by Roxy Gray
I draw in a sharp breath as I spot him again, sneaking into the woods from where I just came. If I stay here, he’ll come across me eventually. If I go, he might be fast enough to catch me.
I’m not going to lie down and die.
I make a mad dash forward, doing my best to navigate through the dark woods toward the road. Branches snap beneath me. Branches snap behind me as he follows. My heart rate quickens as the sound draws closer, and I realize he’s closing in on me. I force my body forward, using all of the energy I have left. I haven’t eaten since yesterday. My body is weary, but I don’t have a choice. I need to get away. For Violet’s sake, and for mine.
“Ivy, stop!” He calls from behind me.
I trip over a tree root and fly forward with force. I land on my stomach, face down in the dirt.
The snaps grow closer still.
And closer.
“Stop!” I growl, flipping onto my back.
Clay stoops down, and I ready my arm to hit him in the face. Except it isn’t Clay.
“Jasper?”
He’s unmistakable in the glow of dawn, though his eyes appear red and tired beneath his black hoodie.
“Ivy,” he breathes, pulling me up from the ground. “You’re hurt.” He examines my head, his brow creasing.
“I’m okay. Violet is still in there. We have to get her. Clay has been drugging her.”
“Fuck,” Jasper says, his hands raking his hair. He pulls me to him suddenly, drawing in a deep breath.
“I’m so sorry. I should have listened to you about Clay sooner.”
“It’s okay, Jasper.”
“No, Ivy. It isn’t. And listen, there’s another reason I didn’t want you looking into Clay. It’s just that —”
“You can tell me later. We need to get Violet out of there,” I say, not wanting to waste any time.
Jasper bites his lip, nodding hesitantly.
“I had a signal at the road. We can call the police.”
“Okay.”
We make our way through the woods quickly, trying not to injure ourselves in the dark. I’ve never felt so awake. I’ve never been so consumed by fear. Jasper holds my hand tightly and doesn’t let go. He’s afraid I’ll be lost again.
When we reach the end of the driveway, he pulls out his phone.
“I have service.”
I hold out my hand in warning as I see headlights approach. It’s him. He’s back.
Jasper and I cling tight to the trees, hoping he can’t see us in the semi-darkness. Clay pulls into the drive.
“Take this,” Jasper whispers, handing me his phone. “I’m going to try to talk to him.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Just hide and call the police. I’ll try to talk him down and stall him.”
He holds an index finger over his lips, signalling me to be quiet. I clench my teeth as Jasper emerges from the forest, going over to the car.
Sneaking around the corner, I duck behind a tree and dial 9-1-1.
“What is your emergency?”
“My friend and I were abducted,” I murmur, pressing my mouth close to the microphone. “We’re in the woods. The guy who did it just came back, and he’s going to hurt us.”
There’s a short pause.
“What is your location?”
I rack my brain to recall where Jasper and I drove that day.
“It’s remote. Take the highway south from Myra. Exit 56. Go down the dirt road until the end. There’s a long driveway and a cabin. That’s the place. Inside you’ll find a woman tied up and drugged. Her name is Violet White. She’s a missing person; a student.”
“We’re deploying officers right away. Are you somewhere safe, miss?”
The sound of raised voices comes from the direction of the driveway.
“I have to go. Please hurry!” I murmur, hanging up the phone as I edge back around the corner.
Jasper and Clay are standing a few feet away from one another. Their voices carry through the still evening.
“She needed my help. I helped you, remember?”
Clay says, his voice unwavering.
“What you did for me is nothing like what’s going on here.”
“Sure it is,” Clay scoffs.
“Isolating me for a month so that I could get clean is not the same thing as kidnapping Violet and holding her against her will. Come on, Clay. You have to let her leave.”
“When she’s done treatment, she can go,” he shrugs.
“She’s never going to be done if you keep forcing her to take drugs,” Jasper spits, getting angry.
“I’m weaning her off of them,” Clay snaps. “What makes you think you know what’s best for Violet, anyway? You didn’t know what was best for Amy.”
There’s a silence.
“Your sister was long gone before we even found out she was using, man. You know it.”
“Shut up, Jasper. You gave up the right to talk shit about my sister when you got high with her.”
“I did, and I regret it. I regret a lot of things, Clay. But that was over a year ago, and nothing will bring her back. People make mistakes,” Jasper says.
“Mistakes? No, mistakes can be repaired ― this can’t be. And you know what the worst part is?”
Clay pauses.
“You’re standing here in front of me with your perfect girlfriend and your perfect life, pretending you’re not still fucked up from all the things we endured as kids. Meanwhile, Amy is fucking dead. She didn’t get another chance.”
“I chose to move on,” Jasper says.
I can tell he’s angry. His voice shakes.
“Amy chose not to stop. She chose to sell me coke for the first time. She chose to get high with me. Never pressured her… it was the opposite, actually.”
“You’re such a liar.” Clay rolls his eyes.
Jasper continues.
“Nothing we could have said or done would have made any difference. Locking women up in the cabin to get them clean isn’t going to make our childhood go away.”
“That’s not what I’m doing,” Clay insists. “I’m helping them get a fresh start.”
“You’re fucking delusional,” Jasper says, shaking his head. “I’m going to call an ambulance for Violet. And you’re going to let her go.”
Everything changes in an instant.
Clay charges at him, knocking them both to the ground. They both grunt. Clay lands on top of Jasper. He draws his arm back and punches him in the face.
Blood spurts out of Jasper’s nose, stunning him for a moment. Then, he retaliates. He hits Clay in the stomach hard. The two men roll all over the ground. Each of them leaves marks of destruction behind with each punch.
I feel helpless, watching from the sidelines. But I know I’m not strong enough to defend myself in my current state. Especially not against someone so much larger than me.
Jasper scrambles to his feet, readying himself to continue the fight. Clay jumps up, running in the direction of the cabin.
“Clay!” Jasper darts after him, his muscular body lagging behind Clay’s lean form.
I follow them down the drive, struggling to keep up. My head is still woozy, my limbs languid as the silhouettes of the two men disappear around the bend.
When I finally reach the cabin, I hear a loud crash. Shards of glass fly near me as one of the chairs comes through the window. It just misses Jasper’s head, landing with a thud on the porch.
I dash up the steps quickly. I pull the door open with force. Clay’s head snaps to me, as if he only just realized I wasn’t already inside.
The three of us freeze.
Clay’s eyes dart between Jasper and me.
Jasper takes the opportunity to jump on Clay, tackling him to the ground. He pins him down.
“Ivy?” Violet’s faint voice comes from the bedroom.
I move past Clay and Jasper to help her.
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“Violet,” I say, my voice dropping as I catch sight of her. She’s curled in a ball on the corner of the mattress.
“You came back,” she says weakly.
“Of course I did.”
I take a step forward and fall through one of the old floorboards.
“Argh!”
I’m inside the floor. It’s damp and rotted. I’ve sunk in past my knees, and I realize I’m stuck. I pull on my leg, attempting to get it out of the hole.
Turning, I see Jasper and Clay still in a struggle. Jasper is losing stamina. Clay wriggles free and hops up. He goes over to sink, retrieving something from the murky water.
“No!” I scream, but it’s too late.
Clay brings the bottle down on Jasper’s head so hard that it cracks in two. Jasper goes down like a lamp, landing half on the soiled mattress. His legs flop across the floor as they go limp. Clay ties his ankles and hands, attaching them to the chain.
“Jasper!” I scream. The top half of his body is hidden behind the post. I can’t see his face.
“Let me help you out of there,” Clay says, smiling as he comes toward me again.
“No! Get away!”
Violet watches us with wide eyes from her corner on the bed.
“Relax.”
He pulls up a large board, widening the hole even further so that I’m able to get out. He holds my arms and pulls me onto the sound portion of the floor.
“Don’t fucking touch me!”
I shove Clay back.
He stumbles, and I run to the sink, grabbing another bottle.
“What are you doing, Ivy?” Clay asks slowly.
I hold the bottle up in one hand threateningly.
“Don’t come any closer!” I warn. “Leave. Now!”
Clay laughs. “I’m not leaving. I own the place. Besides, I’m not done yet.”
“Done what?”
“Done with you. Or Violet.”
He comes toward me, and I swing the bottle at him. He dodges it. I swing again, narrowly missing his head.
“Ivy!” Clay grunts, grabbing hold of my arm.
He squeezes it between his fingers, surely leaving behind a bruise.
“Drop it,” he spits.
I resist, using all my strength to spin the other way, throwing him off balance. We both topple over, landing beside Jasper, who is still unconscious. Clay wrangles the bottle out of my hands, tossing it across the room. It shatters against the wall.
He pins my arms over my head, sitting on my legs. I struggle to breathe under his weight. I can’t move, and I’m painfully aware of something new.
Clay’s erection is poking me.
I want to throw up.
“Get the fuck off of me, Clay.” I struggle beneath him.
“Shut up, Ivy. Jasper fucked up my life. Payback is a bitch ― I’m going to fuck up his.”
I look over at Jasper, who’s slowly blinking his eyes open. He’s lying on his side, facing Clay and I. As the situation begins to register, he becomes alert again.
“Clay, I swear to fucking god, if you don’t get off of Ivy —”
“What are you going to do?” Clay laughs, pausing for effect. “Exactly. Nothing.”
I look up in horror as Clay bends closer, pressing my arms further into the mattress. Beside us, Jasper struggles, trying to break free of his ropes.
Time slows.
The jingle of Clay’s belt. The snap of his button. The teethy sound of his zipper as it descends, revealing the bulge in his underwear.
Fear fills me. My body tenses. I look over at Jasper. He’s pleading with Clay, but I can’t hear him.
I can’t hear anything but the blood pumping in my ears. I can feel, though. Clay’s rough grip on my wrist ― his weight on me as his hand descends to my pants. His cold fingers.
Jasper’s guttural scream.
Then, the sound of a booming voice, cutting through the palpable tension:
“Police! Get on your knees! Put your hands on your head!”
12
___
QUESTIONS
IVY
Three police officers burst into the cabin, their weapons drawn and ready to fire.
“On your knees! Now!”
Clay slowly relinquishes my arms, crawling backward to kneel on the floor. He laces his fingers behind his head. He’s facing me still. Looking at him makes me want to vomit. And for a second I worry I might, so I slap one hand over my mouth.
Wearing a wild smile, Clay stares at me. His eyes are blazing as one officer cuffs him. Another reads his rights.
The third officer goes into the bedroom to help Violet, carefully sidestepping the hole in the floor.
“This is ridiculous,” Clay says as they raise him to stand. “I haven’t done anything.”
I watch as they bring him outside to separate him from Jasper and me.
It’s over. Finally.
Officer Daniels comes through the door, a team of paramedics behind him. “It’s Ivy Woods,” he murmurs to one of the other policemen.
“Let me handle this.”
Half of the paramedics swarm Jasper and me. They take a few photos, then untie our hands and ankles. The others tend to Violet in the next room, who can be heard crying hysterically. As soon as our hands are free, Jasper takes me in his arms.
“I’m so glad you’re alright,” he says. “I’m so happy Clay didn’t…get any further.”
I touch one hand to his face, examining his wounds.
“Me too.”
Officer Daniels leans down in front of us.
“Ivy, Jasper. Are either of you hurt?”
“Yes.” We say at the same time. The gash above my eyebrow has started trickling blood again. Jasper has a large cut on the top of his head and his hair is stained red. His nose is swollen and bleeding. His knuckles are cut and battered.
He’s still as handsome as ever.
“We’re going to get the two of you fixed up and then we’ll get your statements. Sound good?” Daniels says.
I manage to nod, though my vision remains stamped with the image of Clay, advancing toward me. Clay, feeding me mysterious drugs. And Clay, trying to put his hand in my pants. I shudder, crawling into Jasper’s arms as they bandage his nose.
“Yeah, that sounds good,” Jasper nods.
“Great. I’ll let you two rest for now. And Jasper: thanks for all of your work on this.”
Daniels joins the others tending to Violet.
“Hard work?” I ask. “What does that mean?”
Jasper clears his throat.
“I’ve been helping the police investigate Clay. They asked me to.”
“What? Since when?”
“Shortly after Violet went missing… apparently, a lot of the evidence they gathered pointed toward him. They didn’t have enough to catch him, so they asked me to, um, keep a closer eye on him.”
“And you agreed to this? Why?”
“Because.”
“Because..?”
Jasper takes a deep breath.
“Well, when I was having my issues with addiction, Clay took me here. He essentially helped me detox. He changed my life.”
“Okay...,” I say, still not getting the picture.
“Clay and I both went through hell as teenagers. He even lived with us because his house was somehow worse than ours. He has a lot of dark parts in him, and I’ve always known that because I have them too. But I think when he lost his sister, they took over.”
“Jasper,” I say, putting my hand on his. “You could have talked to me about this.”
He shakes his head and smiles.
“No, I couldn’t. Especially when you were so sure I was guilty. I could tell from the beginning that Clay was behind this, but I couldn’t say anything until we had proof. Violet, Simone…they look similar to his sister, Amy. And Clay acted strange every time Amanda was around, so I figured she was anot
her future target.”
He takes another long breath.
“I guess I thought that if I helped the police stop Clay before he did something… worse, it would be better than nothing. It would be better than him spending his whole life in prison.”
I hug Jasper tightly, my heart full of guilt.
“What you did was more than something, son. You were very helpful,” Daniels says, coming back over to us.
“Wow,” I say. I feel like an idiot. “I can’t believe I didn’t have any idea this was going on.”
“You had a lot on your mind,” Jasper says. “And I wasn’t allowed to tell you.”
The paramedics carry Violet out on a stretcher, carefully maneuvering her through the door. In the distance, I can make out an ambulance in the driveway.
“I should go with her,” I say, jumping up. When I stand, I get dizzy, and Jasper steadies me.
“We’re going to take both of you with Violet to the hospital. I’ll get your statement there,” Daniels says.
As we make our way to the ambulance, I notice the silhouette of Clay in the back of one of the police cars. His face is expressionless, cold as if someone had just died. In a way, he just lost his life.
“We’re going to take Clay to the station and process him. Once we get your full statements and tangible evidence from the scene, we’ll see what else we can charge him with.” Daniels says, nodding to Clay. He heads across the grass, climbing into the car with one of the other officers.
Clay stares at me. A chill goes through me once again. This time, it isn’t from fear; it’s sadness. Sadness because Clay is going to miss out on a normal life. Sadness because he obviously had no one to teach him how to make smart choices. And if I hadn’t grown up with the family that I had, maybe I would have turned out the same. Or worse.
As I stare back at him, Clay holds his hand up to the window, displaying a very obvious middle finger.
“That fucking asshole,” Jasper growls. He still hasn’t calmed down. I tighten my grip on his arm, feeling him shake with anger. He doesn’t return Clay’s lewd gesture. Instead, he shakes his head exaggeratedly and turns away.
The paramedics help Jasper and me inside of the ambulance, where we sit down by Violet.
“How are you doing?” I ask, leaning over her stretcher. A paramedic is monitoring her, and they’ve already put in an IV.