Chapter 3

The next day after school, things got a lot worse. Not that I thought they could at the time. I mean, really, what could be worse than having your arch enemy-who also happens to be a killer-alive after a month of thinking he was dead?

Apparently a lot more than I thought.

When I got into the parking lot that day, I was one of the last students to exit the building. I didn't get far, though when a familiar voice called out to me.

"Suze."

I turned around and saw Paul-once again lurking in the shadows-it was really starting to creep me out-leaning against the adobe outer walls of the Mission Academy.

I started to turn around and run, but Paul-who, I realized too late, was near enough to me to reach-grabbed my arm and pulled me toward him roughly. I tried to wrench my arm free of his grasp, but he just held on tighter. My heart was pounding so loudly that I was sure Paul could hear it.

Paul leaned close and whispered in my ear. "Start walking to the end of the lot," he ordered.

I blinked. I don't know what exactly I thought he was going to say, but that definitely wasn't it.

"I-"

Paul didn't bother to listen to whatever it was I planned to say. To be honest, I don't even know. But Paul just turned me around, and started pushing me toward the far end of the parking lot. Most of the cars at this end had already cleared out.

I didn't recognize the car we stopped at. It wasn't the one I'd seen Paul drive before-an old beat up jeep. No, this one was just as old and beat up, except it was a pick-up truck.

At Paul's command-I couldn't very well refuse, since he was using the old mind control thing on me-I got into the car and he went around and got in the driver's seat.

"What are you doing here?" I demanded as he started up the truck. "You're supposed to be-" I stopped myself, afraid of what the outcome might be if I finished that sentence.

Paul laughed humorlessly. "Dead? Sorry to disappoint you, Suze, but I'm very much alive." We pulled out of the parking lot then and moved into traffic. I wished-stupidly, I know-that someone, anyone, would notice that I was being forced to ride in the car of a convicted killer. Not that he looked very much like one, though. A killer, I mean. He actually looked pretty good, for a guy who's been living.how exactly had he been living that past month? It wasn't like he could go out to McDonald's and order a Big Mac.

Which is why I went, "Yeah, why aren't you dead?" like an idiot.

Paul glared at me as we came to a red light. "Look, I'm not that easy to kill, all right? You and your boyfriend are hardly a challenge."

I blinked. Somehow I didn't believe that. I mean, what he said about me and Jesse being a challenge. Okay, the last time I'd seen him, I'd been tied up, but still. Jesse had been doing a pretty good job of taking care of Paul all by himself. That is, until I got hit in the head with a falling beam, and he had to drag me out of there before I fried.

So I just snorted. "Yeah, right." That wasn't the brightest idea, it turned out. You really shouldn't go around mocking-though I really didn't think it was, Paul sure did-a murderer. They tend to take it pretty badly.

Whether or not Paul had been planning what he did next, I really don't know. Because just then he pulled off to the side of the road and pulled something out of the back of the truck.

I glanced around, wondering what exactly he was going to do on the side of the road. He could have been trying to go for the whole dead-body-in-the- ditch cliché, but really, there wasn't much of a ditch. Not to mention it was broad daylight.

It was just as I was thinking this that I saw what Paul had pulled out from the back. It was a long piece of black cord.

Realizing what he meant to do, I lunged for the door handle, cursing myself for not trying to escape earlier.

Paul grabbed me roughly, growling, in his mind-control voice, "Hold still."

I stopped struggling and he bound my hand together with the cord. As soon as I could move again I said, "What the hell are you doing?"

"I'm trying," he said, "to keep you in the car. What does it look like I'm doing?"

I opened my mouth to say more, but just then Paul pulled out the other thing he'd gotten from the back-something that I hadn't noticed before. It was a handkerchief, a pretty dirty one, too, and he stuffed in my mouth.

"There, that's better." Paul started the engine again and pulled back onto the road.

The handkerchief tasted horrible in my mouth. It had obviously been lying on the floor in the tiny back seat of the pick-up for quite a while, because it tasted like dirt and other things I didn't even want to think about. Plus, Paul had managed to shove it into my mouth so far that I couldn't even spit it out. And believe me, I tried.

After awhile, we pulled into the parking lot for the forest preserve. I'd been there on my "date" with Paul a month before, but that had been at night, and no one had been there.

But now it was broad daylight, and there were people walking around, fishing and bird watching or whatever. I wasn't sure what exactly Paul was thinking, taking me there.

I found out soon enough as Paul pulled me, a bit ungraciously, out of the truck, removed my gag-he didn't want to look conspicuous, after all, and my hands were tied behind my back, so it wasn't like anyone looking at us could see the cords-and led me down the path.

We walked for a long time. So long, actually, that I was starting to think that we were nearly at the edge of the forest preserve.

No such luck.

We eventually came to an old battered looking building that, from the looks of things, had been abandoned for a very long time.

Paul pushed open the door and then pushed me inside. I landed on a cot several feet away.

I glanced quickly around the room. Aside from the cot, there was a desk and chair near a window at the far side of the room, and a door leading into who knows what. All in all, it wasn't much.

Paul smiled at me, and I had to stop myself from shrinking back against the wall. I don't care how I acted on the outside, Paul Slater scared me. I mean, obviously, since the guy ordered Jesse-my boyfriend-to murder me. And just because I'd told him I didn't want to go out with him. Oh, and there was that whole thing about Jesse breaking his nose up in Purgatory.

Believe me, the guy had managed to murder three other girls who happened to decide he was a creep. Paul was beyond sick.

"Now, where were we?" Paul said almost casually.

"You were about to tell me how you managed to survive the fire."

Paul ignored me. "I'm not going to beat around the bush here, Suze. I have a proposition for you."

I stared at him. Okay, that was definitely not what I thought he'd say. I mean, seriously. I didn't know of anyone who started making deals with the people they were going to kill. That generally didn't happen. Usually it was more like kill now ask questions later kind of thing.

Apparently, though, that's not what Paul had in mind. "Look, let's be honest here," Paul went on. "You and I are not exactly on the same page, obviously. But I think I can come up with something that would make us both happy.

I raised my eyebrows. "Yeah? Somehow I doubt that very much."

Once again, Paul just ignored me. "Listen, I'll make you a deal. I don't really want to have to kill you, you know." I snorted at this. "No, really. I liked you a lot. But then you had to go and date Jesse, and.well, like I've told you, I don't like to lose."

"Yeah," I mumbled, "And you've got the murder record to prove it."

Paul smiled. "Ah, so you've seen that little tidbit about my old girlfriends. Yeah, well, like I said."

"You don't like to lose," I finished for him. This guy really was crazy. I'm serious. He didn't look at all sorry that he'd offed his girlfriends just because they dumped him. It was like he didn't care.

"Anyway, I think I've come up with something that will make both of us happy." Paul swung around the desk chair and placed it in front of the bed, sitting down on it. "See, it gets a bit lonely out here sometime, and I need some company." He raised his eyebrows suggestively. I shuddered. Like I said, the guy was sick. "I'm pretty sure you could be perfect for that particular position."

I gaped at him. "You want me to-to be your-"

Paul shook his head. "Oh, come on, Suze. It's not your virtue that's at stake here. I just want, to put it crudely, a little lip action."

"Oh, my God," I said, disbelieving. "You did not just say that."

"Yeah, actually, I did. Look, there is another alternative."

I cringed. Something told me I didn't want to hear the second alternative.

"We could just call Jesse right now," Paul said, "and we could finish what we started that night at the warehouse."