"There there," he soothes, gently running a hand through your hair, "I'm going to make this all better."
He sighs breathily then, and, if it hadn't of been so dark, you would have seen his pleased, crooked grin.
He's just there, kneeling in front of you with his hands on either side of the chair, and you feel awkward because your hips are slightly twisted and arched at such an angle that you know would look suggestive if not for the painful expression that mars your features.
After a few seconds of silence, save for your erratic and uneven pants of breath, you feel his presence momentarily disappear, and you take a moment to gulp in some much needed air, relax your muscles, and find a more comfortable position, which is apparently impossible.
You can hear his shoes moving against the tiled floor, and you wonder where he is going when a dim, muted yellow light is suddenly flipped on. You drink in the light eagerly with your starving eyes, your gaze sweeping over the room and searching it quickly.
You're in a kitchen, you realize, and it's a very plain one at that. The counter is shaped like a sideways 'L', and the only thing sitting on top of it is a toaster, a microwave, and a breadbox. The cupboards and drawers are painted cream white and the countertop is a light, egg-shell blue. The square kitchen table is an oak color as are the matching chairs. Overall the room looks quite normal, like any other small kitchen you'd find in an apartment this size. Everything is tidy and immaculate, with not a stain or flaw in sight. So why, then, is it so damn creepy?
You try to inspect more of the place, try to crane your neck to the side so you can see into the adjoining room, but the light that Mr. Wavy Blond Hair has turned on is barely enough to illuminate this room, let alone the adjacent one.
You've just gotten your heartbeat to slow to a somewhat relatively normal pace when something on the countertop catches your eye, something metallic.
And there, naught but several feet away, is a row of long, sharp-looking knives aligned on the counter, all of them meticulously placed and deliberately arranged from smallest to largest.
Seeing this makes terror and fury rip through your chest, and you suddenly cry out angrily and with desperation, your eyes watering with tears. "Why are you doing this, you fucking bastard!" You clench your teeth and writhe feverishly in your restraints, giving him what you hope is your most intimidating glare. You're so frustrated that you can't do anything and it makes your cheeks burn red with anger.
A look so close to genuine sympathy passes over his face then, and he looks so utterly sincere that it makes you come undone, tears finally spilling over your lashes and running down your cheeks.
When he notices your despair, he slowly walks back over and kneels down in front of you, his hands gripping either side of the chair. "Aw, sh sh sh, don't cry, baby." He sounds sad as he frowns and reaches out a hand to gently cup your cheek, wiping away the tears. His eyes are a soft, soothing shade of brown, and he looks so heartbroken in this moment, so completely and absolutely sorry for you that you begin to think that he really is. He's really good at that.
"Why?" you sob. "Why are you doing this to me?"
He furrows his brows and shifts closer to you, briefly licking his lips. "Because I like you, doll face, why else?"
The confession might have been endearing . . . had it not just been uttered from the lips of a monster.
"But I don't even know you!"
"Sure you do!" he responds enthusiastically. He reaches out a hand to shake yours but then stops himself, giggling. "Oh, you're a little tied up, aren't ya?" He grins as if he's just made a funny joke and then drops his hand to grip the seat of the chair again. "I'm Jack," he introduces himself, raising his brows and meeting your eyes to make sure that you understand. "And you. Are. Gorgeous." His voice lowers on the last part and he pauses, his eyes sensually dropping to your lips before lifting to meet your eyes again. "See, now we're alllll acquainted. Feel better now?"
"But I don't know you," you insist, more frustrated tears trailing down your cheeks.
"But I know you," he whispers, his voice suddenly fervent. "I see you all the time. You're here, you're there . . . you're in my thoughts . . . . I can't get you out of my head!" His voice rises to a crescendo at the end and he giggles like a madman.
He is a madman.
"I don't understand . . . ."
He shifts closer and your eyes widen when he has the audacity to grip you by your thighs, tugging you lower to the seat so that you cry out as your wrists are bent into an excruciatingly painful position behind your back.
"I see you every day," he whispers, leaning in so close that his chest is pressed up against your legs. "I've been . . . watching you. For a while now."
At this newfound realization, your eyes widen significantly and your heartbeat goes double time. "You've . . . you've been stalking me?" You can hardly believe it even as the words leave your mouth, and you're in so much shock that you vision starts to blur.
His eyes narrow at the accusation. He apparently doesn't like what you've said and the tone you've said it in, but he quickly continues on as if you hadn't even asked him a question at all. "I see you drop little Riley off at daycare in the morning and then I see you go to work. You don't like how the big man in the cubicle across from yours looks at you so lustfully all the time, practically . . . undressing you with his eyes." Mr. Wavy Blond—Jack, tongues at his scars as he looks at your body in an imitation of what he just described. "And then you leave work, pick up the little tyke from daycare on the days when you can't get a babysitter, and then you go home. You cook dinner, and oh, it smells good. Friday's are the best. You make the most fantastic pasta around here, honestly." He shakes his head vigorously to affirm his statement. "After dinner, you give the little one a bath and read her a bedtime story, like any good, single mommy should do, and then you go take a bath and . . . ." Jack trails off then, his eyes darkening and gradually losing that warm softness you had seen only minutes before. "Then you go to bed," he continues, swallowing hard, "and you're so cute when you sleep. You make these little noises . . ." he trails off again, "and I love them. But sometimes you have bad dreams. Sometimes you scream in your sleep, and then you wake up crying and I—I just want to hold you and make you happy again." His voice is high and deep at the same time, and the contradiction of it is driving you crazy, as are his words.
As all this sinks in, all this information about your personal life that he knows, God, all this information that he knows so well, you're more terrified than you thought you could ever be. This man, this crazy, crazy man who has a fetish for knives has been stalking you. He's been following you, he knows your schedule, and he may have even been inside your house. That thought terrifies you the most above all, because if he's been in your house you immediately begin to wonder all the things he's touched in there, all the things he's seen.
The invasion of privacy appalls you, and you're disgusted by this man, but mostly terrified, because you had no fucking clue that this was even happening.
Your head is spinning and you feel dizzy. You can't even fathom how he knows so much about you. He knows about the guy at work, he knows that you make pasta for dinner every Friday night, and he knows your daughter's name. How is all this even possible?
Tears well in your eyes, more fervently than before, and your body is shuddering with fear and pain, the strain in your wrists nearly too much to bear. It's not even close to matching the pain in your head, though. Your brain is reeling from all this information and you're too many emotions to be described at once.
"You freak," you manage to whisper, your voice clearly portraying how disgusted you are by all this information.
Upon hearing this, he works his mouth, and you know that he is clearly agitated now, his nails digging into the skin of your thighs, painful even through the material of your knee-length skirt. He narrows his eyes at the insult and growls. "That wasn't very nice."
You're not quite sure how to respond, because you're teetering on the edge of firing a sassy comeback even though you know you shouldn't. You're still angry though, furious, really, and you arch upwards, trying to relieve the pain on your wrists but also frustrated and wanting more than anything to just be released from the chair. "Let me out of here!" you suddenly shout, writhing in your chair and fighting your restraints. You get yourself all worked up into a frenzy, your hair clinging to your sweaty face and the room still uncomfortably humid and sticky hot.
You feel his eyes on you the whole time you're twisting at your restraints, and when you finally calm down your face is flushed and your body feels limp. You weakly slump back into your uncomfortable, half-arched position and meet Jack's eyes, looking defeated.
"You ah, you done yet?"
"Let me go," you beg, "I'll do anything you want. Please just let me go home. I—I can't do this. Not right now. Please." You feel more tears prick your eyes again and you pathetically think, why me? You're the most boring person to ever exist on the planet. Your life is exactly as he described it. It's the same old thing day in and day out. You work, you take care of your baby, and then you go to sleep only to wake up and repeat the cycle all over again. Of all the people for him to stalk in the city of Gotham, you are certainly the most boring, you're sure of it. "Please," you quietly gasp, your voice pleading. This is your last chance, you fear, your last chance to rationalize with him before he does something you really don't want him to do. "Please let me go."
Much to your dismay, he ignores your plea, reaching up a hand to touch your hair instead, delicately running his fingers through the strands that have fallen loose from its ponytail. "You're so . . . fascinating," he whispers. He sounds completely enraptured with you, as if you're some kind of exotic jewel that is just so fantastically breathtaking that he can't possibly look away. In the semi-darkness of the room, you feel his toxic eyes penetrating yours and you know he's staring at you, hard. After a moment, you hear a giggle bubbling from within the confines of his throat. Suddenly, his shoulders are shaking with laughter, his insane, loud, and obnoxious cackle invading your ears. He growls through his laughter and smiles. "Why would I let you go?"
After hearing these words, you finally realize that you're past the point of trying to maintain any dignity you may have formerly possessed. "I'll do anything you want, please, just let me go!"
Jack stares at you with his eyes narrowed, seemingly contemplating your more than generous offer. "Anything I want, hm?" You nod your head quickly in response, and an awful grin splits his face. You try your hardest not to cringe at the sight. "Well," he begins dramatically, "I want you to sit right where you are and look pretty. Think you can do that for me?"
"Why?" You feel absolutely pathetic and already drained of energy, and you hate the way your voice is cracking.
He seems glad that you asked, because his face becomes alight with excitement as he leans in closer. "Because I have a surprise for you," he whispers, and you can't help but hate the way his black eyes are gleaming (like knives) in the shadowy darkness. "But," he interjects, straightening from his crouching position in front of you and then smoothing out the wrinkles in his suit as he eyes you over, "you have to close your eyes."
His request hits you with all the impact of a freight train. "What?"
"I said close your eyes," he repeats impatiently. He swallows and leans forwards. "Or I'll carve them out of their sockets."
His grisly warning hangs in the air ominously, and you don't doubt his words because you've seen his knives all so perfectly aligned on the kitchen counter. Even though your instincts are raging against you and you know that this probably isn't a good idea, you close your eyes, if only for the sake of saving them.
"No peek-ing," he giggles.
Numbly, you nod your head. When he seems satisfied, you hear him shuffle away. You can tell he's still in the room, and you hear what sounds like the refrigerator door being opened, and then there is movement, lots of it, and you don't hear the door close again until nearly five, painstaking minutes later. You didn't dare open your eyes throughout the ordeal, and now you're so nervous that you're literally shaking in your seat.
The sound of metal clanking sharply together meets your ears, and your mind immediately begins to think of all the awful things he could be doing right now. You suspect that he's putting together some kind of awful torture device, snapping all of its metal pieces into place, bit by bit. And as for the refrigerator, he probably opened it to pull out a slab of meat or something so he can show you how this torture contraption works. It will be bloody and it will be painful, and as much as you want to open your eyes to see if your suspicions are correct, you also don't want to open your eyes because you want to delay the inevitable for as long as possible.
You've been trying to do that all night though, and it's clearly not working.
After what seems like a century of silence, you hear the unmistakable sound of a match being struck against the side of the box.
Oh, shit.
You can just imagine him lighting a candle or something and then holding a strip of metal over it, heating it up until its red-hot.
What if he plans to brand you?
No, no, that's crazy, don't even think that. He may be a stalker and everything but he can't be that obsessed. You quickly decide that you've seen way too many horror movies and you try to imagine that he's doing something else instead.
You struggle to swallow down the panic that is building inside you, but it keeps clawing up your throat. It's like throw-up that you can't spit it out, and its awful taste is flooding your mouth and coating your tongue. Panic tastes metallic and coppery, like blood, and you find this realization terrifying until you suddenly realize that you've been biting down on your lip with so much force that you've made it bleed.
Blindly, you tongue at the blood that has gathered on your bottom lip. You quickly try to lap it into your mouth because for some reason, you don't want him to see it. You know it's a silly notion, but you're kind of afraid that if he sees your blood he'll go crazy or something, kind of like how that one shark did in Finding Nemo. You only think of this because you had just watched that movie the other night with Riley.
Thoughts of your three year-old daughter make you slump in your chair. You miss her so much, more so than you ever thought possible. You wonder if the babysitter has started to get worried yet, because you've been gone for nearly an hour and a half longer than you said you would be. She's probably tried to call your cell phone, but you wouldn't know because it's in the room where Jack left it and is on vibrate.
You're still tonguing at your bottom lip when you feel his presence looming in front of you. "Oh, sweetheart, look what you've done." His voice is strangely soft and full of concern, and your eyes instinctively flutter open even though he hasn't told you to open them yet. He's leaning directly over you, your body still half-arched in that painful, awkward position as he glides his thumb over your bottom lip and wipes away the blood. "There." He smears the little bit of blood on his suit, obviously not caring if it gets stained, and then meets your eyes.
You immediately squeeze them shut as if you hadn't ever opened them, which is a foolish thing to do, really, because you know he saw you watching him as he cleaned the blood from your lip. You pray that he won't blow his lid and get mad at you for opening your eyes before he said you could, and thankfully, he doesn't.
Instead, he chuckles and you hear him step behind you, his warm, heavy hands weighing down on your shoulders. "You can open them now," he breathes into your ear, making you shudder.
Slowly, your lashes begin to flutter open, and when they do, you gasp aloud, shocked by what you see.