Page 42 of Unhinged Obsession

Every hair on the back of my neck stands up as we make our way toward Sunny's stall at the exact same time. The only sounds are Paris's uneven breathing and the restless shifting of horses inside their stalls, their hooves thudding nervously against the rubber mats as though they can sense something terrible standing just beyond our line of sight.

Then a figure steps out of the dark indoor arena. The arena is nearly black with no lights on, but they’re easy to see without the lights being turned on.The black cloak drags across the aisle behind them, the familiar Saints mask glowing an eerie pink.They’re so close, but before any of us can react, one gloved hand shoots out, hooks around Paris's arm, and yanks her backward so violently that she cries out, stumbling straight into the cloaked figure's chest. A sharp knife is pointed at my best friend’s throat, and I feel like I’m going to pass out from the adrenaline shooting through my body.

"No!" I scream, the sound tearing out of me before I can even think to stop it.

The masked figure only laughs again, low and breathless, like this is all some private joke I wasn’t let in on. I recognize the voice, and instead of being scared, I’m unbelievably pissed off.

Slowly… deliberately… they lift one hand toward the edge of the glowing mask. There’s no rush in the movement, no hesitation, like they’re ensuring that they have our full attention. That they get their moment of being the main character for once. Their fingers curl around the mask with unsettling calm before they begin to peel it away from their face.

“You fucking bitch,” I say to Serena. “I thought you were dead.” Elijah is being quiet next to me, and I already know what’s going through his head. He’s trying to figure out how he’s going to shoot Serena, and not risk Paris being seriously injured. She’s much shorter than Serena, but the crazy bitch is holding her in a way that she’s being used as a shield.

I can actually see him calculating the distance between them, the angle of Serena’s body against Paris’s, the exact line of fire he would need to take to drop her without hitting Paris. It’s all happening behind his eyes in real time, like he’s running a dozen outcomes at once and discarding every one that ends with Paris getting hurt.

"Oh..." Serena says almost playfully, tilting her head and looking at Elijah directly in the eyes. "Do you think I'll hit the ground before I can slit her pretty little Barbie neck?"

His jaw flexes so hard I think he might crack a tooth. The gun never wavers, but neither does Serena. Instead, she laughs again before grabbing a fistful of Paris's ponytail and slamming the back of her head against her own shoulder hard enough that Paris immediately goes limp.

"PARIS!"My best friend crumples in Serena's grasp, and she’s looking at me with frantic, scared eyes, and I'm helpless to do anything to free her.

Serena catches her just enough to keep the knife where she wants it before looking back at us with a smile that makes my stomach turn.

"She's beautiful," she says almost dreamily, brushing a strand of blonde hair away from Paris's face and then glares at Elijah. "That's why your brother is homicidal over her, isn't it?"

The pressure of the knife against Paris’s throat doesn’t loosen, but her attention clearly shifts, because she asks a question with almost clinical curiosity.

“If she was ugly…” she says at last, her voice soft in a way that feels more unsettling than any shout, “…would he be so obsessed with her? Moping around? Yearning because the little cult you’re all a part of won’t let him fuck his stepsister?”

Serena watches us all for a reaction, for outrage, for anything at all—but when none comes, her expression barely changes. If anything, it only deepens her contempt.

“The five of you make me sick.” Her voice hardens so suddenly it hardly sounds like the same person. "I slit my own throat just enough to bleed." She laughs quietly, shaking her head at the memory. "It hurt like hell, in case anyone was wondering. Then I laid there in that stall while all Ben cared about was if his precious duchess was okay." When she says the nickname Ben has for Paris, I realize that this goes far deeper than we realized.

Her smile disappears completely, as if someone has flipped a switch inside her. The playful cruelty drains from her expression, leaving something colder and far more hollow in its place.

“You’re so fucking self-involved that you don’t even know that my parents’ summer home is on the same beach as yours.” I glance from Serena to Elijah. It makes sense how she would know what happened to Jonathan now and why she was always such a bitch to me at the barn. “You have no idea that I followed you everywhere because you’re so stuck up each other’s asses that you couldn’t possibly have noticed someone like ME.”

“You only care about each other,” she says, and the words come out thick with bitterness, like they’ve been sitting in her chest for too long and finally rotted their way free. There’s nothing controlled about her anymore—Just raw resentment.

“You left Jonathan for dead. I’m the one who saved him, nursed him back to health…” Her grip on Paris tightens as she speaks, fingers digging, and I know it has to hurt. “…and all he ever wanted was you or this bitch, too.” She gives Paris a rough, almost careless shake, as if the motion alone can prove her point. “

“He never saw me either,” she adds, quieter for half a second—almost like it slips out before she can stop it. Then her gaze lifts, locking onto mine with something sharp and accusing. “And neither did any of you.”

A humorless laugh flows out of her like it doesn’t belong to anything human anymore. I don’t know if Serena was human to begin with, to act this way, to torture people for no reason.

"You wouldn't even let him into your little group. He was always the tagalong." Her lip curls with disgust. "Just like that dumb bitch Annabelle."

“He asked me to help him get back at you. He was glad to be free of The Society, but he wanted to make you pay for what you did to him on the cliffs. I thought maybe he liked me then.” Serena’s expression shifts then, something almost amused flickering across her face as if the thought itself entertains her. "Isn't that the whole point of unrequited love?" she asks lightly, tilting her head. "Using people who are so hung up on you to do your dirty work?"

A sharp, delighted cackle bursts out of her before anyone can react.

"Oh, come on," she continues, tightening her grip on Paris as if she’s telling a story over drinks. "Even Bradford wanted Blair bad enough that he would have done anything. Anything." Her smile widens. "Even help me."

She laughs again, softer this time, almost fond and I realize that she’s moving. She drags Paris with her to stand more fully in the aisle where we can see her face more clearly from the moonlight pouring through the open doors. I see Elijah’s eyes shift behind her, but I’m not entirely sure what he’s looking at. I can’t see over her the way he can.

"He couldn't stand me," she says, like it's a private joke only she understands, "but he was my puppet because he wanted Blair so much," she says with a laugh, shaking her head.

Something shifts in the darkness behind her. For a split second, Serena is still there in front of us, her attention locked on our faces, her grip tight on Paris. Then before any of us can even process what’s happening, Benjamin is behind her, and all I hear is the crack of something hard connecting with the back of Serena's head. Her eyes roll backward before her body crumples without so much as another sound. Benjamin doesn't spare her a single glance. The instant she lets go, he catches Paris before she can hit the ground, gathering her into his arms with such instinctive care that I can tell he was probably there all along, waiting for the right opportunity.

"It's okay," he whispers frantically, brushing shaking fingers through Paris’s hair. "I've got you, sweetheart. I've got you."