The Monster Keeps Me Safe Read online

  THE MONSTER KEEPS ME SAFE

  KITTY THOMAS

  BURLESQUE PRESS

  CONTENTS

  Publisher's Note:

  The Monster Keeps Me Safe

  Author’s Note

  Prologue

  1. Elodie

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Acknowledgments

  The Monster Keeps Me Safe

  Kitty Thomas

  Digital Edition

  Copyright 2021, 2023 © Kitty Thomas

  All rights reserved.

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  Previously Published as:

  Tabula Rasa

  Copyright 2016 © Kitty Thomas

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  Digital Edition License Notes

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  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or shared. If you did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Respecting the hard work of this author makes new books possible.

  PUBLISHER'S NOTE:

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

  * * *

  Neither the publisher nor the author endorses any behavior carried out by any character in this work of fiction or any other.

  THE MONSTER KEEPS ME SAFE

  I didn’t know I was a captive. How could I? I’d didn’t have my memory. He could have told me anything about the world, and he did.

  And I believed him.

  Until the day a mysterious stranger showed up, killed the man I’d believed was my husband, and decided to take me with him.

  I don’t know what he plans to do with me, but it can’t be anything good.

  But hey, at least the world still exists.

  * * *

  The Monster Keeps Me Safe is a dark romance standalone with an HEA and NO cliffhangers. This title was previously published as Tabula Rasa. A prologue and bonus epilogue have been added, otherwise the original text remains the same.

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  Reader Praise:

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  “I didn’t think I could love a cold unfeeling man, until now. I love how Kitty Thomas makes a character so flawed and yet never in need of improvement.” – Ginger C, Amazon reviewer

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  “...a relationship driven dark romance with a twisted happily ever after like only Ms. Thomas can conjure up” – Darkreads, Goodreads

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  I hope you enjoy THE MONSTER KEEPS ME SAFE.

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  I also want to give you a free exclusive dark novella! You can grab that here:

  * * *

  https://dl.bookfunnel.com/kokfekc92f

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  Happy Reading!

  * * *

  Kitty ^.^

  PROLOGUE

  SHANNON MERCER

  “Shannon!”

  My team is yelling at me, but I don’t care. They slow me down. Usually I don’t mind them, but tonight I want to explore alone. As soon as James found a big enough pair of bolt cutters to get us through the fence, I put as much distance between myself and the group as possible.

  “Shannon!” James calls again. “Keep your radio on.”

  I wave him off to let him know I got it as I move deeper into the abandoned Florida theme park. Usually I drive a separate vehicle for these little excursions so I’m not stuck following what the rest of the group wants to do all weekend. I’m not really a touchy-feely Kumbaya hug it out sort of guy.

  It gives me some measure of peace to know a black rented SUV sits waiting in the parking lot for me, and I’m not at the mercy and whims of the others.

  The sun has already set, but there are lights on in the castle. I can’t believe no one stole the solar panels when the park closed. That would have been the first thing I looted.

  And now I’m questioning everything.

  I don’t think anyone was using solar panels back when this place was operational. Sure, I think they existed, but this park was too low budget for such a fancy and green update. They wouldn’t have been able to afford them.

  So what the fuck?

  I use a large machete to hack through the overgrowth of kudzu standing between me and the castle. When I reach the entrance, the drawbridge is down and light spills out. This is very fucking strange.

  While researching this place, I learned the castle has a working drawbridge. Or had. Who knows if the crank is rusted out after all these years. Though, I would have thought if the drawbridge was left down there’d be more signs of decay—at least in the entryway.

  I move stealthily inside, glancing up at the exposed beams, taking it all in. This place is something else. I make my way through the main floor to a large medieval-style restaurant.

  Everything about this is so off. I mean, more than normal. You always find weird shit in abandoned theme parks, but I can honestly say I’ve never come upon a place with lights and warmth… a place that looks lived in.

  In my distraction I bump into and knock over a suit of armor. The metal clatters loudly to the floor.

  “Oh, sorry.” It’s a reflex to be polite and apologize, to wear the mask of someone who cares—so people don’t suspect what I am. And now I’m apologizing to inanimate objects. Great, Shannon.

  When I open the door and step inside the restaurant, I freeze as I take in the scene before me. There are two roaring fireplaces—and as if that wasn’t a strong enough sign of life—there’s a startled couple, covered in a white sheet on a mattress.

  Ummm. Okay. Clearly other people explore places like this in different ways from me. I’m about to excuse myself and leave when I realize… I recognize these faces. I know this man. This woman. I’ve seen them somewhere. I can’t recall names or situations at the moment, but at some point my brain catalogued these two and put them in a file to contemplate later.

  While I’m busy trying to unpack this mystery, the guy stands and moves in front of the woman. He pulls a gun from his pants, his eyes wild as he stares me down.

  Oh. Now I know who this guy is. What a psycho. And that’s saying something coming from me.

  I pull my own gun. It’s already hot, but I bet this guy has to rack the slide first. He seems too jumpy to carry hot.

  “Please, just leave us alone,” the woman pleads.

  Well, that’s a plot twist, knowing what I know about these two. But I’m afraid I can’t do that now that weapons are involved.

  A moment later, he racks the slide, and I fire three into his stomach.

  The woman screams, “No!” She momentarily forgets her nudity to press the sheets against his gushing wounds.

  My pants tighten uncomfortably, and I’m not sure if it’s the thrill of the kill, or the flashes of skin I’m getting from the woman as she franticly tries to stop this loser from bleeding out. He’s already dead. I wonder if she realizes that yet.

  “Trevor! No! Stay with me, don’t go.”

  “He’s gone,” I say, as she feels for a pulse.

  She turns back to me, as though finally remembering she’s not alone. When her eyes meet mine, I have to remind myself to breathe. The world stops moving, and all I see is her.

  What is happening right now?

  She picks up the gun and aims. Sort of. Her hand shakes so hard, she could empty the entire magazine and not hit me, so I’m not unnecessarily concerned abou
t my safety.

  I keep my own gun trained steadily on her. “Do you want to die with your lover? Put the gun on the ground, and slide if over to me.”

  She hesitates but doesn’t put the gun down. “Please, don’t hurt me,” she whimpers.

  I want to do so many things to her.

  “Put the gun on the ground, and slide it over to me,” I repeat.

  Finally I see it, the moment she loses hope and realizes she exists now completely at my mercy, even though she still has a weapon in her hand. She and I both know if she tries to shoot me, it won’t end well for her.

  Finally she lays the gun down and slides it over. I stop it with my boot. And now she’s truly mine.

  Kill her. You have to kill her. No witnesses. You can’t leave a witness, not with others in the park. Follow protocol. Eliminate the problem. Don’t let this woman be your first mistake.

  Or… I could keep her. I just have to figure out how to get her to come with me without a fight.

  1

  ELODIE

  Six months ago.

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  At some point, right before my memory clicked off, the nightmare fairy must have paid the world a visit. When I opened my eyes, it was twilight, or dawn. I was so disoriented it was hard to tell which. I woke in a pirate ship.

  Wait. Let me start over.

  It wasn’t an actual pirate ship, though that might have made more sense to my addled brain. It was part of some theme park ride that had been separated from the rest of the attraction like a wandering child lost from its mother.

  The boat was big enough for about six adult tourists, each with a couple of sticky-fingered children in tow. The sides came up around me like a giant cradle. Given that the edges were rusted out, that idea didn’t create the serene feelings you might imagine it would. The ship was laid at an angle, almost on one side as if a violent storm had tossed it out of the artificial sea and into the middle of a jungle ride on the other end of the park. The trees around me were thickly overgrown with kudzu vines.

  I reached to touch the top of my head, feeling for a bump or cut, but nothing, just smooth forehead and long hair.

  I sifted through my mind to recall the last thing that had happened, but I came up blank. I tried to pull a familiar face out of my memory bank, but there was nothing. It was like going to the ATM only to find you’d somehow been wiped out overnight. And the bitch of it was, you couldn’t even remember what your balance was supposed to be.

  I mean I knew stuff—general stuff. Like ATMs and pirate ships and amusement parks in a vague sort of way. I had basic concepts and all the tools with which to create a story of a life, just none of the actual details. It was like nothing had been written yet. I was notes on scraps of paper and pub napkins—weird little observations, images, scenery waiting to be formed into a coherent whole.

  The sun sank a few inches lower in the sky, unlocking the mystery of what time of day it was. My head throbbed in echo to my racing heartbeat as if my heart had somehow decided to relocate to my skull. Why couldn’t it have been dawn? Everything was easier to cope with in the light. Even though I knew nothing else, somehow I knew that.

  Why couldn’t I have stayed unconscious just a few more hours? Something—call it a sixth sense or generalized paranoia—told me I didn’t want to face what was out there at night.

  I squinted into the dark bottom of the ship, looking for an unlikely flashlight. I had no supplies, no flashlight, and I had no idea where in the hell I was or how I got there.

  “Hello?” I called out. I was unsure if yelling into the eerily non-fake jungle was a good thing or not but night was fast approaching, and I had a feeling some creepy crawly might eat me if I didn’t find more reasonable shelter. And dear God, please let me have been out here with someone.

  I closed my eyes and hoped for some Amazon chick who knew how to navigate nature in all its many surly moods to just pop out at me with a giant machete and a friendly smile.

  Pounding footsteps darted through undergrowth and brush, moving in my direction.

  I shrank into the corner of the ship, unsure if I wanted whatever or whoever to find me now that I’d made my presence known.

  “Elodie?”

  The voice was male and urgent. Was that me? Elodie? I rolled that word around in my head a bit. Elodie. Elodie. I wasn’t sure if that sounded right or not. Did I look like an Elodie? I was struck with the sudden disturbing realization that I couldn’t remember what I looked like. Was that normal with amnesia? Did I have amnesia? Shit, for all I knew I’d come into the world fully formed in an amusement park pirate ship five minutes ago. It sure felt that way. Or maybe I was an alien sent here on some arcane fact-finding mission. At this point there wasn’t a lot I could objectively rule out.

  The man burst out of the foliage, breathing hard. “Elodie, thank God you’re awake.”

  I remained frozen in the corner, watching him. There was no internal memory jog, no mental spark. I mean, he didn’t look like a serial killer or escaped prisoner or anything, so that was something. Just a regular guy. Athletic. Tan. Good looking, but not absurdly so. Nice voice. If this guy was on my side, I might be okay.

  Were there sides here?

  His eyes held worry as he approached the edge of the ship. “Do you remember what happened?”

  I shook my head. I was afraid to tell him I didn’t recognize my own name, didn’t know what I looked like, didn’t know him. He might not take that well. If we had some sort of involved relationship, that is. I’m not sure how I knew men could be weird about stuff like that, but somehow at that moment it felt really true.

  “I was afraid to move you,” he continued, oblivious to my total lack of back story. “I told you not to climb on the ship. It wasn’t stable enough.”

  “I-I’m sorry,” I said. My voice croaked, and my throat felt like sandpaper. I felt as if my mouth hadn’t formed words for thousands of years.

  “Can you stand? We need to get back to the castle.”

  The castle?

  The stranger’s eyes narrowed. “Elodie, what do you remember? Be honest. You’re safe here.”

  We must be using different definitions of the word safe.

  “Well?” he prodded.

  “Nothing. I don’t remember anything.”

  “What do you mean you don’t remember anything? What’s the first thing you remember?”

  “NOTHING!” I shouted. Did he need flash cards? Anxiety crowded out my ability to think and behave rationally. It felt like bugs were crawling on me. Maybe they were. I smacked at a spot on my arm. It was getting dark fast, and the wildness had clearly overtaken this place. I’m pretty sure I don’t like wildness. I thought suddenly that I should start a list of these things as they occurred to me, but I didn’t have any paper.

  “What do you mean nothing?” he said.

  Come on universe. I couldn’t be stuck out here with somebody smart?

  “I don’t know who you are or who I am. I don’t remember anything about my life!” It came out a little more dramatic than I’d intended, as if there could be a low key way to deliver this sort of information.

  “Is this one of your jokes? Because I can tell you, if it is, it’s not funny. I was scared out of my mind when you wouldn’t wake up.”

  “How long was I out?”

  “A few hours.”

  “I t-think I need to go to a hospital.”

  “That’s not an option.”

  A chill slid down my spine. Maybe this guy wasn’t on my side. Hell, how did I know he hadn’t beaten me over the head with a broken tree branch in the first place?

  “Don’t look at me like that. I didn’t mean it that way. Let’s just get back to the castle. We have electricity there. I’ll explain it all to you when we get back.”

  I stared at the hand he offered. “How do I know you won’t hurt me?”

  He took a deep, measured breath which didn’t reassure me at all. “I’m not going to hurt you. I’m your husband. Tr
evor. Everything is going to be okay.”

  I flinched when he reached into his back pocket as if he might be going for a weapon. But it was just his wallet. He pulled out a long thin paper and handed it to me. It was deeply creased from being folded and kept for so long. There was barely enough light left to see, but it was a strip of photos from a photo booth. Trevor and a woman.

  “She’s pretty,” I said absently, staring at the blonde girl with brilliant blue eyes.

  He laughed. “There’s no conceit in your family. You’ve got it all.” Off my confused expression, he continued, “She’s you. That was our first date.”

  “Oh.” I handed the strip of pictures back to him, feeling suddenly awkward.

  He put them in his wallet and stretched out his hand again. “Elodie? We need to get inside. It’s not safe out here after dark.”

  “But, how do I know that’s really me?”

  “There’s a mirror in the castle. You’re going to have to trust me. What’s the worst-case scenario?”

  “You’re a psychopathic killer?” I said, not sure if I was kidding.

  He rolled his eyes. “And if that’s the case, you’re screwed anyway. Now come on. I’ll explain everything when we get home.”