Shame (Ruin #3)(61)
Author: Rachel Van Dyken

“Good.” He nodded. “Fear is good.”

“Pardon?”

“Fear is learned… and you… you’ve been such a great student. You know, I wanted to save you, but I can’t anymore, Lisa. I can’t save you.” His eyes pooled with tears. “Just remember, you did this to yourself.”

“Jack, you’re scaring me.” I fumbled with my phone, trying to unlock it so I could call 911. “Are you okay?” Keep him talking; keep him from doing something crazy.

“I’m scaring you?” He laughed. “Oh, that’s right, coming from the girl who ruined my life… coming from the girl who took a video of a fifteen-year-old boy getting rejected in front of a hot model… pants wrapped around his ankles… looking all kinds of aroused for all the world to see. Do you remember? Well, do you? Or how about the second video? You know, the one that was posted of me in the bathroom? I’m sure that should jolt something.”

The phone dropped out of my hands.

“Oh, so she remembers. He asked you to do it… to put me up on the website, but what’s so funny is I know something you don’t know. I know so much and your time… is up.”

“You?” I sputtered. “You’ve been sending the notes? Breaking into my apartment?”

“Let’s go for a ride.” He stood and held out his hand.

“No.” I shook my head.

He showed me the blade of a knife. “Well, hell, this wasn’t in the plan, but I don’t give a rat’s ass anymore. You scream, and I move so fast that you don’t even feel the pain as I slice your throat open. Get up.”

I stood, gripping my phone in my hand as I frantically looked for help. I made eye contact with several people, but they looked away.

“Let’s go.” Jack hit my butt. I scurried away, but he gripped my arm and led me out the door. “I’ve studied you… like a book. I know everything about you, and the thing is… I was totally sane until you ruined me… and slowly it turned into an obsession finding you, destroying you.”

He led me to a brand new blue Mustang. “Get in.”

“Jack,” I tried, using a calming voice. “Whatever I did, I’m sorry. It was so long ago and—”

He slapped me hard across the face. How did nobody notice? Why didn’t anyone come to my rescue? I vaguely recalled a social experiment where a woman was screaming rape in the street, and no one had helped; it wasn’t until she said fire that they’d come running.

I opened my mouth to do just that when he covered it with his hand. “I don’t think so.” The knife touched my throat. “Now, we do this the easy way or the hard way…”

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

Terror is something a person experiences when fear is long gone, and in its place is nothing but the evidence that you aren’t going to make it out alive. —Lisa

Tristan

THE MEETING WAS going too long. I was fidgety, and my phone kept buzzing. Finally I held up my hand. “One minute.”

The dean looked ready to swallow his tongue.

“Gabe, sorry I’m in—”

“It’s Jack, one of your students!” Gabe’s yell split my eardrum, and I winced away from the phone. “He owns the damn website!”

“Shit!”

“Where’s Lisa?”

“Starbucks. I left her there, since there’s a crowd.”

Gabe swore. “Wes was closer to campus. He’s about a minute away. I’m on my way too.”

I hung up and started walking out of the room.

“We aren’t finished,” the Dean barked after me.

“I quit. My family still donates money. We’re finished.” Leaving him with his jaw dragging on the floor, I sprinted from the room and raced down the hallway. In the parking lot, I jumped into my car and prayed that Jack hadn’t figured out where Lisa was hiding in plain sight. Hopefully, he’d go back to the apartment.

Hopefully, I wasn’t too late.

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

Sometimes you spend your whole life being a victim — until you decide you want to be a survivor. — Lisa

Lisa

“JACK!” I PUSHED against him. He was too strong to move very far, but I knew if I got in that car, I was dead. He’d kill me. He was crazy, not thinking straight. And something else was very, very wrong.

I squinted. His eyes were wild like pinpoints, like he was high on something.

“Jack…” Tears clogged in my throat. “…did you take something?”

“To make me feel better after you chose him over me? Hell, yeah, I did!”

The knife dug deeper, raising a stinging sensation. I wasn’t sure, but that wet sensation trickling down my neck might have been blood.

“And I feel great. Now I know what I have to do. I’m sorry. If you had just listened to me, let me save you… I could have saved you!”

“So save me now,” I said, trying to fight crazy with crazy. “Don’t hurt me. Save me now.”

“I can’t have you,” he whimpered. “He promised I could. He promised me!”

“Who? Who promised!”

“He did!” Jack yelled. “You promised! You promised!” The knife moved away from my neck as Jack stepped back, tears streaming down his face. “All I ever wanted was you.” He looked at me, his face twisted in rage. “And now you’re going to—”

In a blur, Jack was on the ground. Wes was on top of him, beating the crap out of his face. I didn’t pull Wes away, just watched as blood splattered everywhere. Another car pulled up. Gabe jumped out and pulled Wes off Jack, just in time for arms to brace me came from behind.

I screamed and jerked against the arms.

They tightened. “Shh… sweetheart, it’s me, it’s me. You’re going to be okay. It’s just me.”

I turned into Tristan’s embrace and sobbed.

The next hour moved by in a blur as we all gave our accounts of what had happened to both the campus security and the police department. Jack had had no record, no history of violence or psychological issues. It was just like… he’d snapped.

The year before, he’d been on the dean’s list.

The guy wasn’t the typical guy to go on a killing rampage. Nothing made sense, but Tristan said that those cases rarely did — that it’s people you least suspect.

We learned that Jack didn’t even work at the pizza place. All in all, two of the workers had been beaten senseless each time we’d ordered. Each delivery he’d used as a time to try to gain access into my room, but because Tristan had been there, he hadn’t been able to get past the door.