Love Lines

35: Matter of Perception

"Hello?"

"Why hello, dearest. How's the face?"

My attentions were immediately split when I heard Cecil say, "What are you doing here?"

Andrzej brushed passed him and entered the room, looking none too happy. It got even worse when he saw I was on the phone and the look on my face I'd gotten after hearing my caller's voice.

"Give me the phone," Andrzej said sternly.

"Aw so he's there. Good. That means he got my message. And that means I can deliver yours. This is working out so well. All the dominoes are lining up perfectly."

I tore my attention from Andrzej and focused solely on the call. After the demand he made of me earlier, I hadn't expected to hear from him again. I'd turned him down, of course, and only upon hearing Cecil and Andrzej's approach to the shack in the woods, did he disappear.

"Chris..."

That got Cecil's attention. He closed the door quietly and stood next to Andrzej, both of them waiting. I was half surprised Andrzej hadn't tried to pry the phone away from me. Maybe he was trying a new tact and holding all that anger and rage inside. It couldn't be easy considering he'd just come off a new moon.

"Go to the party tonight," Chris said. "If you don't, Allie's going to meet a rather unfortunate end."

All the blood drained out of my face, maybe even my upper half, and pooled in my legs and feet.

"What?" She was supposed to be out on a date.

"It's rather simple. Go to the annual Elite party and you'll save your best girl pal. Skip it and you'll be reading about a dead body being found on the golf course in the newspaper tomorrow morning."

"It wouldn't make the paper tomorrow. It would make it the day after tomorrow..."

"Now isn't the time, Nat. Come, don't come, it's up to you. Personally, I don't care."

"You don't mean that," I said softly. "Allie is your friend..."

"Wrong. She's your friend."

"Just because you're angry with me..."

"Would you rather it be Schylar? Because I can get rid of Allie and go snatch him. I still have time..."

"How do I know you even have her? You could be lying."

"Unlike Cyrus, I would never lie to you," he said matter of factly. "But because I knew you would ask, I left you a little surprise under your bed. Take a gander if you'd like or have the wolf do it, doesn't matter to me. I can wait."

Before I could even contemplate it, Andrzej was on his knees and looking under the bed. I was begging quietly in my head that he wouldn't find anything, that this was all just a cruel joke, but the second his arm stretched under the bed, I knew. All of this was really happening; Chris was no longer my friend. He was the true enemy, the villain.

Andrzej pulled out an envelope that had the Golf Course's logo on it and literally sniffed it. His top lip curled and he held it out to me.

"Has his and Allie's scent all over it," he said quietly.

I propped the phone between my shoulder and ear and opened the envelope. Inside was a picture of Allie bound and gagged, still wearing the outfit she'd worn at the beach. But the edges were cut off so all you couldn't see what or if anything surrounded her. She was unconscious, that much was obvious, and there was a band aid placed close to her hair line.

Chris had hit Allie, or maybe the caddie she was supposed to have a date with did it for him.

Cecil came over and took the picture out of my hand when I offered it to him.