“I can do monstrous things to you.”
“Is that a threat?”
He hummed softly, almost pleased.
“Do you think you could handle more than my threats?” he asked, low and interested. “I suppose we’ll need a physical meeting to find out.”
Little by little, my heart tightened inside my ribcage.
“Where are you?” My voice trembled at the edges.
The curtains rippled like waves—as if ghosts prowled beneath the fabric. Night air curled around the back of my neck like a touch.
“Closer than you think,” he whispered.
I sprinted to the bedroom, fast as lightning, and grabbed my backpack. I threw clothes onto the floor until I found my gun. I snapped it off safety quickly, experimentally, and held it steady between my fingers the way my father had taught me.
“I have a cruiser parked right outside my door at this exact moment.”
“Are you sure you’re as protected as you think?” He laughed, mocking. “I dare you to peek through the window and see for yourself.”
Reluctant—but too curious not to— I did what he said.
I pressed my body against the wall and pulled the curtain back by an inch.
Across the curb was a cruiser.
Completely empty.
No sign of officers anywhere.
“Did you kill the cop?” My voice shot up into an indignant squeal.
“Did I?” he mused.
“What did you do to him?” I demanded.
“You’re so focused on what I might’ve done outside,” he said, provocative. “But what if I’m inside the cabin with you?”
My throat tightened painfully at the thought.
I plastered my back to the wall, scanning every corner of the house. Phone wedged between my ear and shoulder. A loaded pistol in my hands.
“I have a gun,” I warned. “I’ll put bullets through your face before you even think about stepping into the same room as me. Not even God will recognize you in the autopsy.”
The bastard actually laughed.
“Don’t threaten me with a good time, Evelyn,” he murmured. “Good to know you’ve got that fire in you. Helpless little girls aren’t my type.”
His voice softened into something almost intimate.
“But don’t worry, sweetheart. I’m not in your house. You’d know if I were. I’d never hide from a woman like you.”
I growled at the phone, feeling painfully exposed in my short pajamas—hyperaware of every bare part of my body. My long legs. My goosebumped arms.
“What the hell do you want from me?”
For a moment, there was only silence.
Then a whisper:
“I want to meet you.”
My heart skipped wrong.
“Meet me?”
“Yes. The way you went out of your way to meet me through your investigative research. I’m going to show you we aren’t as different as you think.”
This time, I was the one who laughed—loud, bitter.
My grip on the gun loosened.
“You have to be insane if you think there’s any part of me remotely like you.”
“Oh, Evelyn. Of course there is. How would you have been able to get inside my mind if you didn’t think like me?”
“Like a killer?” I suggested, lifting a brow.
“You said it, sweetheart.” I could taste the smile in his words. “I want to meet you in person, Evelyn.”
It sounded more like an order than a request.
“Stop saying my name,” I snapped, pacing through the cabin as I spoke. Gun raised. Eyes sharp, scanning every corner.
“Hot.”
“What?”
“Cold.”
“You’re watching me?” My head snapped toward the open window. I narrowed my eyes, searching for a masked silhouette among the trees, but I saw nothing. Hands trembling, I aimed the gun forward and moved toward the door with decisive steps.
“Burning, Evelyn,” he whispered.
“I’m going to kill you.”
“You think you have what it takes to stop me?” he whispered, low and taunting. “Come outside and find me.”
I yanked the door open, gun raised, finger on the trigger—ready to fire.
But there was no one there.
I swept my gaze across the road, between trunks and the thick night fog that soaked the forest around the cabin, hunting for movement—any shadow in the early darkness.
All I found was the darkness itself, waiting for me.
His rough, unpleasant laugh burst through the line.
“You really are a bloodthirsty little thing, aren’t you?”
“You dared me to come out. I’m outside,” I snarled into the phone, my whole body vibrating with rage. “Be a man and show yourself.”
“Look down, Evelyn.”
I lowered my head.
At the base of the cabin steps, on the dirt ground, sat a small box.
Barefoot, I descended the steps and picked it up carefully—like a soldier lifting a grenade in a minefield.
I shook it. Whatever was inside didn’t seem heavy.
“Another gift for me?” I asked, unable to hide my disgust.
“Open it.”
“And if I’d rather throw it in the nearest trash can?”
“We both know you’re too curious to resist,” he whispered, as if he truly knew me. I hated the certainty in his voice. “Open it. Didn’t your father teach you it’s rude to refuse a gift?”
I closed my eyes and breathed in deep, ignoring the bait.
“You want to see my reaction.”
“Maybe,” he said. “And you know you want to see what it is. Go on.”
Without care, I tore open the packaging.
What I found left a sharp metallic taste on my tongue.
That was when I realized I’d been biting my lower lip so hard I’d torn my own skin.
“What the hell is this?” I asked, suddenly nauseated by what I was seeing.
“My gift to you.”
I pulled the lethal object from the box, wrapped in soft red velvet.
Slowly, I lifted the rusted knife to eye level.
There was blood smeared along the edge of the blade.
By the color and texture, it wasn’t fresh—but it didn’t look old, either.
“Meet me where we met,” he said. “Me and the officer who was guarding your door will be waiting for you.”
My stomach twisted.
“Don’t think about calling for backup. I’ll know if you do. And he’ll suffer the consequences.”
Then the line went dead—leaving only the hollow static of a ended call, pulsing in rhythm with the frantic hammering of my heart in my ears.
The Grimwood Ripper was waiting for me in the darkness of the forest where he’d murdered my father in cold blood.
And he had just gifted me the knife used in his latest crime.
Aksara