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by Lena Diaz
Excerpt...
The mention of the rose jolted
Amanda. Could it be happening again? Were there other
details the reporters didn’t know, like whether the woman
had a deep cut on her face?
She absently ran a finger down the rough
edges of the scar zigzagging down the right side of her face, a scar
that no amount of plastic surgery had been able to completely erase.
The television screen faded from view and a strange buzzing sounded
in her ears.
When her vision cleared, she was back in
that cabin four years ago, lying in a puddle of her own blood,
listening to Dana’s terrified sobs behind her.
Amanda’s attacker straddled her stomach
and held a long stemmed red rose above her, its sweet perfume
wafting down and mingling with the coppery scent of blood.
With meticulous precision, he plucked
one thorn from the stem. “He kills me.” He broke off another one.
“He kills me not.”
The singsong chant continued as he
snapped off each thorn and dropped it. When only one remained, his
obsidian eyes shined at her through the holes of the hooded mask
that covered his head and most of his face, but not the cruel slant
of his lips as they curved upward in a delighted smile.
He leaned down and pressed his lips next
to her ear. She shuddered in revulsion as his hot breath washed over
her skin.
“He kills me,” he whispered, in a raspy
voice. Rearing back, he twisted a fistful of her long brown hair in
one hand then raised a jagged knife in his other one.
Amanda saw her death mirrored in his
eyes. She bucked and twisted beneath him, trying to throw him off
but he only laughed. He slashed the knife down, ripping open the
side of her face. Her screams filled the cabin, merging with the
screams of her friend.
With a muffled cry, Amanda tore herself
away from the nightmare of her past and collapsed against the couch.
The news program droned on, speculating
on a possible connection between today’s murder and Dana Branson’s
murder four years earlier. A college picture of Dana filled the
screen, then the camera zoomed in on a close-up of her tombstone.
When they showed a hospital file photo
of Amanda, she flipped the TV off and dropped the remote on the
floor.
Furiously wiping at the hot tears
cascading down her cheeks, she wondered who had really escaped all
those years ago. Her? Or Dana?
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