You cut your hair.”

              “Chill out,” I said, attempting to soothe him, “It’s not a big deal.”

              “We’re going to fix this, Liza. Don’t worry.” He snaked his arms around my waist, pulled me closer to him and led me to his car. “You made an awful mistake by cutting your hair but it’s okay because we’ll fix it.” He pushed me into the passenger seat and buckled my seatbelt for me before he went over to the driver’s side.

              “What do you mean we’ll fix it?”

              “We’re going to fix it,” he repeated as he started the engine and pulled out of the parking lot.

CHAPTER TWENTY
- LIZA

              That night, he didn’t speak to me. He brought me to my room and locked the door behind him, without uttering a single word. He was aggravated, I could tell but it wasn’t for the obvious reasons.

              I couldn’t fall asleep that night. I had been on my toes, pacing around the small bedroom in search of a new way I could escape. I told Sean that I was being held somewhere near Sandra Hills so it shouldn’t take that long for the police to fine me. That was, of course, if I was still alive when the police found me.

              I had a strange feeling that this wasn’t going to last long. After all, he had killed those other girls so he would have no trouble killing me. I felt like I was constantly walking around eggshells with him because any moment he could snap and end my life.

              The next morning, however, he came into my room at the break of dawn with a serious expression on his face. He inched into the room and held the door open, not taking any more steps towards me. I turned to face him and raised my eyebrows in curiosity.

              “Elizabeth,” he whispered.

              “What is it?”

              “Come,” He held out his hand for me to grab as the corners of his lips twitched into a half smile. “I have something to show you.”
 

             
“What is it?”

              He sighed heavily, “Just come,”

              I gave in, reluctantly. Placing my hand in his, I let him pull me out of the bedroom and lead me down the hallway until we were into a room that I had not recognized. In the corner of the room, there was a black beanbag and a silver laptop placed on top of it. It was a small room so there wasn’t much room for anything else other than an office desk and a bookshelf. “What room is this?” I asked him.

              “This is my room,”

              “Where’s your bed?”

              He seemed taken aback by the question and whipped around so that he was facing me, his eyes opened wide. “My bed?”

              “Yeah,” I glanced around the room once more. There was no bed and no sign of anything that could provide sleep aside from the beanbag, which I doubted was what he slept on. “Don’t you sleep?”

              “Hardly,” he answered quickly. “There’s no time for sleep. I have so many things to do, so many things to take care of,”

              I dismissed the question forming in my head. Come to think of it, I really didn’t want to know what his agenda consisted of. “Why am I here?”

              He glanced over to me and studied me for a moment. His pale gray eyes traveled down to my feet then shot back up to my face. He frowned as he began to pick at loose strands of his hair. “I told you we’d fix it.” Jacob moved over to a small closet that was placed against one of the walls, reached inside of it and pulled out a mannequin head that was paired with a long pin-straight brunette wig.

              “What’s that for?” He placed the head on his desk and stared down at it for a few seconds. He began to run his fingers through the hair and smiled to himself. “Jake,” I called out, “What is that for?”

              Jacob removed the wig from the artificial head and held it in his hands. He turned to me with one simple motion and began to take small steps towards me. “We’re fixing it,”

              I sucked in a breath as I realized what he was referring to. My right hand instantly moved to my head, feeling the short tufts of hair. “You’re going to make me wear a wig?” I questioned, “Are you out of your mind?”

              He cocked his head to the right in confusion. “But Elizabeth, your long hair is so beautiful. Why would you cut it?”

              He continued to take steps closer to me as I took a few steps back. “Stop it,” I spat, “It’ll grow back. I don’t have to wear a wig.”

              “Yes you do,” he said in a more demanding voice. “You can’t be beautiful without your long hair.”

              Becoming slightly nervous, I continued to take steps back until my back was pressed up against a wall. “Listen, Jake, I appreciate the gesture but I’m totally fine with my hair the way it is now. I mean, we all have to get haircuts, right?” I attempted to lighten the dark mood that was dawning on us right now but that didn’t seem to help.

              His light gray eyes seemed to darken as I said this and a frustrated growl erupted from the back of his throat. He ditched the wig and pulled out a switchblade from his pocket, holding it out to me. “Now, Liza, you’re going to do as I say or else it’s going to get ugly.”

              “You crazy bastard!” I shouted after him, searching for a possible way out.

              He pushed me up against the wall and pressed the blade to my neck, slicing a piece of skin. Blood instantly dripped out of the cut and began to roll down my collarbone and into my shirt. Jacob hissed as he continued to keep me stable against the wall. “Talk back to me again and I’ll-”

              “Or you’ll what?” I questioned, “Kill me?” Perhaps the loss of blood caused me to act this way because I found myself laughing after I said this. “Go ahead,”