Read Online Nobody by Jennifer Lynn Barnes - Free Book Online

Hypnotized. Her assailant’s fingers brushing lightly against her throat.
    I don’t want to die. He’s going to kill me, and I don’t want to die
.
    His hands encircled her neck. She froze, paralyzed. She couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. And then, suddenly,it was over. He dropped his hands instead of tightening his grip.
    She wasn’t dead.
    It’s not death I want
. The thought came unbidden, a side effect of her relief.
I want him. I want the boy
.
    Okay, that was it. That was absolutely it! This sick, twisted
psycho
was playing with her. He’d attacked her, he’d kidnapped her, he’d sworn he was going to kill her, and now he was playing with her. Cat and mouse. And pathetically—
pathetically
—she was falling for it.
    And that, Claire found, somewhat startled at the revelation,
pissed her off
. She was
pissed
. It was bad enough that people stared straight through her. Ignored her questions. Refused to give her towels and made her pour her best attempt at eggs down the sink. It was bad enough that this boy was trying to kill her, but
damn it
, he didn’t have to touch her. He didn’t have to make her feel like the world’s biggest nothing because the alien sensation of contact with another human being was enough to keep her from fighting back.
    He didn’t have to look at her like she was something more.
    Maybe I am. To him. Maybe I matter
.
    “Shut up,” Claire told herself. Things like that, thoughts like that—those were the kinds of maybes that hurt you. That got your hopes up. That talked you into doing nothing while a killer tracked your every move.Not happening. Not this time! Not with this Claire. She’d read the books. She’d seen the movies. She knew what Stockholm syndrome was, and she wasn’t having any of that “forming emotional attachments to your kidnapper” nonsense.
    Not anymore.
    Logically, Claire knew that attacking her assailant wasn’t much smarter than playing peekaboo beneath a blanket, but she wasn’t about to sit around and wait for him to kill her and think pathetic thoughts about having his fingers wrapped around her throat.
    “Don’t touch me!” The words exploded out of Claire. She couldn’t stay in her own head a second longer. She couldn’t risk feeling sad or intrigued or any of the thirteen synonyms she knew for the word
incomplete
. She had to stay mad.
    “You don’t get to touch me. You don’t get to … to … do that! You don’t get to make me feel like—never mind. Never freaking mind, because it doesn’t matter. You don’t matter.”
    Lies, lies, lies
.
    He mattered. He mattered the way oxygen mattered. The way carbon monoxide did if you breathed in too much of it. But she didn’t have to let him know that. She didn’t have to make him feel powerful.
    She didn’t have to play his game.
    Taken off guard by her vehemence—
yeah, buddy, that’s right, I said it
—her would-be killer’s laughter cut off, likesomeone had slashed his vocal cords. Claire scanned her surroundings for an escape.
    Escape to what?
She pushed down the question, because there wasn’t an answer—not a good one.
    Life is worth fighting for
, she told herself. I
am worth fighting for
.
    Even if she always said the wrong thing and sucked at making other people care, she could get better. Things could get better. Luckily, when given proper motivation, Claire could summon up beliefs on cue. It was a gift, a byproduct of living so much of her life in imaginary worlds.
    I’m worth saving, just a little
.
    She flew to her feet and stepped sideways. The killer stepped sideways as well, his face unreadable, his hands spread out on either side of his body. It felt like being circled by a panther, walking on its hind legs.
    This boy wasn’t quite human.
    He wasn’t quite real.
    “I won’t let you kill me.” Claire was determined not to let herself fall under his spell again. “I’ll fight you. I’ll hurt you. You don’t know what I’m capable of.”
    There. That