I hadn't expected to ever run into Alex again. Not after the messy breakup we'd had. Oh sure, it had been mostly me breaking up with her, with her begging and pleading. But enough was enough, and after I'd find her with another girl for the third time that had been it for me. I'd taken my stuff and moved out, and told her I'd see her again when hell froze over.

Well apparently hell had frozen about the same time that the door to my motel room was jimmied open, because I woke up in time to find myself faced with a very large, very familiar ceramic knife. Damn, I should have never gotten it for her for Christmas. Wasn't there a superstition about giving knives as presents? Something about ending the friendship. Well, most superstitions were based on common sense. Certainly there was something compelling about being presented with the very same knife I'd bought Alex for chopping vegetables.

Her expression was the most frightening part about it. If she'd looked angry, or vengeful, I might have appealed to her. But those teeth were showing in her mouth as she grinned at me, and she seemed to be filled with anticipation for whatever she had planned. She wasn't operating under a sea of pain and loss; she was here to enjoy whatever she was going to do. "Please don't cut me," I said as intelligently as I could, my heart pounding and my eyes wide. I'd gone from sleepy to alert in a fraction of an instant.

"Reach over your head and grip the bars on the headboard," she told me in that husky voice of hers.