Forgive Me by Kateri Stanley (reading strategies book TXT) 📕

Stripe gawped at him in surprise. “Me...hurt you?! You're the one keeping me locked up like some fucking animal!”

Do as she says. She's talking to you as if you're fucking stupid, just the way he did. He took the key from his pocket and knelt by her ankle. Isaac glanced up at her, drinking her in. She kept her gaze fixed on him. He could hear her heartbeat pumping in his ears when the lock came loose. The air rushed out of his lungs as her knee connected with his crotch, he should’ve seen it coming. Liquid fire exploded from his groin. He heard the tray and the crockery clatter to the ground. The letter was thrown into the air.

Stripe raced out of the room and Isaac watched her searching through her things she'd left on the kitchen counter from before. “Where are my car keys?!”

You’re the worst kidnapper in the fucking world. Isaac shouted, his throat burning. Stripe retreated to the front porch. He’d forgotten to lock the front door. No, Stripe...

Please…

Come back...

Chapter Seventeen

It was like a cold kiss when the wind touched her face. She could smell the acid in the air and the mud squelched under her feet.

“Help!” Stripe shrieked.

She heard the echo of her voice bouncing off the trees and the birds singing in the distance. She ran to her car, yanking at the door handle but it wouldn't budge. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!” She bashed her elbow into the window. The pain sent tremors shuddering along her arm, her attempt didn’t even make a crack. “FUCK!”

She ran towards the road where she arrived at the house. The twigs and branches stung under her bare feet. She ran until her legs were scorching and she had to stop as her lungs were beginning to cave in.

“Stripe!” Isaac shouted.

She turned in horror. How did he...? She'd given him a good blow in his nether regions, the way he’d crumbled – it wouldn’t’ve been an easy recovery. “Get away from me!”

“I'm not going to hurt you!”

“You chained me up, you freak!” Stripe raced into the forest, hysterical and frightened.

“Don't go in there, Stripe! You don't know where you're going!” He sounded just as hysterical as her SOS callings did, fragile as if he was breaking.

Keep going. Keep moving and you'll lose him. She jumped over streams and bushes. The sharp cuts in her feet were intense. But she had to carry on and tell her story, nobody else would have to go through this. No other schmuck would get drawn in by a tasteful character and a zesty subplot.

The surroundings zipped past her. Her body was getting tired and the barrier was breaking under the wave. She replayed the tape in her mind, analysing every crook and cranny, seeing her father’s doppelganger performing atrocious acts. It wasn’t my dad. He was a good man, my mom adored him. He was there for me when I needed him. He wouldn't’ve hurt anybody. Pain throbbed in her belly and thighs. There wouldn’t be enough soap to cleanse her skin, not enough hot water to scrape all of the lies and deception.

The tremors in her legs were beginning as the adrenaline was wearing her out. Tiredness was overlapping her speed. Her run slowed, turning into a hasty walk. She used the arms of the trees to help her climb over the bumps and pools in the ground. But I can’t ignore the tape, the letter, and what I witnessed...

Her thoughts came to a halt when she saw him. She lost her footing and fell to the ground. The muddy grass was wet, bleeding moisture through and into her clothes. Isaac stood, panting lightly with his hands balled at his side. Stripe had run the fastest she’d ever done in her whole life yet her kidnapper had beaten her to it and he hadn't even broken a sweat. She’d kicked him in the balls and he wasn't wincing in pain.

Did she have a chance at escaping? How would her death happen? Would it be gloriously gory like something from a Thomas Harris novel? Like Rinaldo Pazzi’s public disembowelling before he was thrown over a balcony?

If he was going to kill her, he needed to get on with it but she wasn’t leaving this world without a fight. “Leave me alone. You're gonna kill me, aren’t you?”

Isaac shook his head, waving his arms in surrender. “I won’t hurt you. Please understand. I know I kept a chain on you but I won’t do it again. I promise.”

Said the psycho. “W-What do you want from me?” She began to cry again, the tears streaming all over her skin.

“I...” Isaac stared at her, holding a depressed look of defeat. “I just wanted to see you. Since high school, I’ve missed you so much. It’s been eating at me for years.”

Stripe grabbed a large jagged rock that was lying next to her. “Stay away from me! Don’t fucking move!” She hit the body of the tree as she scurried backwards. She hurled the rock; making sure it was a good swing.

Isaac caught it in his right hand. There was a crack and the sounds grew and multiplied. Then she watched it disintegrate like powder falling between his fingers. Isaac dashed the leavings of the rock to the ground and he wiped his hand against his trouser leg. “It’s not something I wanted you to see...”

Stripe examined each and every line of his skin. She took in the shape of his lips, the curves of his cheekbones and the warmth in his ice blue eyes. She’d previously noted his physicality as statuesque, but this time, it appeared to be more athletic, tensing with strength, there wasn’t a hint of fat on his body. “Hold up your hand.”

Isaac reacted as she commanded. The rock she'd thrown was sharp, her captor didn't have a single scratch on his skin. Stripe grabbed another rock and threw it; this one