Brynna’s stomach dropped.
“I was following her to keep her safe. I always tried to keep her safe. And I did until you and your stupid dare.”
Everything inside of Brynna broke down. She stopped struggling and cocked her head to listen, feeling the tears loosen the back of the duct tape.
“Did you like the phone call, Brynna? The little replay of memory? I thought it was neat. I replay it a lot. There’s more of it, you know. It keeps going on. It keeps going on to the point that Erica was begging for her life. You should have seen her out there, trying to hang on. She was a good swimmer that one, and feisty too. She begged me to help her. She kept saying, ‘Pull me in. I need to come in so I can help Brynna.’ She knew you weren’t a good enough swimmer.”
Brynna opened her eyes behind the strip of tape. Erica was looking for her? Erica didn’t drown? Her heart started to thud as a dark realization came over her.
“I told her I would help her. She was my stepsister, you know? What kind of brother would I be? I got down on the pier ladder—I don’t swim—and held an arm out to her. And you know what that little bitch did? She told me no. She told me she could climb up the ladder by herself.”
Brynna remembered Erica’s words, so haunting that night as she pulled the blinds over her bedroom window: “It’s probably my creepy stepbrother… He’s got some crazy obsession, Brynnie.”
“It didn’t take long for her to get desperate. The tide was pretty heavy. She got close enough and I grabbed her. Just grabbed her arm. She still flinched. I mean, I was risking my life to save this little bitch—I was in water up to my waist! And she flinches. But I caught her. Caught her by that beautiful long hair of hers.” Brynna could hear him breathe deeply. “I was going to save her. I pulled her toward me and she struggled. She said some awful, hateful things. But it was nice having her body against me, struggling like that.” He giggled, a sound so evil it made goose bumps shoot up all over Brynna. “And then I pushed her down. It made her struggle more, you know? Being held under the water. I wrapped my arms around her and held her there. I could feel her kick and scratch.”
Brynna’s body wracked with sobs. She wanted to make Christopher stop, would have begged him if she could talk.
“She fought real hard for a minute and then…then I could feel it when the life left her body. It was magical. I never felt anything like that. I couldn’t wait to do it again. There was another girl, at a pool where I used to work. But she wasn’t like Erica. Erica was special. That spot, Harding Beach? Special. I knew there was only one way to get the feeling back.”
Brynna bit back bile, the tears coming so full and so hard that her whole body shook, the zip ties continuing to dig into her limbs. Finally, her body thunked against the seats when Christopher lurched the car to a sudden stop. She strained, listening for anything she could use, anything that could help her. She prayed for noise, for people, but everything was silent in the car until she heard the click of Christopher’s seat belt.
She held her breath, squeezing her eyes shut and doing her best to make herself smaller under the blanket as she heard Christopher round the car and pull open the back door. He pulled off the blanket, and shards of light flit in through the gaps in the duct tape over Brynna’s eyes.
But she didn’t need her vision to know exactly where she was.
EIGHTEEN
In one fell swoop, faint light burned Brynna’s eyes, and her skin screamed from the quick rip of the tape. Christopher was smiling down at her, the smile that looked so calm behind his desk in her English class looking nothing short of maniacal as he studied her. He took a heavy, deep breath, and Brynna craned her neck, looking around her. Twilight was setting in.
“Don’t you love that smell, Brynna? The sweet sea air. I don’t think I can ever get enough of it.”
He reached in and grabbed her by her clothes, dumping her with a thud in the parking lot on the edge of Harding Beach. He shut and locked his doors, and Brynna found herself laughing uncontrollably, the idea of a murderer locking his car doors against burglars suddenly seeming incredibly ridiculous to her. Christopher whirled.
“What the hell are you laughing at?”
Tears were running down Brynna’s cheeks. She was hysterical, knowing that Christopher wanted to kill her—was going to kill her. He crouched forward, his face screwed up in fury, and ripped the tape from her mouth.
“You’re going to die today, Brynna. You find that funny?” He gave her a swift kick in the ribs, pain shooting out like a starburst from her chest. She whimpered.
He gathered her up, and even through her clothes, Brynna’s skin crawled when his body made contact with hers.
“If you really loved Erica, if you were a really good friend, you would have stayed out there to help her. You could have saved her.”