Page 51 of Slapshot Obsession
With a heavy sigh, I open the locker door.
“What the fuck?” Jodie jumps as if there really were a huge spider ready to attack her. “If this is a joke, it isn’t funny.”
“I’m gonna have to agree with you on that.”
The head of the doll with my features is hanging from the top shelf inside the locker. The body of the doll isnowhere in sight, and whoever staged this scary scene stained the blonde hair of the doll with a red substance.
Jodie picks up the doll’s head.
“No, don’t touch it.” I warn, but it’s too late. She’s holding the doll’s head in her hands.
“Why not?”
I roll my eyes. “Maybe there are fingerprints.”
My best friend shakes her head. “And how are we gonna lift fingerprints from this and know who they belong to? Are you thinking about calling the cops?”
I don’t know what I’m thinking to be entirely honest.
Before I can answer Jodie’s question, my phone vibrates against the metal shelf of the locker.
I look at it as if the electronic device had teeth that could bite my fingers off.
“Are you gonna check your messages or what?” Jodie asks.
Maybe it’s Colsen. I think, grabbing the phone with trembling fingers.
Or maybe is my mom. She doesn’t usually watch sports, but she might have watched the game in the hopes of seeing me dance if she knew it was being televised.
But I know it isn’t Colsen or my mom. Deep in my gut, I know it’s the same unknown number that has been taunting me for a couple of weeks now.
Unknown: You have two choices. Break it off with them or go to the police and confess what you did in South Carolina. If you don’t, you’re going to end up like your little doll. I’m watching you. Tick Tock, bitch.
“What is it?” Jodie cranes her neck to look at my phone, but I place the screen face down against my chest.
“Nothing.”
Her hands go to her hips. “I’m sorry, but I have to call bullshit. It isn’t nothing. The second you read it, you went even paler than before.”
I exhale a shuddering breath and show her the phone. My hands are trembling so much that I almost drop it.
“What the fuck?” She says for the second time in the space of a couple of minutes. “Who sent you this?”
“I don’t know.” I should have told Jodie about the threatening messages from the start. And when I fess up about it and about the stalker in the dark hoodie, she’s pissed.
I don’t blame her. At least not entirely.
“It’s Nash.” She decides.
“You can’t know that for sure.” I argue, but Jodie has made up her mind.
She checks reasons off her fingers. “First off, you got the first message after hanging out with him. He’s been asking you questions about our last night in Hemlock Beach, insisting that he saw you at the Gamma party. He showed up in the basement. He was obviously the one who was chasing you, unless you have two secret stalkers.”
What she’s saying makes sense. “I don’t see it, Jo-Jo. If Nash wanted to hurt me, he would have done so by now, don’t you think? Why lift me onto a washer machine and fucking me when he could have followed through with his threats? We were alone in the basement and he’s much bigger and stronger than me. If he had wanted to hurt me, I would have had no chance.”
“I don’t know. Maybe he’s playing with you first. Like a cat with a mouse. Who knows what goes through the mind of a stalker? We’ve seen it in so many serial killer documentaries.Sometimes these people have a twisted mind and they enjoy playing with their prey before they finish it off.”
“I don’t know. Call me crazy, but when I’m with Nash, I don’t feel in danger.” It’s hard to explain, but when he touches me, it feels right. I don’t think I would feel that way if Nash wanted to hurt me.
