He suddenly let me go. Dropping me to the ground with a thud onto the cold hard tiles as he pointed a baseball bat he was clutching in his other hand, a blood-covered baseball bat. Whose blood was that?
"Move, and you will regret it, babe" Every time he called me that I cringed, I couldn't help myself. I had hated it when we were in high school, and I downright despised it now. Almost as much as I despised him.
Watching him retreat back into the locker room, leaving me alone once again. My blood ran cold when he dragged a limp body back into the room with me.
The brunette hair stuck In the blood on her face made me feel sick, Camila. Blood was dripping down her entire front.
What had he done?
Oh my god, is she dead?
Throwing her like a rag doll down on to the floor on the opposite side of the room, he just stood, breathing so heavily it sounded like he was winded from the fight they'd had.
"I am very disappointed," he said breathlessly. "This was not on the plan but, it’s just a little issue."
He had two women in a shower room, one I wasn't even sure was still breathing. Both of whom were unwilling to be here, and he thinks it's just a minor issue. He was mentally unstable. Certifiable.
There was no way that I was going to get out of here alive now. Deep down, I knew that only one of us was going to come out of this alive, and the way things looked currently, he had the advantage.
The thought of never seeing my best friend, Luke or Ashby again….. god that was just unimaginable.
No, Nala, you have to fight.
Get out of here.
You have to try at all costs.
Using the bloody end of the baseball bat, he turned on the shower above Camila. She must have only been unconscious because as soon as the water hit her, she flinched, gasping for a breath so violently I jumped. Either that or she was just playing dead like a possum.
Turning his attention back to me, he turned the shower on above me this time, and instead of coming out of the showerhead above, the pipe I was half attached to poured out with water. Gushing like a waterfall.
"Move, and there will be consequences, Nala Reeves."
Fear filled me, and I knew, without a doubt, he would kill me.
You're practically already dead anyway, my subconscious shouted at me.
Five days.
Five days of searching.
Five days of failing.
Five days of heartache.
Where the fuck are you, Peaches?
"Nala?" Camila was trying to gain my attention, but I was unable to so much as move, let alone speak right now.
I was terrified.
Not only because of the situation I was in, but I was also more terrified that I was never going to get out here, away from him.
That one thought alone, of being stuck with him forever, scared the ever-living shit out of me.
"Nala"
"Shhh"
He may have left us, but there was no telling if he was listening, just standing out of sight, waiting for us to talk to each other.
"How…. are you okay?"
"Seriously, Camila?" She was asking me if I was okay. She did have eyes, right?
She had always been so horrid to me in high school. I mean, she was sleeping with my boyfriend. Even if that was Brandon, she still did that. She always made people's lives hell in this very high school that we are being held in. Completely and totally against our will.
"Everyone’s looking for you," her words made my eyes widen. They were still looking for me?
Turning my head quickly in her direction, my stomach twisted at the sight of her. She was more covered in blood than I had realised before. Maybe that was it, or maybe she was still bleeding, and that amount of blood loss, well, it was not going to be good.
"What do you mean?"
"The police and that biker gang, The Unholy Confessions, have been ripping this town apart looking for you. Your mom too"
No.
She had to have been mistaken.
There was no way in hell my mom would be back here.
Even if the unthinkable had happened and my dad had died, she would never have had the balls to come back here.
Would she?
And there was no possible way in any situation that she would be looking for me… she just wouldn't.
"The bikers?" If they were looking for me, that gave me the hope that he was, that he didn't think I had left. That I hadn't abandoned him, us, again.
Nodding, she flinched, pain radiating throughout her petite and fragile body. From just looking at her, I could feel the pain that she must have been in.
"Why did you come here?"
"He's been acting…… odd" visibly swallowing, she added, "I knew he was up to something and every time anything about you was said he almost shut down. I knew something was up, so I followed him" did that mean that she and he were still a thing? After so many years… Jesus "We're in real trouble, aren't we?"
Nodding, I couldn't help but ask the next question, "How long have I been here, how long have I been missing?"
"Five days."
That was all? I felt like I had been here weeks if not months, but it had only been five days?
"What do we do now?" She asked when I stayed silent, trying to process what she had just told me. Five days. Jesus.
Now that I knew that they were looking for me, even my mom. My mind could not fathom that little knowledge. Hope was blooming in my chest that we just might be able to get out of this.
"We need to fight, get the hell out of here. No matter what, we have to fight Camila."
Not knowing how we would do that, we both silenced.
A few minutes passed when she suddenly blurted out, "I'm sorry, for high school, I was a stereotypical cheerleader bitch. I was so jealous of you. You had this amazing life, a boyfriend who wanted to marry you, although he is a bit cray cray, so maybe not, but I treated you like shit, and I'm truly sorry for everything."
A dark laugh fell from my lips. "My life was far from perfect, Camila, in fact, every day was like a living nightmare, like I was living some kind of cruel Groundhog Day. My mom put me in the emergency room because she wanted me to be skinny, and my dad was a god damn drug mafia king who sold me to a man who wanted to marry me off to his son. My life was as far from perfect as you can get. I spent every day in this high school feeling like I was suffocating" as I spoke, I could hear her gasp, and I looked away, unwilling to see the pity in her eyes. "The past is in the past, Camila, just be a good person now, and we're good."
We both stayed silent while she digested what I had told her when footsteps boomed from above us. Almost like a stampede.
What the hell was that?
Nervously we looked at each other, and just when we were both about to scream for help Brandon came into the shower room that he was holding us in. The bloody baseball bat in his hand, hovering in the air, threatening us without having to say a single word. I knew he would be listening to us; I just knew it.
Looking up into his eyes, I became even more alarmed than before. There was this wild, animalistic look in them. If either of us made the wrong move, said the wrong thing, this would turn very quickly. Even more so than it already had. The smell of whisky was so strong coming off of him that It was almost as though he had bathed in it.
The footsteps above us sounded again. Putting him more on edge, it seemed.
Who was that?
"Say a word, and you're both dead" my eyes were trained on the bat, unable to take the wildness in his eyes anymore.
Who was it upstairs making all of that noise?
Hope flared that it was him, with The Unholy Confession crew, but when a few moments passed, and all I could hear was the three of us breathing, that hope soon died. Whoever it was must have left.
Laughing darkly, he dropped the baseball bat down in the corner before walking over to me and dropping down onto one knee. A solo finger moved a single piece of hair from my face,
curling it behind my ear. His touch made me want to vomit, my stomach churning in utter disgust.
"Not long now, babe," the stench of whisky was almost intoxicating me as it rolled off of his tongue. Had he drunk an entire bottle when he had been out of the room? "We will get married."
"Never," I was never going to be his. Ever.
Screwing his face up, his eyes flamed again, and as he was about to raise his hand to strike me when the baseball bat he had let go of a moment ago crashed into the side of his head, sending him flying across the room.
On instinct, a scream left my lips, and at the realisation that Camila had just hit him, my eyes moved to her.
There she was staring at his still, limp body. My own felt almost woozy, between my lack of sleep, zero nutrition, and the metallic smell filling my nostrils as his blood poured out on the ground, mixing with hers.
The silence was almost deafening, as both of us seemed to be frozen. That was until his dark laugh filled the room once again.
He was still alive.
Slowly he stood with a stumble, turning his attention to Camila, who looked like a deer caught in headlights. Backing away as he approached her, his limp more prominent than before.
"Mistake" was all he said before launching himself at her, for a moment, his entire body suspended in the air as he knocked the both of them onto the floor. Smashing her head into the tiles, I could see her eyes roll backwards from my position. Panic was taking over every drop of blood in my body.
Tugging the handcuffs around my wrists, I knew I needed to get out of here. He was going to kill the both of us.
My eyes were glued to them as they fought on the floor, and the baseball bat she had been holding had rolled towards me. Her hand darted out, grabbing ahold of it before it moved too far. Lifting the baseball bat, Camila shoved the end of it into his ribs, sending him rolling over in agony before she hit him as hard as she could. Right in the head. The sound of his skull cracking would haunt my dreams.
Trying to stand, he couldn't say a word. His mouth was full of blood, running down his chin like rain on a window in a storm.
With one final blow, Brandon dropped to the floor like that sad sack of shit he was. His eyes connected to mine with a hallowed look before he lost consciousness. Camila smashed the bloodied bat into his bad leg, making him wake and scream out in pain once more.
Coughing and gasping for a breath, he began to move, dragging himself away from her, his legs sliding through the blood behind him. Camila had gotten him good with that baseball bat with that last swing. He would have more than a god damn limp now.
If I had been the one holding it, I don't know if I would have been able to stop myself long enough for him to have overpowered me.
He deserved to die.
Not because of what he had done to me, no, because of what he had done to Ashby.
What he and his father had done to Ashby.
His half-brother.
I still could not get my head around that fact. How long had Ashby known?
Why hadn't he told me?
Camila dropped down onto her knees, clutching at her side. She was covered in so much blood, it wasn't all her own either. A mixture of his and hers.
"Camila?" I tried to get her to look at me, but it was no good. She had slumped onto her side and was also unconscious, just like Brandon was. He was laid halfway across the floor with an outstretched arm. He’d been trying to get to his cell phone.
Turning my attention to the handcuffs, I knew I had to get free of these. Tugging hard on the pipe I was attached to, it wobbled slightly, but I needed more power.
"Come on," struggling with the little strength I had, I managed to turn my body around, moving my bound feet flat against the wall. Using all of the strength I had and with one last tug, pressing my feet against the tiled walls,
I managed to bend the pipe just enough for it to come apart at the joint completely.
Tears gathered at the corners of my eyes in relief as water poured out around me. Making the shower room into a shallow swimming pool in no time. I had to get out of here, I had to get away from him before he gained consciousness again.
With my hands still encased in the handcuffs, I dragged myself forwards. Trying to get to the baseball bat that was covered in blood. Both his and hers. If he did wake up, I needed a weapon to defend myself with, to defend the both of us. Me and Camila.
The cell phone In the middle of the room filled it with an echoey ring. Brandon groaned as he came too, although he was unable to move a muscle from the blows he had taken it seemed.
I had to get to that cell phone.
I had to get us out of here.
Ashby.
My heart was pounding so hard. It almost felt like it was outside of my body.
Camila was slumped over, almost in the corner where he had put her when she first arrived when he had dragged her in from the locker room.
With no way of my legs holding my weight from sheer exhaustion, I continued to drag my body across the cold and wet tiles. Stopping myself from thinking that the reason it was wet was not just from water. There was so much blood.
His phone screen kept flashing with incoming calls and texts.
Stopping about a foot away, my body felt like it was giving up.
'Be strong' Ashby’s words from the first night I met him rang through my head.
"Come on, Nala," my breaths were becoming deeper and harsher now. Almost like I was losing the ability to breathe at all, the ability to fight.
As my fingers brushed the cool metal of Brandon's cell phone. The relief was more than I could imagine. I didn't know how much longer it would be before I would be the one unconscious.
No passcode. God, Brandon, you are such an idiot.
My forefinger hovered over the nine to call the police and anyone else who could come, but I stopped. There was only one person who I wanted to get me out of here. The police had failed with charging mom with anything, of finding where my dad had been hiding all of these years. They could only let me down. No good could come from calling them for help.
Ashby.
I needed him.
Dialing a number that I had memorised since getting it from Pinky, my shaky fingers hit call.
One solitary ring sounded before the gruff voice I had craved to hear flowed through the phone.
"Who the fuck is this?"
"A…aasshh" The air in my was lungs painfully low and my vision started to blur.
"Peaches?" He sounded shocked, and I could hear a lot of commotion in the background. "Shit, Peaches, is that you?" shouting was all I could hear in the background, making my head fuzz even further.
"I need you...pl…please."
"Where the fuck are you? I'm coming right now."
Someone was sobbing in the background now.
Was that Claire?
Were they together?
"Locker room, White Church Hi… old one not…school."
"Where…….."
And then there was blackness.
The detective, Barnes, was pissing me off on an astronomical level. We all knew that the chances of the Matthews being involved in this were possible. In my mind, I knew it was the only explanation, but after what he had done, my biological father, I was not going to be stupid enough to go to that house. No matter how many times I had ended up at the bottom of their street. Just watching the house in the last couple of days.
Was she in there?
Were they holding her somewhere close by?
Was she even still in the state anymore? This country?
If it wasn't for the fact that the man was dead, by all things accounted, I would have been on a plane assuming it had been Peaches' dad who had taken her. Again.
The fact that Weston was dead should have brought me a little bit of piece, and yet it didn't. He had caused so much destruction and pain throughout his life to so many people, but no one more than my Peaches. I almost wished I could have been the one to end hi
m.
This had to be a punishment for me.
I could just bloody sense it.
He wanted to rip everything away from me that he could, no matter what the cost was. I knew why he hadn't ended my life when he ripped my world apart after I went to him for help. Begged him to help me find her the first time.
Peaches: MC Romance (The Unholy Confessions Book 1) Page 21