If You Lie: A Thriller by Caleb Stephens

Author:Caleb Stephens [Stephens, Caleb]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Thrillerscape Press
Published: 2024-11-02T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-One

I was already up and dashing across the room.

Where, where, where?

Past the bed. Around the corner. Into the bathroom. Sliding across the polished wood floor and nearly colliding with the freestanding tub, nowhere to hide but in a closet full of terry-cloth robes. I wriggled into it, pushing through a tangle of hangers before edging my way toward the back. I’d barely managed to close the door when I heard him.

“Where is she?” Bryce asked.

“Who?” Quinn answered, her tone high and light, like she had no clue what he was talking about.

Bryce didn’t reply. The room fell into silence. The sway and creak of the boat and the soft clatter of the hangers beside me were the only sounds. The air felt charged; that static-filled beat between the lightning strike and the thunderclap.

“Don’t play with me.”

“What’s wrong, baby? Why are you so stressed? Did something happen?”

Footsteps thudded and Quinn’s voice went breathless. “Wait, what are you doing?” The sharp riiitch! of fabric tearing cut through the air, followed by a chair crashing to the floor. “Stop it, Bryce!”

“Is Olivia in here? Where is she?” Bryce boomed in a way that made me flinch. The struggle grew louder, and a table crashed down with a bang! paired with the bright shatter of breaking glass. I heard more footsteps, someone running.

Quinn rounded into sight through the closet slats and flattened herself against the wall across from me, gasping for breath. The corners of her mouth were stretched wide, her nostrils flared with fear. “She’s not here! Why are you doing this?” Her voice was no longer high and light.

Another pause. Another gaping silence. And then a hand flashed out—Bryce’s hand—and his fist bunched into Quinn’s now-torn shirt. “I’m done with your games.” The way he said it, flat and even tempered, with no inflection at all, made me shiver. This was a man used to asking questions that got answered. His hand slid higher, toward her neck. “Now, I’m going to ask you one more time, and you should think very carefully before you respond.” His fingers wrapped around her throat. “Where. Is. She?”

“In her room.”

His grip tightened. “Wrong.”

“Bryce, please …”

I stared at him with fury as his fingertips dimpled her skin, the pigment fading from peach to pink to white. My lungs burned in sympathy. Quinn swallowed, and I could see a vein pulsing beneath her jaw, leaping out in stark relief against her pallid complexion. She tried to speak, but no words came out. The edges of her lips were turning blue. I was about to blow out of the closet, when Bryce’s grip loosened and she took a gasping breath. “I … I swear the last place I saw Olivia was in her room. She said she still wasn’t feeling well.”

“Liar.” Bryce’s hand contracted, and Quinn came back to life in a series of flailing movements, her fingernails clawing uselessly at his wrist.

“S-stop,” she managed. “I … can’t … breathe.”

With a look of disgust he released her. She tipped her head back against the wall and sucked in several deep lungfuls of air.

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