Let Me In by Adam Nicholls (books under 200 pages .TXT) 📕

It’d been nearly ten minutes since Nick Hansen removed the gag from her mouth and retreated to the stairs, where he dropped onto one of the lower steps and watched. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected—some screaming, maybe some bargaining—but so far she hadn’t said a damn word. All he’d seen was a thin teardrop. All he’d heard was a silenced sniffle.

He got up and stormed toward her, raising his hand high and hoping to provoke some kind of reaction. But there wasn’t so much as a flinch. Emma Cole only stared up at him with inquisitive eyes that were laced with fear but were still narrow slits.

Resigning, he lowered his hand.

“Why aren’t you scared?” he said, pulling at the threads on his sweater.

Emma turned away from him, raising her head to look down at her body, which was strapped hard to the table. When she saw this, her head fell back. Her eyes rolled up toward the ceiling. “I am scared. I’m frickin’ terrified.”

Nick thought she sounded sincere too. There was no waver in her voice to suggest otherwise, but then why wasn’t she screaming? Why hadn’t she tried to break free and run upstairs? Probably because the first thing she’d run into was his mother, that’s why. “It makes no sense. I could cut you up at any moment, and you don’t even care.”

His victim said nothing.

“I could tear your face apart like I did to your friends.”

That created a reaction, her eyes finally widening into shock-filled blanks that gawked at him with both disgust and disbelief. But there was something else in them too: recognition.

“Holy shit, I know you. You’re Nick Hansen.”

He couldn’t help but smile. It wasn’t just that she might have a reason to fear him now, but all those times she’d rejected his advances—all those times she’d convinced herself she was too damn pretty to be seen with the likes of him—were returning as nothing more than regret. Nick had longed for this day since he was twelve years old, being used as nothing but a stepping stone to the next guy. But how had that worked out for them? Remembering the way he’d made a mess of their faces, he figured not well.

Now that she’d identified him, she started to thrash against her constraints.

“Yeah, you’re right to be scared.” Nick stomped forward and stuffed the filthy rag back in her mouth. He hoisted himself onto the bench, his hip nudging into her side as he seated himself and leaned over her. “Because now, after all these years that you’ve been laughing at me from behind your social media wall, I finally have a voice.”

Emma’s subtle tears became big sobs as she choked on the rag, wincing with every inch closer he came. She rolled her head to one side, her cheeks turning red as tears glistened on her skin before dripping onto the table.

There was no escaping him.

“Remember that time I dated Carrie Whittle?” Nick said, recalling only the negative moments and the humiliation that came with them. “She was mine. Mine. All those bad things she said about me? About how I stalked her and became possessive? Yeah, that was all bullshit. But you didn’t want to hear that at the time, did you?”

Emma cried into her rag.

“From where you were standing, I became a problem and your friend dumped me before getting lucky and finding some good-looking, smooth-talking new guy who offered a shoulder to cry on. And then what? They go on to live happily ever after, while I get branded a psycho by the entire school. It’s not fair, is it?”

The sobbing stopped. Emma stared toward the ceiling.

Nick shook his head, thrusting his fists into the table. “It’s not fair! What if I told you everything you knew was a lie? What if that whore was sleeping with him the whole time, and the only way she could justify her ‘transition’ was to label me a creep? All you girls, you’re the same. Blame the guy, right? There’s a blatant disregard for what it does to a man.”

The awful memories of those years engulfed him, spiking his rage to new heights. He launched himself off the table and crossed the room, if only to keep himself from punching a thousand holes into her face. It was like those old emotions—the ones he thought he’d left in high school—were coming back for him. Could he not just live a normal life?

No. Not after what she’d done.

Not after what they’d all done.

“I tried to give them all a chance,” Nick said, turning back toward the table while grinding his teeth into dust, “but things haven’t changed a bit after all these years. You’d think those girls would’ve at least acknowledged me after passing me in the street, but they didn’t. You didn’t. It’s like the past never happened. Speaking of which, did you ever tell your husband we had a fling behind his back?”

There was nothing but muffled protest from Emma now. For all the good it’d do her.

“Of course you didn’t. I bet that’s why he swung for me all those years ago, huh? Let me guess; I was following you? Stalking you? And you didn’t have the heart to tell him that you were fucking me the whole time? See, history just repeats itself. The others were killed immediately for the same thing, but you… you’re lucky to have lived for so long.”

But that was the end of it. His trip down memory lane fell into the background as his old emotions were stirred up and blind anger took the spotlight. Lunging forward, he swiped a pair of scissors off the side and stormed toward her, pure hatred surging through every inch of his body as he seized his opportunity for vengeance.