*Two weeks later*

Victoria stared at the sea through the kitchen window while preparing dinner. Dusk made the clouds look orange and dense, like if she could reach out and touch them.
A sigh escaped her lips. She wondered what day it was and if someone was still out there looking for her. Like usual, her thoughts drifted to Emily. She wondered, and hoped, that she was still alive.
That was a question that she had asked Zacky almost every day. Yet, he had never answered her.
She finished dinner and started to set the table. That had become her routine. Waking up, cooking and staring at the ocean. That was all she did.
She sighed once again. Even Zacky didn’t seem to care about her anymore; he now barely talked to her. Not that she wanted to, but she felt lonely.
Her mind drifted to the times when they used to be friends and a sad smile tipped the edge of her lips. She never would have guessed that things would turn out this way, she had really liked him.
Victoria shook her head, trying to get rid of those thoughts. He wasn’t her friend, he wasn’t the person who he said he was. He was the man that had stolen her life away.
She just missed having someone to talk to, missed having something interesting to do.
She endured a knife of sadness and loneliness crossing through her body. God, she missed college so much.

“Zacky…” Her cheerless voice echoed through the house. “Dinner’s ready.”

“Tomorrow is Christmas Day.” Zacky commented after a few minutes of eating in silence.
Victoria looked up at him, the ache in her heart clear as he stared into her eyes. Her hand twitched, holding the knife with more strength than she needed to. She closed her eyes. He knew that she was choking back a sudden rush of tears. Pain and pleasure crossed his body. He kept telling himself that she had forced him to act this way.

There were many ways to defeat a prey.
A predator could attack the prey quickly and effectively, instantly overpowering it. However, Zacky didn’t like that. That would require a big amount of energy and could be more risky. He didn’t want to take any unnecessary risks. He preferred to injure the prey and then sit and wait, patiently watching the prey losing its strength, the life fading away from its eyes.
So, as he sat in front of her and enjoyed dinner, he watched Victoria losing the hope of escaping, losing her strength and, little by little, feeling that there was no coming back to her original life.
He knew that it would take some time, but he would eventually break her. And it would be fun to see that happen.

***


After one long week, Matt’s request to exhume the bodies of the two murders on Stanford had finally been accepted. He had spent hours, if not days, trying to find enough connections between Zacky and the two diseased, something that would make any judge accept his request.
Now he knew that Mrs. Samuels used to be Victoria’s professor and that Rob Richards was one of her classmates. The killings had been triggered by the obvious reasons. Jealousy and resentment. Matt shook his head. Only on the mind of a mad man those would be good reasons for killing two innocent people.
Now he just needed to prove that Zacky had committed those crimes and he would no longer serve time in jail. He would die.

Matt arrived at the medical examiner’s office. Immediately, the strong scent of bleach greeted them as he moved down the tiled hallway. Fluorescent bulbs cast a bright, if not antiseptic light on the entire floor. Matt hated that place. He hated the smell, the gray tones, and the feel of death that hovered there.

***


Victoria pushed the bedcovers closer to her. She could feel Zacky lying next to her and even without touching her, his body heat reached her body. The bedroom was completely plunged into darkness. She closed her eyes and listened to his breathing, opening them a few seconds later, staring into the dark ceiling. One question rattled her brain, the question that she dreadfully wanted to know the answer to.

“Zacky?” Her voice came out cracked and she immediately shut her eyes close, regretting having spoken and hoping that he was already sleeping.

“Yes Victoria?” She could feel his gaze even in the middle of the dark, as if trying to pry into her brain. A sudden rush of blood rose at her cheeks.

She waited, held her breath, and then shoved out the air trapped in the lungs. “Nothing.” She answered quietly.

An awkward lull filled the room. “No, Victoria.” All of a sudden he spoke. His voice held a tenderness she’d never heard before. “I did not kill Emily.”

For the first time since she had been kidnapped, Victoria felt happy. “Thank you.” She whispered more to herself than to Zacky.