Fade to Black (17 page)

Deciding to give him five more minutes, she
set the timer on her phone. When the door finally opened, she sat straight
up,
happy they’d be leaving soon. She gasped when she saw
Hayden coming out and not Devlin. Not understanding what was going on, she was
surprised by the serene look on her face. When they’d met for the first time a
few days before, it was hard and calculating, but now she looked so relaxed.

Hayden smiled and flicked Devlin’s keys up
in the air, easily catching them. Lily stared at her wide-eyed, wondering why
she’d have his keys. When Hayden finally noticed Lily sitting in the car, the
beautiful woman was replaced by a cold-hearted, angry one. She stalked toward
the passenger side of the car, clicking the remote to open the lock. Lily
pushed the button back
down,
thanking her lucky stars
Devlin didn’t have a four door car. Otherwise she might not have been quick
enough.

“Whore!
Open the door!” Hayden pounded on the window. Lily fumbled, unhooking her
seatbelt, her eyes locked with Hayden’s crazy ones. She tried to put her cell
phone in her pocket. It might not work now, but if she could run, she might be
able to get somewhere that had a signal. She missed the first few times, as she
had to keep hitting the button to keep the door locked.

When Hayden turned around and picked up a
large rock and held it over her head, Lily knew this was the time she had to
act and run. Crawling backwards across to the driver’s seat, Lily wanted to
make sure she kept Hayden in her sights. Where was Devlin? Could she have done
something to him? She had to get out of there. Taking a chance, she opened the
door as Hayden slammed the rock on the windshield, shattering it. Lily tried to
get out of the car, but the cuff on her pants was hooked on the gearshift.
Frantically kicking at her leg to unhook it, she momentarily lost sight of
Hayden.

Panic flowed through her veins faster than
she could breathe. Finally lurching out of the car, she came face to face with
Hayden and an even larger rock in her hand.

Chapter
Twenty-One

“Come
on, honey, come on, you have to wake up.” Devlin gently shook Lily, trying to
get her to wake up. When he had come to a few minutes before, it took him a
moment to remember what had happened with Hayden. He jumped from the bed and
stopped in his tracks when he saw Lily tossed on the floor near the closed
door. After trying the door and finding it was locked, he focused his efforts
on getting her to wake up. Gently picking her up, he placed her on the bed.

Opening the door closest to the bed, he
found a bathroom. He turned the light on and grabbed a washcloth, putting it
under the cold water. He’d noticed some blood on the side of her head and
wanted to get a better look at the wound. He kept turning around to check on
her lying so still on the bed while his mind was racing. He knew where this
room was from, the first movie he’d starred in, and the one that had
skyrocketed
his name to fame. He couldn’t fathom what Hayden
was up to, but he knew he was going to have to stay on his toes to outwit her.
Obviously she’d been planning this for a while.

“Lily, it’s time to wake up.” He was
encouraged when she moaned. “That’s it, come on.” Gently he continued to dab at
her wound, cleaning up the blood. When her eyes fluttered open and blinked to
focus on him, he breathed a sigh of relief.

“Devlin?”
Her brow furrowed and she looked around the room.

“Yeah, honey, I’m here. How are you
feeling?” He laid a hand on the other uninjured side of her face.

“My head hurts.” She slowly raised her hand
to touch her head and winced when her fingers touched the wound.

“I know. Try not to touch it.”

“Now you tell me.” She gave him a small
smile. “What happened?”

“I’m not entirely sure, but what I do know
is we are locked in here and Hayden isn’t letting us out anytime soon.”

Lily sat up and immediately covered her
mouth with her hand and shoved him away with the other as she rose on shaky
legs and lurched toward the door Devlin had left open. She dropped to her knees
in front of the toilet just in time, her stomach emptying.

Devlin ran the washcloth under the cool
water again and placed it on the back of her neck. He hated to see her like
this, and knowing they were in this situation because of him only made him
angry with himself. “I’m so sorry.”

She looked up at him. “How is
this your
fault? You aren’t the psycho who locked us up.”

“I still feel like if it weren’t for me we
wouldn’t be in this situation.”

“You can’t know that. Have you had a chance
to look around? Maybe there’s something here that could help us.”

“Not yet. There was something in the air,
it knocked me out, and then when I came to, you were here. Are you strong
enough to make it back to the bed or do I need to
carry
you?”

“I’m fine.” She grabbed ahold of his hand
and stood up, “Whoa.” She swayed and leaned into him. “Maybe I could use some
help.”

“There’s a first, you asking for help.”

She smiled weakly at him. “Don’t get too
used to it.”

“Come on, I want you to lie back down while
I see if I can find anything in the room.” He could feel her shaking when she
was pressed up against him and hated the fact it was his fault she was in this
situation.

“Sure, I can do that.” She sighed as she sat
on the bed. “I’ll keep an eye on the door. Did you have any idea she was this
crazy?”

“No, I had no clue, she hid it well. And this
room,” he gestured around, “is an exact replica of the first movie I was in.
Why would she do that?”

Lily sat up quickly and closed her eyes for
a moment before continuing, “What do you mean it’s an exact replica? What was
the movie? What was it about? Maybe there is something that could help us.”

“The movie was called ‘Here
Without
You’ and it was about a woman who comes back to her
hometown years after the death of her high school sweetheart. When she came
back to town for the first time since losing him, strange things started to
happen to her. With the help of the local sheriff, played by me, they were able
to discover his death was really a murder, solve the crime, fall in love, and
live happily ever after.”

“Oh, yeah, I remember that one. You looked
good in the uniform.”

“Honey, I always look good.” He walked over
and opened up the only other door in the room. “Holy hell…” He felt his blood
run cold.

“What?”

Devlin stood to the side so she could see
in. He ran his hand over his eyes, hoping he hadn’t really seen what he thought
he saw. When he opened them again, his heart sank. Everything was the same.

“We’re in a lot of trouble, aren’t we,
Devlin?”

“How could I have spent so much time with
her and never have known she was psychotic?” When he felt Lily come up next to
him, he grabbed her hand as they both looked at everything in the closet. He
picked up a fork and read the tag attached to it. “’Devlin had this in his
mouth. I want his mouth on me.’
Really?
Who does
this?”

“I do, Devlin, my love.” They both jumped
and looked up at the ceiling when Hayden’s voice came out of a speaker. “I’ve
loved you forever. I worked so hard to meet you, and then when you looked my
way it was as if everything fell into place, and I knew we’d always be
together.”

“Hayden, you can’t keep us here like this,”
Devlin said.

“Oh, yes I can.
Completely,
forever.
Devlin, we were meant to be together, its fate. I’ll never let
you go, and I’ll do whatever it takes to make you realize we are meant to be
together.”

Devlin’s hands clenched into
fists at his side.
He knew he had to stay calm but all he
wanted to do was rip the walls apart to make sure Lily was safe. “What about
Lily?”

“That whore? She’ll get what’s coming to her.
I’ll admit, I have to reevaluate my plans, but I’m not worried, she’ll be dead
sooner or later. If I were you, I wouldn’t get too attached.”

 
“Hayden, why don’t you come in here and talk
to us face to face.”

“Not now, darling, I have some things I
need to take care. Now you be a good boy. You’ll be able to see me soon
enough.”

Devlin turned to look at Lily, her huge
eyes brimming with tears. “Shhh…” He wrapped his arms around her and rested his
chin on the top of her head. “We’ll get through this.
Somehow,
some way.”

“I hope you’re right,” she whispered.

They stood there for a few moments, lost in
their own thoughts, before he finally let go. “As much as this creeps me out,
let’s see if there is anything in here we could use.”

“I don’t suppose there’s an old cell phone
of yours that happens to be charged and gets a signal in here, is there?”

“That would be too easy.”

“Hey, a girl can dream.”

They started going through everything and
Devlin was astounded by the amount of personal items she had collected from
their time together. Brushes and combs, razors, washcloths… it seemed nothing
was off limits to her. When he found an envelope with a heart drawn on it,
along with the words ‘my baby’, he should have known better than to open it,
but he did. Inside was a used condom. He tried to shove it back in the envelope
before Lily saw it, but it was too late.

“Is that what I think it was?”

“Yes. I’m sorry, Lily.”

Lily laid her hand on his arm. “Dev, it’s
okay; I know you had a life before me. I don’t want to see it because, ick, why
keep something like that, not because you had sex with another woman before you
met me. I’m an adult.”

“I don’t deserve you.” He laid his forehead
against hers.

“Well, find a way to get us out of here and
I’ll love you forever.”

“You already do.”

“Yeah, I kind of do.”

Reluctantly pulling away from her, Devlin
turned his attention back to the objects in the closet. “We need to find
anything we can use as a weapon, or anything that could help us
get
out of here.”

“I don’t suppose she has a knife or
something in here. Did you ever need to learn how to pick locks when you were
filming?”

“Actually, I did.” He looked back over
toward the door. “I’m afraid that one is way too sophisticated for my skills.”

“Well, it wouldn’t hurt to try, would it?”
Lily held up a paperclip.

“We could end up destroying the lock and
really being stuck in here. Besides, she has some kind of gas that knocked me
out. She’ll just keep us asleep.”

“That’s scary. I’d hate to think of what
she could do while we were unable to defend ourselves.” Her eyes started to
swim with tears. “She could knock us out and kill me. There’d be nothing we
could do. I’d never get to see my son again, hold him, and watch him sleep, or
keep the demons away from him.” She grabbed his shirt and shook him. “My God,
Devlin, I have to get out of here. I’m all he has; his father wants nothing to
do with him.”

“Shhh… I know, but you have to be strong
right now. We have to keep a clear head if we’re going to get out of this.” He
grabbed her and wrapped his arms around her.

“Calm down? How in the hell can I calm down?
My son just lost a woman who’d been there for him his whole life, and now here
I am, trapped here and will probably be butchered by a madwoman. He’ll never
know what happened to me. I won’t show up during parent week, he’ll be
devastated. I can picture it now, he’ll be there searching the crowd for me,
and I won’t be there. He’ll sit there in the hall waiting and waiting for me,
trying to keep the tears at bay while his little heart breaks in two. He’ll
never be the same. He’ll be moved from foster home to foster home, dirty,
disgusting men taking advantage of him, too small to fight back.
People hitting him, trying to break his spirit.
My precious
little boy will be lost.” Her body shook so hard, Devlin was afraid she was
going to make herself sick again.

“Please, listen to me. I know, I feel the
same way, but if we give in to this, everything is lost. I can’t give up hope.”
When Lily opened her mouth to speak, he put his finger over her mouth. “Lily, I
love him too, he’s in my heart and he’s not going anywhere. Don’t you think I
worry about those things too? As soon as I knew what was happening, my first
thought was of you and keeping you safe, and then it was of Leo. My mind raced
thinking of what I could do to keep you out of harm’s way while trying not to
let on you were a sitting duck out there in the car with no way of knowing what
was going on in here. You have to know both of you are my life now. I have no
problem laying down my life for either one of you. I will protect you with my
dying breath. You’re in my soul and I’m not letting you go.”

Lily looked up at him with huge eyes, tears
falling down her cheeks and a small smile on her lips. “I’m not letting go,
either.”