(You are advised to read this chapter with the sound on for extra sensory effect.)

"I guess this is better than being shot," Chad mumbled, walking into the sparse, dirty, foul-smelling garage, with its bare and angry red, Australian soil. The smell immediately overpowered his senses as Cassie dug a finger into his back, nudging him further in. "Phew, Cassie, what died in here?"

She sniffed the air. "I smell nothing. Why, what do you smell?" Her eyes, wide and worried, flickered over the earthen floor. Chad couldn't tell why.

A large blowfly whizzed around him, the sound irritating his throbbing head. He'd forgotten about the thumping headache he still had, and now, the sound of a fly brought it forth in his mind. He winced as Cassie propelled him towards the rusty old water heater in the corner and thrust him down.

He landed on his ass, hitting a bone to something hard under the soil. Cassie tied his hands with a metal wire around a foot of the heater. Chad noticed her phone drop with a slight thud to the earth as she bent over, fixated on tying him up. He was glad the floor wasn't cement. He needed that phone. He had to keep her from recovering it. So, he leaned in closer to her, as close as he could manage without his stomach churning at the thought of trying to charm her.

"What happened to the floor in here? Doing some renovations, are you?"

Cassie eyed him, surprised at his smile. He forced it wider; sure all his teeth were showing. She blushed but continued to loop the gardening wire she'd found to tie him up with.

"Mum was renovating. I don't know why she started with the garage," Cassie said, a smile playing on her lips.

"Uh-huh," Chad mumbled while reaching his right foot to drag the phone below his thigh without alerting her. She hadn't noticed it yet, and wouldn't notice for a while. He needed to make a call. Just one call.

His leg slipped, a tad short of the phone, and Cassie turned. "What're you doing?"

Lucky for Chad, his thigh was hiding half the phone and her own behind was hiding the rest from view. "Nothing." He pretended to get comfortable again. It was surprising how often she was falling for the same trick.

"Something is digging in my butt, so I was trying to find a better spot." He thumped the rest of his thigh over the phone as Cassie moved.

"Oh." She stood. "That's probably an old beam or something. This used to be a porch at one point. I'll get you a cushion to sit on. Be right back."

"I'll be here, as promised," he muttered, half-smiling as she glanced back at him, making sure he wasn't going anywhere.

As soon as she was out of sight, Chad tried to bring the phone closer, but a bigger problem remained. How was he going to place a call? He struggled to grip the phone between his shoes, and every time he moved, the wires around his wrist cut a little deeper.

When he heard the flush of the toilet and approaching footsteps on the creaky floor, he put his legs over the device. He had to find a window of time, long enough where he could be alone, maybe her next bathroom-break. For now, Cassie entered the garage once more and there was nothing he could do. He hoped by now Jo and June had realised he was missing and called the police.

Cassie held two cold beers in hand, and a cushion wedged under one arm. She placed the bottles on the floor in front of him and hit him on the side of the bottom. "Up." He complied, relieved to sit on something soft and not the hard ground.

She sat crossed legged in front of him and handed him a beer while she took a sip from the other. "Thought you might be thirsty, and I know how much you like this brand." She held the bottle to him as if waiting for him to take it.

He eyed the despicable thing. He had only ever tried that brand once, as part of the research for a book. He wasn't a bitter beer man, and yet, here she was, holding out a dark brew in a bleak bottle.

"You'll need to free my hands," he suggested casually. If there was a sliver of a chance she'd free his hands, he would take it, even if it was to drink beer.

Cassie chuckled, shaking the bottle at him. "I see what you did there. Nice try, Zach." She scooted over to him and held the bottle to his lips. "Here, drink."

He had no choice but to take a sip. "Hmm. Refreshing!" he commented after being forced to take another sip, then another. Was she trying to get him drunk? Woman, it's gonna take more than that and harder stuff. Perhaps a Pinot Gris? He plastered an uncomfortable smile on his face.

"It's good, right?" She leaned back on her arm and chugged the rest of hers.

"What was it you wanted to talk about, Cassandra?" He observed her carefully.

"Cassandra? Since when do you call me that?" Her brows lifted in question. "I like the sound of Cassie from you."

"Cassie." Chad swallowed the bile rising to his throat and nodded. "What did you want to talk about?"

"I'm not happy, Zach." Her mood dropped several shades. "I'm not happy right now. Look at us, sitting here in this filthy, broken house, trying to mend our broken relationship. How did we get here? How..." She gripped the bottleneck hard as if she was trying to strangle it. Chad swallowed nervously.

"Am I not enough for you, Zach, that you had to go get a younger version of me? How do you think it makes me feel?" she exploded, tears stinging her eyes, snot dribbling down her petite nose.

June's not a version of you. She is nothing like you. Not even close. Chad watched her, bewildered.

"I go away for a few months to look after my mum." Cassie wiped her nose on her long shirt sleeve. "Who is gone now, by the way, and you bring another woman into our home? Why, Zach?"

Chad stared at the slobbering mess in front of him, with the realization Cassie had no idea where and when she was anymore. She hadn't gone 'away' to look after her mother. No. They had taken her into psych holding as part of her sentencing. Sentencing handed down for stalking, aggravated assault, and attempted murder of the very man seated opposite her. And Chad was back to square one. Square one!

Fuck square one. You get out of here in one piece, damn it. Focus. Distract and call for help. He nodded to himself, one that Cassie did not notice.

He pulled in a sharp breath. "Cassie," he began pointedly, as a parent might start when they are trying to explain to their child what they did wrong. This was going to either save him or be the moment things went south, fast. For it was when Chad realised, as long as Cassie was around, he could never bring another woman into his life. Never love, never marry, never have kids, because forever in the back of his mind would be this one question. Is she watching me right now?  Or worse, is she watching them? He couldn't live with that. It was all or nothing.

"Listen to me carefully," he spoke with a steady tone, a tone that rendered her silent. Defiance burned in his somewhat terrified eyes. "I am not your husband. I am not Zachary Eve. I am Chad Gilligan, and I have never been married to you or anyone else, ever. It is all in your head. You've got to let me go before you get in trouble. Trouble you don't want."

"No. Stop it, stop it." Cassie shook her head, denial oozing from her pores. "You're Zach!" She jumped to her feet and began pacing. "You signed a book the first time we bumped into each other at a bookstore on Oxford Street, in that name! You were sweet, you even asked me out to dinner, and we hit it off." Her hand ran through her hair as memories clouded her mind, some true, but most, fabricated.

"And you flew me out to Paris of all places and proposed under the Eiffel tower. Do you not remember that? Cause I do, as if it was yesterday."

She watched him expectantly. "It had been drizzling before we went out for dinner, and you insisted we walk past it. You got down on your knees. All that light reflecting on the wet concrete made it look like you and I were floating in space between stars."

Chad's heart sank as he listened to her; growing concerned at the details he knew well, details from the novels. To his dismay, her mind had warped her memories: standing in a line at a book signing into 'bumping into each other at a bookstore' was only the beginning. Things that had never come to pass were things she believed happened in real life, with him. He was sure he hadn't asked her out to dinner. He'd merely asked if she'd like to join him for drinks as he'd mingled with fans after the talk. The first of many mistakes he'd made with her.

Beware the stranger. He was taught it in childhood, and yet, he'd let his guard down.

"We got married under the moonlight on a beach in Fiji, warm sand between our toes. Your glorious face smiling down on me." She was still rambling, another detail from his third novel, Heartbreak Paradise. "And the day we found out we were pregnant..."

Uh-huh, Chad shook his head, mortified. They may have had sex more than he could count. All mistakes. But, all those times, they'd used protection. Always. He wasn't that stupid. Not that stupid.

"We'd name the kid Gregor, after your father, if we ever had a boy. God rest his soul," the chatter continued, Cassie in her own reverie of memories, memories that were lifting her spirits. "And if it was a girl, we'd name her after your sister Yvonne. But then we lost her..."

"Stop!" Chad yelled, unable to take anymore. His skin crawled with a mix of fear, hatred, and disgust. "Stop!"

The baby, the plan for the names, the miscarriage were from his sixth and highest-grossing novel, A Glittering Night in Moscow.

"What?" She glared at him, eyes wild and distant.

"None of that ever happened, Cassie!" Chad shook his head, the weight of it heavy, so heavy. He licked his dry lips, his heart and head pounding. He stared at his legs, his thoughts going to the phone hidden underneath. "None of it ever happened. Not the bookstore, not the proposal, not the wedding on the beach," his voice rose with each word. "And definitely not the baby. It's all your fucking imagination."

"No, no." Cassie shook her head, stubborn as ever. "Stop lying!"

"They're all bits and pieces of my stories, bits you've pieced together. I am NOT Zachary eve. Zach doesn't exist. You hear me? Zach does not exist!" Chad yelled, despite every atom in his body warning him to stop. "I made him up, like the rest of those stories you think are your memories. I made it up. Zach, the proposal, the wedding..."

"Stop lying!" she screamed through gritted teeth, her spittle raining down on him like a rabid dog. He didn't care. If she was livid, he was too. She was the one destroying his life, not the other way around.

"I said stop lying, Zach!" The gun pointed straight at his face, nestled in her trembling hands, trembles caused by sobs that wracked her body. "I'll prove it to you," she hissed between tears and left, in a whirlwind of emotion, leaving him trembling, not from fear but rage. The purest rage he'd ever felt.

He struggled against the wire, despite it cutting into his skin. He needed to get that phone now, while she was gone. He could hear her stomping through the house. Chad kicked off his shoes frantically, struggled to remove his socks, and somehow gripped the phone between his toes and flip it over, bringing the screen into view.

Was it swipe left or swipe right to get to the emergency call button, he couldn't quite remember, so he tried both. The urgency of the situation had him worried. For all he knew, his life depended on this call.

The screen he needed popped up after several attempts to swipe with his toes. Cassie wasn't back, and he hoped there was enough time to reach someone. He pressed the call button with his toe and waited impatiently as the sound of the call connecting came through the speakers. His breath caught in his throat as the call connected.

"What is your emergency, fire, ambulance, or police?"

"Police, I need the police, please. A crazy woman has me held at..." he was muttering, folded over the phone as he could when he heard footsteps sound on the creaky floor. "Fuck! Please, send help, I can't talk," was all he managed before he threw his legs over the phone to hide it, and hoped to God she wouldn't hear the voice floating out from the device. The person on the other end of the line was asking him for some details, details he couldn't provide without giving himself away.

It took all he had to go back to a compliant Chad, willing to talk. Even if she killed him at this point, it gave him some relief that the police could triangulate the cell phone signal and find his body. But relief, however, was so tiny it may not have even existed.