Into the Madness

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Afterword

  Within the Wonder

  Acknowledgments

  Also by A.K. Koonce

  About the Author

  Into the Madness

  Copyright 2019 A.K. Koonce

  All Rights Reserved

  Cover design by Covers by Christian

  Interior art by Killer Book Covers

  Editing by Polished Perfection

  Formatting by Amy Kessler

  No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without express written permission from the author. Any unauthorized use of this material is prohibited.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Created with Vellum

  To every good person out there who’s just a little bit bad. Embrace that villainous.

  One

  Here’s the thing, I make really shitty decisions. I know I’m making them, and yet, I follow through with them anyway because, if I’m going to fuck something up, I should do it properly, right?

  Yes, I’m the queen of bad choices. Take right now for example.

  “Ah, fuck, Madison.” His dick grinds against my thigh in a sensation of smooth and hard all at the same time.

  It’d be sexy if the guy had a clue where my vagina was.

  “Can you just”—I shift in frustration against him, and it only makes him groan more—“no, that’s…my hip not my clit. Austin, stop rubbing it, it’s not a magic lamp.”

  “Dallas. My name’s Dallas,” he says, his heavy breath tinged with beer fanning across my breasts.

  “Right. I knew it was something about Texas.”

  “What?” His eyes flutter closed when he thrusts into the apex of my thigh, and I glare at him when his body suddenly goes completely still.

  Silence cuts in.

  And warmth starts to trickle down my leg.

  What the literal fuck.

  “Did you just…” My jaw clenches, and I can’t even say it.

  He fucked my leg.

  I wanted to lose my virginity; I wanted this one thing to cross off my bucket list after the absolute worst year of my life, and this asshole tried to give my hip an orgasm.

  And failed.

  “Did you come?” He looks to me with the most hope-filled blue eyes.

  He’s kind looking with dark square glasses. A little on the nerdy side. That’s why I picked him at the Alpha Phi Halloween party. So, I took two tequila shots, then I led him out to a mostly secluded, hardly romantic tree and prepared to finally do one thing right. I thought he’d be one of those guys who takes care of a girl in every way.

  Instead I get the most cringeworthy question.

  Did. I. Come?

  Something in me snaps. It splinters down the center, and all that positive energy I’ve clung to for the past three years breaks away.

  “You mean when you fucked two inches to the left of my vag for approximately thirty seconds? No. No, I didn’t fucking come, Tex.” I shove out of his arms, and the warmth that was trailing down my thigh is now cold and disgusting feeling.

  Just like me.

  “It’s Dallas.” Once again, his name doesn’t register in my mind for some reason. Maybe I just want to forget him already. “Come on. I thought you were a nice girl. Don’t be a bitch.”

  And there it is: I’m a nice girl.

  Who’s really just a bitch.

  Usually when guys say that, they’re wrong. For once, someone got it right.

  I weave through the crowded party. Drunken coeds laugh a bit too loudly, and as hard as I try, I’m still an outsider looking in. Moving from Chicago to Southern California was a change of scenery, but it doesn’t change me.

  It doesn’t change my past.

  Sure, I’m no longer the Sick Girl like everyone affectionately called me in high school. Even after I beat leukemia. That name was a tag on who I was as a person. I’m not that person any more. I’m not that overly optimistic little girl trying to hang on a little longer for her mother.

  There’s no one to force a brave face for anymore.

  My mom’s gone.

  But my cancer’s back.

  I think the bad news Dr. Dusk gave me last month after two years of remission is eating away at me more than the actual sickness is. I can’t fake a good attitude on my own.

  How am I supposed to do this on my own?

  “Alice,” a guy with white rabbit ears says and slides his hand around my waist, pressing me into his side until my blue dress wrinkles against his black vest. “In Wonderland, Alice is shown around by a hare, if I remember right.”

  His costume doesn’t say Wonderland at all. It was a story my mother read to me thousands of times. I know Wonderland. His generic white ears are a lazy excuse for a costume.

  I made this pale blue dress myself, borrowed my roommate’s blonde wig, found a black headband, and legitimately wanted to have a good time tonight. I wanted to find some happiness.

  I need to find happiness. Positivity is crucial for me right now.

  Bitterness is just so much easier.

  I slip out of his arms and grab a fistful of white napkins. I make to leave but then double back through the backyard and steal another bottle of wine before sneaking down to the dark beach. It’s empty. The party at the beach house on the hill leaves faint beats of music and trickling laughter in the air. The crash of the white waves almost drowns it out though.

  Before I moved here, I had no idea the ocean had a sound. I always imagined the white drifting light the moon would cast across the sea, but I never really thought about how demanding and consuming the waves sounded.

  It’s calming. This is good. This inspires happiness.

  For the moment.

  My hand pushes the napkins quickly down my thighs, and I force myself not to think about Houston ever again. Starting now.

  I twist the top of the bottle and tip my head back to take the largest drink I can.

  Wine. Wine will make me happy.

  Closer and closer, I inch toward the water until I’m standing knee deep in the forceful pushing waves. My balance wavers, but more and more drinks from the bottle seem to keep me resilient against the strength of the ocean. Or maybe the wine just takes away my ability to care.

  Probably that second one. White water collapses over my white knee-high socks and thighs, making me stumble back. It trails out into the inky depths as quickly as it came.

  Being here feels reckless and relaxing all at the same time.

  The waves rise the longer I stand here until the ends of my dress that I worked so hard on become damp and cold.

  Once more, the water tears up toward the coast with vengeance. This time when I stagger, laughter tumbles out as well with a feeling of freedom, peace.

  Happiness.

>   Salt is all I smell. Clean, pure salt. I lean into that addicting calmness the ocean offers, the water up to my waist now, my big green eyes reflecting in the dark water for only an instant.

  The crash of it all, that’s the serene part. The roaring, intense, violence of the water is absolutely beautiful.

  It almost smothers the sound of my scream when it all happens.

  A hand grips my arm, wrapping cold fingers around my skin until I feel it in my bones even. Ink scars the fingers that dig into my flesh. A mixture of pale skin and black lines make up every inch of the hand emerging from the waves.

  A strangled sound of fear claws up my throat, but it’s silenced in an instant.

  It’s silenced as I go under. The beautiful waves that I admired so much take away every sound of my fear. A coldness surrounds me, drenching my pretty blue dress and stark white socks as I’m pulled deeper and deeper into the darkness.

  I came to Los Angeles to escape. Maybe I should’ve been careful what I asked for.

  Two

  Salt stings my throat, and I gasp for a steady breath of air when I cough it up. My hands fist damp sand, and my chest aches as I kneel on all fours, ready to sacrifice my right lung for a decent breath of air. Warm fingers run up and down my spine.

  “You’re all right. Cough it up, Prospect.” The even tone of his low voice hums along the sound of the slashing waves. The beautiful sound of the sea is oddly dull compared to the deep rumble of his voice.

  My lashes flutter, and I manage to look at the man by my side. For a moment, I expect to see Tex. It’s a stupid moment, I’ll admit. If he can’t find my pussy when it’s pressed right up against him, there’s no way he’s going to find my entire body in the Pacific Ocean.

  Only the moonlight gives me glimpses of his appearance. Water drips from the ends of the stranger’s light hair. Blue searching eyes follow my every motion. Pale hair, pale eyes, pale skin, and black inking lines that slash across nearly every inch of him.

  They’re…numbers. Numbers and dates and hyphens in some places. His right arm rests against his knee as he crouches at my side. Dark Roman numerals, romantic swirling dates, and quickly jotted numbers etch up his arms. The tattoos scar his knuckles, along the insides of his fingers, over every inch of him but his untouched face.

  And I can see why.

  There’s strength in the line of his jaw. Perfect full lips are set into an emotionless line. Piercing blue eyes watch me watching him.

  He’s fucking beautiful. I traveled the country after high school, and I never saw anyone as perfectly made as this man.

  He saved me.

  “Clear your lungs, Prospect. We have a long trip ahead of us. We can’t be late.” He stands, his gaze colliding with the sea.

  Sand sprinkles across his black boots, and I try to peer up at his towering height as I all but slouch into the sand like a crab ready to hibernate.

  I appreciate his heroism. I do. Really. But I’m fine right here where I am. Let me hack up a lung in peace.

  My eyes close slowly. It’s then that I realize the pounding music of the party is no longer ripping through the night air.

  I take a time out from dying slowly to process that.

  My lashes open. I take in the heavy waves lapping at the rocky shore. The sand beneath my palms is as smooth and silky as ever. I shift ungracefully to look back at the scenery behind me. The overwhelming structure of the enormous beach house is no longer there.

  Dark trees and twisting vines are everywhere. They wrap around for miles and miles. The sea is ahead while a tropical forest is behind.

  And only my heroic friend is here.

  Alone.

  Shit. I’m alone with a man who may or may not be a friend. I’ve basically already idolized him for saving me. Let’s face it, a woman who’s spent half her life isolated from her peers knows Stockholm syndrome when she falls face fucking first into it.

  And now we’re alone, my savior and I.

  On shaking legs, I stand. Sand scrapes through my hair as I attempt to smooth my wig back into place. The clips pull against my scalp, and I wince instantly. I take a step back. And then another. And another.

  “I actually have to go. My friends are waiting for me.” Friends. That’s good. Good job, Maddy. “My boyfriend gets really angry when he has to wait for me.” Oh yes. The boyfriend. The angry boyfriend. I’m just about to toss out more scary words for the man who may be a hero, or he may be a future homicidal maniac who just happens to like women in dripping mascara and crooked wigs, when he says something I never could have expected.

  “Wanderlust is expecting you. This is In Trance Island, and there’s only one exit, I’m afraid.” His tone is this alluring sound that only better confirms that he’s a murderer. They’re charming, you know. Charming and alluring and they say charismatic things like there’s only one exit.

  “Entrance Island?” I ask.

  A killer—murderous—smile almost slips over the hard line against his lips.

  “Not quite.”

  With a single step, he covers the space between us, and I stumble against the soft sand to put more distance in place.

  “In Trance.” The rasping whisper of his words seems to stir something within the island itself. Shimmering fog in shades of pink and purple pools around our legs. Fear pushes against my chest, and I can’t help but breathe it all in, all the pretty colors.

  I must look like a weak little sheep ready for slaughter.

  But my instincts are screaming a totally different appearance.

  I look up at the handsome stranger one last time.

  And then I run.

  On unsteady steps, I tear through the lashing forest on black high heels that I’m now regretting. I kick them off and keep going. Vines and limbs snap against my skin, and still I claw my way into the darkness. The moonlight is repressed from the twisting limbs above. The only light is the glimmering colors of the fog that’s creeping higher and higher and higher. I stumble here and there. I never stop running.

  Even as the whispers in the shadows start to talk to themselves and become unbearably louder.

  “She’s here.”

  “She’s there.”

  “She’s nowhere.”

  “Is she royal or is she mad?”

  “Either way, both are bad.”

  “She’s beautiful, exactly like they said.”

  “If she isn’t careful, she’ll soon be dead.”

  The eerie voices jolt terror into my bloodstream, distracting me the more they circle around the trees. They claw at me until I stumble. A cry of pain falls from my lips as my hands hit hard against the terrain. My fingers dig into the wet mud. My eyes open just as black boots interrupt the pink fog.

  “You lost your heels, Prospect.” Two black high heels slap against the puddle I’m resting in. My lungs ache as I realize I’ve put zero amount of space between myself and my heroic murderer. I’m not even going to be that woman that they say put up a good fight in the end.

  They’ll say he slathered Madison Torrent in mud and leaves to cover up the fact that she was a train wreck before he even captured her.

  My lashes flutter slowly as I take another heaving breath of the pink wafting fog.

  His movements are drifting and delayed, and I can’t seem to track them as I struggle to keep my eyes open. It’s then that I realize how similar his eyes are to the glinting sea. The hypnotic water is what got me into this mess.

  Now I’m staring mesmerized by that color all over again.

  “Konstance will be displeased about the state of your appearance, Prospect. She likes the prospects to look a certain way. A hopeful way. A…you know, you’ll have to do. It is what it is.” He shakes his head at me in blurring movements.

  All those crime shows I watched on repeat in the hospital drift through my thoughts. I should have spent my days binging Jeopardy, and maybe then I’d be smart enough to get out of this. Instead I’m analyzing everything my murderer does just befo
re he does it. Watching those shows in chemo, I always said I’d never be the girl who didn’t put up a fight.

  I barely have the energy to reply.

  My words are a slurred garble of sounds as I put the last strength I have into jerking my leg up hard between his thighs. He groans when my foot connects with his balls.

  Once more, I mumble to him a ridiculous string of words that don’t really make any sense in my mind.

  “All I wanted was an orgasm.”

  His groan of pain is interrupted as confusion creases his brow.

  “Konstance is going to be so disappointed.” He shakes his head and stands, adjusting himself with a wince.

  My lashes become heavier. His arms slip around me, warming my body with his. The last thing I remember is burying my head into my sweet captor’s chest.

  And feeling completely calm at last.

  Three

  Water sloshes against my face. A rocking gentleness makes my stomach turn just slightly. Then my eyes find him. From above me, he sits with steely posture. His gaze rakes over the night, surveying every detail while the moon and stars highlight the tense set of his brow.

  My fingers run over the smooth wooden floor just as his arms flex hard, and he maneuvers two oars simultaneously.

  Because we’re on a boat.

  Pain stings my spine as I try to sit up from my humble little place on the floor of the damp rowboat. My legs tangle with the wooden board that acts as a makeshift bench. As I sit up, my forehead collides with the underside of the man’s seat. His crotch is poised just above my face, and I grimace once more when my wincing gaze lingers there for a bit too long.