Unconditional

by Tyler, Q. B.

I swallow and clear my throat, hearing her unspoken words. Did Maddie tell her? Or is she reading between the lines? “Right, well, just keep me posted.”

  “Okay.”

  We make it to the bar that looks like a crime scene. Maddie’s car is parked in a spot, and I immediately spot her phone next to her car. No.

  I’m out of the car instantly, and reach for it when Aria screams for me to stop.

  “You’re not thinking clearly. Prints Cal,” she says before she pulls on a glove and picks it up before putting it in a bag. “We need to get this back to the station.”

  “I’m not leaving Maddie’s car here.” I notice the keys are still on the seat, making me wonder if it hasn’t been long since she’s been here. I’m honestly surprised no one has fucked with it. “I need to keep following the tracker. Her necklace is still sending me a signal.” When I realized that her necklace was moving, but her car and phone were staying in one place, I wasn’t sure which one was actually with Maddie. It seems that they’re moving west but they’re not far from us. “I’m going to take Maddie’s car.”

  “You sure you want to go alone?” Aria looks at me with her signature look and shakes her head.

  “I’ll send for backup.”

  Aria reaches for her radio and sends out an SOS for a missing person on Madeline Shaw. As soon as I hear her name, I lose it. I almost collapse where I stand, and if it wasn’t for Aria within arm’s reach, I probably would have hit the ground.

  “You’re not going anywhere alone.”

  “I’ll—”

  “No, this is too personal for you, and you’ll lose it whenever you find her, regardless of the situation.”

  “If someone has my girl, they are going the fuck down.”

  Flashing lights surround us, and before I can blink, yellow police tape is moving in front of the bar, they’re dusting Maddie’s cherry red Volkswagen for prints and already have Maddie’s phone in custody.

  I guess when the police chief’s girl goes missing, everyone reports for duty.

  “Let’s go, Grayson,” Aria says as she gets in the car. I get in the passenger seat, the adrenaline starting to slow and my heart feeling heavy in my chest.

  Aria must note my somber mood because her words slice through the tension in the car. “Cut that shit out, Cal. Now is not the time to give up. Maddie needs you to keep it together.”

  “I looked in her car, Aria.” I shake my head as I prepare to speak my thoughts. “There weren’t a whole lot of signs of struggle. No tire marks. Maddie’s car looked the same.” I let my head rest against the back of the seat. “She might be wherever she is…willingly.” Maybe she ran. Maybe this was all too much for her, and she ran from me.

  “Bullshit, and you don’t believe that.”

  “I would rather that than someone taking her. You think I want to think about her ending this? But it’s better than the alternative. It would hurt me to lose her now, but it would kill me to lose her forever.”

  “Cal, she’s going to be okay. We’re going to find her. But I need you to come back from the dark side. I need you to stay positive. Where does her necklace say she is?” I look down and see that it’s stopped, in a town not too far from us.

  “Fuck, it stopped.” My heart races wondering if she ditched her necklace or if maybe we’re close.

  We’re driving for another twenty minutes when the one lane road becomes narrower as we come to the edge of a forest.

  “We can’t take the car in there, it might spook them,” Aria says. “I’m calling for back up.”

  “Tell them to stand down,” I tell her. “I’m going in.”

  I’m tied to the ceiling, the burn of the tight ropes cutting into my flesh. My arms are raised above my head with a rag stuffed in my mouth and I’m missing half of my clothes in a freezing cold room. My feet are frozen solid as Henry removed my socks and forced me to stand on the freezing cold floor. My body almost feels numb with how cold I am and my vision is starting to blur. I blink my eyes several times, trying to regain focus. Stay awake, Maddie, don’t pass out. He took off my pants, which was scary as hell, watching his eyes burn into my exposed flesh as he pulled my jeans off. A wicked chuckle slithered over me as he snapped my underwear against my skin like a promise of what was to come.

  So, that’s how this ends? Bile rises in my throat at the thought. I’m grateful I am still wearing a shirt, allowing me to keep a modicum of modesty. My eyes float over to my coat that was tossed in the corner with my other clothes and I just pray my necklace is still sending a signal to Cal’s phone. My cheek still hurt from his punch and I can see that it’s already started to swell when I glance downwards.

  My mind struggles to stay in the present, and I can feel myself slowly disassociating from the trauma and the state of this situation. The promise of death and destruction is everywhere I look in the small room and I find my head returning to the last time death breathed down my neck. I can hear my father screaming, my mother crying, the crash and bang of things breaking and then nothing.

  The door slams open forcing my drooping lids back open and Henry puts a bottle to his lips. “So,” he slurs, “you asked me why.” We’ve been here for about an hour at this point, most of which I’ve been in here by myself. Not that I’ve minded. I’ve spent the majority of the hour wondering how I’m going to get out of here, and if it were possible to get out of these ropes. Short of breaking my wrists, no. My arms are exhausted, my muscles burning despite the icy temperatures. “I figured, I owe you a biiiiiiit of an explanation.” He takes another sip and moves closer to me.

  My chest moves up and down rapidly. “Cal…your precious Cal ruins everything.” He puts a finger up and snaps them. “You need pictures.”

  Tears stream down my face as I realize what’s about to happen. He wouldn’t confess unless he didn’t plan on killing me. The water that I chugged just before I left the party starts to catch up with me, coupled with the feelings of terror has urine sliding down my leg and into a puddle on the floor. Henry comes back into the room and shakes his head, a disgusted snarl on his lips. “Are you a dog? You can’t keep it together?”

  I sniffle and he holds a picture in front of my face. “History lesson. This was before your time. Before precious Maddie came in and became the center of everyone’s universe.” He rolls his eyes and the obvious disdain and resentment is so evident, it makes me wonder how I never picked up on it before. Was he that good at hiding his feelings from everyone? My thoughts are interrupted when he thrusts a picture in my face.

  “Look, bitch,” he snarls. “You wanted answers so bad. THIS is my father.” He points at a tall man standing next to Margie and him and Cal when they were much younger. “Obviously Margie.” He points. “Me and Cal. The little bastard that ruined everything.”

  I wince at his harsh words. “Note that I didn’t say our father. Nope, just mine. Turns out my dear old mom had a little boyfriend. She got pregnant and had Cal and then my father left. He abandoned me because she gave birth to that little shit!” My eyes widen when he produces a knife from his back pocket. He runs his finger up the blade and pokes the blade through the photo and through Cal’s young face. I squeeze my eyes shut to forget the image of the knife going through the picture. My mouth is sore from having this rag stuffed inside but I feel my bottom lip wobble slightly. “Now, of course, this is all new information.” He tosses the photo to the side. “I had no idea any of this until last week. My father fucking died, Maddie. He died and I never even got a chance to know him. I never got to say goodbye. Because of HIM! My father left me and it’s all Cal’s fucking fault!” He puts his knife in my face. “And then you.”

  I whimper. What did I have to do with this? I wasn’t even born yet, let alone in the Grayson’s life.

  “You came into the picture and then all of a sudden Aria wasn’t concerned with having children. She had you. Even though YOU WEREN’T OUR CHILD. I waited and waited for her to be ready, for years. Then I realized that you were enough
for her. Having you filled the void of the child we lost. The one we created. God, I’ve hated you for so long.” He growls and I sniffle. “I felt like an asshole for hating a child but you just ruined fucking everything.”

  He slides his knife across my arms and down my legs and he presses it in slightly. I scream into the rag when I feel a pierce of the blade

  …and then I hear his voice like a boom. “Drop it or I’ll fucking shoot you.”

  I don’t have much range of motion based on how I’m tied up but I hear his voice and then he’s in front of me, a gun pointed at Henry who’s kneeling in front of me. Cal doesn’t look at me, my guess because he knows it would throw him off and he needs to stay focused.

  “Baby brother,” Henry slurs. “Oh wow, I’m shocked you found us so quickly. I had no doubt you would, you were always like a bloodhound when it came to this one.” He chuckles and stands up. “I will say though, I finally get the allure about her. She smells…fucking decadent.” Cal cocks his gun, holding it to his forehead.

  “Madeline, close your eyes.”

  I do as he says but I can still hear. “Why?” Cal’s voice wavers slightly, but still mainly full of conviction.

  “Again, with the why. Maddie and I already had this nice little talk about our slut mother.”

  I hear a punch and the sound of bones cracking and I open one eye to see Henry on the ground. “Don’t you ever speak about my mother that way.”

  “God, you are such a mama’s boy. Well, for the sake of everyone being on the same page.” He spits out some blood. “Your mother had an affair.” He chuckles. “You’re not really a Grayson, I guess.”

  I open the other eye slowly. “What?” Cal takes a step back, his eyes wide with confusion, devastation, sadness. Everything. I can’t imagine what Cal is going through in this moment. Henry has officially lost his mind, kidnapped me and I’m tied up in the corner. Now, on top of everything, he’s about to learn that he and Henry have different fathers. I just want to wrap my arms around him and shield him from the pain that is seeping into his veins like a poison he’ll never be completely free from.

  “Margie fucked some guy and got pregnant with you. I don’t know who, neither did my father.”

  “How…how do you know this?”

  “Because he DIED you fucking dick! He died, and I never got to know him! His current wife reached out to me a week ago. I flew to Boston to meet her, and she told me everything. Mommy Dearest broke his fucking heart when she had an affair and he never got over it. God, he wanted to hate you. But he couldn’t. But he also couldn’t look at you every day and see what she’d done.” My heart breaks in my chest hearing Henry put the sins of everyone on Cal’s head. Margie’s infidelity, Henry’s father leaving and then never reaching out.

  None of this is your fault, Cal.

  I watch as Cal looks away for just a second, his guard lowering as Henry’s words hit him hard. Under normal circumstances, he wouldn’t have. He wouldn’t have blinked twice. But it’s his brother, and I’m here, and I know it’s throwing his police intuition off. There’s no other reason why he’d let his guard down and give Henry the opening. Henry, who’s now standing, kicks him in his chest sending him and his gun flying from his hand and they both reach for it. Henry gets to it first and manages to get to his feet which sends a feeling of dread and terror through me. I thought he was drunker, but I wonder if I was confusing it with being high because now his eyes look almost manic. I’m screaming over the rag, and I’m trying so hard to push it out of my mouth so I can scream or cry or tell Cal I love him. Henry points the gun at Cal, keeping it a mere inch from his forehead. Kill me first, please. I can’t watch Cal die. “So, here’s how it’s going to go. Trust me, I would love to kill you first, but I want you to watch what I do to your precious Maddie first.”

  “Fuck. You,” Cal growls. His eyes are angry, but I can see the pain in them and it weighs heavily on my heart. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Cal cry, but his eyes are glazed and my legs almost give out from underneath me when I see the first tear escape and trickle down his face. “I can’t believe you did this.” He blinks his eyes, clearing the tears from his eyes. “I’ve always looked up to you.”

  “I didn’t do anything, dear brother. You did this. Your rotten fucking existence. You and your slut dug your own graves.” He cocks the gun and the sound is almost deafening.

  I love you. I love you. I love you. I chant in my head, as I squeeze my eyes shut and prepare for the end.

  In that second, something whizzes past my ear so quietly, I thought it was some sort of flying insect. My eyes open and I try to turn and look to see what it was just as the door flies open, and Henry sinks to the floor, red pooling from his chest as his mouth falls open and his eyes are wide with horror.

  Oh my God!

  I squeeze my eyes shut and scream so loud and so hard over the rag, I think I’m going to throw up. I vaguely hear Cal call for me, but the sounds are all running together. My vision is blurred and black spots encroach my sight. The weight of the day comes crashing around me and I suddenly feel the inability to stay standing a second longer. Cops are surrounding me in an instant and before I realize it, my arms are free and the rag is expelled from my mouth. My limbs feel like they weigh at least a hundred pounds each, and they must realize that I’m seconds from collapsing because before I hit the ground, I’m in familiar arms.

  “Maddie, stay awake for me, baby. Eyes open.” I can’t even lift my arms to wrap around his neck. I just want to lay down on a flat surface. My body feels so weak and I pray it’s just the adrenaline wearing off and nothing more serious.

  “So…tired.” I hear voices surrounding me. “Victim not shot,” “No wounds,” “Suspect confirmed dead.”

  “No. Stay awake,” Cal grits out and my eyes flutter. I feel something brush against my lips and I think it’s his lips, but I can’t say for sure.

  “You came,” I whisper, I’m trying to force a smile but I have no idea if my lips are turned upwards at all. I love you, my mind thinks, and I try to speak the words, but I can’t even muster the strength to open my mouth again.

  “I NEED A CART.” I hear him scream and then I’m floating. Floating away into nothingness.

  Darkness.

  Black.

  THE SECOND I OPEN MY eyes everything hurts, and the beeps from the machine next to me feel like a tiny hammer to my temples as they throb with every beat. I feel like I’ve been run over by a car and my muscles feel stiff as a board. My eyes float around the room as best they can without moving my head, and they immediately fall on Cal who’s sitting next to my bed with his head in his hands. I notice that he’s bouncing his leg nervously, and his hair is sticking up in a million directions making me wonder how long he’s spent pulling on it.

  Right on cue, he runs a hand through his hair. “Stop pulling,” I whisper and his eyes shoot up to mine.

  “Maddie,” he whispers and then he’s out of the chair and sitting on the edge of the bed next to me. He grabs my hand and pulls it to his mouth before pressing it over his heart. “How are you feeling? Does anything hurt?” He reaches his hand to my face and gently strokes the bruise causing me to wince despite the fact that I relish at his touch.

  “Does it look bad?” I ask.

  He shakes his head and presses another kiss to my palm. “No. You’re still so beautiful.”

  A sad smile finds my face as I look around the hospital room. At least two dozen balloons fill the far corner. There are plants and bouquets of flowers lining the window sill and tons of stuffed animals in all sizes and colors, the words Get Well Soon, printed across their chests. “How long have I been out?”

  “A few hours. Not long…well, objectively. It’s been a long few hours for me.” His eyes look exhausted and I note he has more facial hair than usual, making me wonder if it’s morning, or if it’s still the middle of the night.

  “I’m so sorry,” I tell him. I let out a breath. “It’s all my fault.”
>
  His eyebrows pull together and he shakes his head. “Not at all, and I won’t have you thinking otherwise. You trusted Henry, there was no way for you to know…”

  His voice drifts off and tries to move off the bed but I grab his hand. “Don’t go.”

  His eyes find mine and they’re full of sadness and remorse and guilt. “I let you down. I should have found you sooner. Before he touched you…fuck, Maddie. I’m the one that’s sorry.” He moves in closer and his lips brush against my cheek, and I force my face towards him and let his lips graze mine.

  “You got to me in time.” I force a weak smile and he shakes his head. “You always get to me in time.”

  “I hate that you had to see that.”

  I grimace at the memory of seeing Henry go down and that gruesome look on his face. The look of death will haunt me alongside the sounds of my mother’s screams the night she died.

  “Did…who killed him?”

  Cal sighs. “Aria should have because she has the best shot on the force, and I’m glad I wasn’t on that side because I wouldn’t have been okay with them taking that shot so close to you. I honestly thought they’d hit you. But Aria was in hysterics. They had her sedated for a while.” He swallows.

  “They didn’t get me. I swear. I felt the bullet go by.” I tell him honestly and although it’s the truth, I’m still shaken up by how close it came to piercing my flesh along with Henry’s.

  Cal must read my look because his voice cuts into my thoughts. “We’re going to see someone when we get out of here.”

  “Another shrink?” I wince.

  “Yes, Madeline, another shrink.” His voice is firm and it sparks something inside of me that I haven’t felt since I woke up.

  I give him a small smile and a deep breath. “Okay, Daddy.”

  His eyes darken and he’s about to speak when a rush of people enter the room. Some in police uniform and some in plain clothes.

  “Oh my God, Maddie!” I hear her voice before I see her and then her arms are around me, squeezing me.