What Hurts the Most: An engrossing, heart-stopping thriller (7th Street Crew Book 1)

by Willow Rose

The man steps closer. He finds a light switch and turns it on. He lowers the gun when he sees their faces. He is wearing a white T-shirt and jeans. Around his neck, Ally spots a military tag.

  “What are you running from?” He looks out the window as more sirens howls by.

  “Please, sir,” AK pleads. “Please don’t turn us in.”

  Ally is surprised to hear the soft tone in AK’s voice.

  “Why? What have you done?” the soldier asks.

  “I…It…It was an accident,” AK says. “Right, Ally?”

  Ally nods with a whimper. The soldier suddenly smiles from ear to ear. “So, let me get this straight. You two did something tonight, something really bad, since the entire police force is looking for you, and now you want my help?”

  AK nods cautiously. Ally doesn’t say anything.

  The soldier laughs loudly. “Ha! That’s the best news I’ve heard in a long time.”

  Ally is confused. Why is this such good news? She doesn’t understand. But she doesn’t like the look in the man’s eyes either. He is looking at them in a way that makes her feel uneasy.

  He walks closer to AK with the gun in his hand. He lifts the gun and lets it slide slowly across her cheek.

  “So, no one knows you’re here, huh? I can have my way with you two. Any way I like. Sure sounds like a great deal for me.”

  He leans over and kisses AK on the neck. She gasps a little at first, but soon decides to roll with it. Ally stares at them, paralyzed, while the soldier puts his hand up under AK’s shirt. He grabs her jeans and pulls them down, then opens his belt, bends her over the table, and has his way with her while Ally watches with terror. She wants to scream. She wants to stop him, to wake up from this terrible, terrible nightmare, but she can’t. She can’t move. The soldier stares at her while he grunts and growls and forces himself on AK, who is crying heavily underneath him. Ally feels desperate. She doesn’t know what to do; still, she doesn’t dare to move. Not even an inch. Yet she is desperate. She is crying, because she knows she is next.

  “Two young girls running right into my arms, now there’s a dream I never thought would come true.”

  When he is done with AK, he lets her go. AK sinks to the floor, crying and sobbing. The soldier looks at Ally. He walks to her and places the gun under her chin. Ally gasps. The gun feels cold against her skin. She is shivering all over.

  “It might turn out to be your nightmare, though,” he whispers.

  Ally whimpers as he grasps her around the throat and applies pressure. She can hardly breathe and gasps for air.

  “Please,” she whispers.

  The man laughs. “Please, what?” he says, while smelling the skin on her neck. Ally is scared. She has never been with a man. She doesn’t know what it feels like. She is scared he will hurt her.

  She can hardly speak. “Please, sir.”

  The soldier shakes the gun in front of her face. “No. No. That’s not good enough, my little girl. You have to do better than that. It’s please…General.”

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  September 2015

  The sight of Anne-Katelyn on the screen in front of me makes the blood leave my head. I stand up, feeling sick to my stomach. So many emotions are awakened all of a sudden, so many memories. I feel dizzy and close my eyes. Voices in my head are screaming, crying. I see the stairs at my dad’s house. I see my mom. I see her fall from the top of the stairs. I can still hear the sound of her body thumping down every step. Every time she hits a new step, it’s like a knife to my heart. I am running, but I can’t help her. There is blood smeared everywhere. I run to her and she is lifeless. She is dead. I look up, and there I see her. Those same eyes that I am staring at right now…looking into the camera at the International Palms Resort.

  Anne-Katelyn, or AK as she liked to call herself, since it sounded more dangerous. I haven’t seen those eyes since that night. That fatal night when she shot and killed my mother. The police never found her. She was never punished for what she did. And there she was. Once again, mocking me. Once again, causing trouble and doing what she does best, ruining people’s lives.

  “Are you alright?” Joey asks. He grabs my hand in his. They all know the story. They were there. They were a part of me back then. A part of my life. When my mother died, it all ended. They all tried so hard to be there for me, but I simply couldn’t stand this town anymore. I finished school, then left. But until I left, Joey was the only one who was allowed into my life. He was my strongest supporter. The rest of the crew, I couldn’t deal with. They reminded me of what had happened, and I didn’t want that. It wasn’t their fault. It’s just what happened. How I reacted. I pushed everyone away. Even my own father, whom I blamed for everything, for letting it happen. Shortly after, he threw himself into the arms of Laura, and after that, everything changed. Blake was just a baby, and he never really knew our mother, only Laura, who hardly wanted to know of him.

  “I…I can’t believe it’s really her,” I say, my voice cracking. “I mean it’s…it has been so long and I…I never thought I’d see her again.”

  “But, here she is,” Chloe says. “Alive and well. As soon as I saw her face, I ran a face recognition program, and here’s what came up. See how she’s dressed in an army uniform? Well, apparently, she has had quite the career in the army. Decorated and everything. Has served time in both Iraq and Afghanistan. But the interesting part is her profile. Apparently, her name is now Liz Hester.”

  I sink back into my chair with a heavy thud. “She changed her name?”

  “She changed her entire identity. Liz Hester, with this social security number, didn’t exist until April 1992. She enlisted two years later, in 1994, when she turned seventeen.”

  “I thought you were supposed to be eighteen to enlist?” I ask.

  “Yes, usually, but you can do it earlier with parental consent,” she says.

  “Parental consent?” I ask. “But AK lived in a home? She had no parents,” I say.

  “According to this,” Chloe says and pulls up another document on her screen. “Her enlistment papers were signed by a guardian, under the name of Henry Hartman.”

  Chloe looks up at me.

  “General Henry Hartman,” I say.

  I stare at the screen, wondering what the heck this is supposed to mean. A thousand thoughts are running through my mind. I can’t connect the dots. I can’t figure out how this is related. If AK is responsible for what happened to Billy, is she then also responsible for what happened to Jamilla Jenkins, who was also found in a hotel room? And what about Coraline? And Jean and Cassie? They were all friends back then. Was she targeting her old friends? Killing them one by one? The thought made a chill run down my spine. If AK was responsible for any of this, there was one thing I could be sure of. At some point, she would be coming after me. Just like that night at my father’s house. She had aimed that gun at me, but accidentally killed my mother. I had always been sure of that. She came for me that night, and she was going to come for me again.

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  September 2015

  Olivia Hartman can’t find rest. She is walking back and forth in her living room, nervously rubbing her hands together. It’s getting dark outside and she is watching as the sun sets over the mainland. It’s a beautiful sight, but Olivia doesn’t notice.

  She is way too afraid.

  Ever since her old school friend, Blake’s sister Mary had been to her house at the base, the general had been giving Olivia a hard time.

  Now, it is getting late, and he will return within an hour, maybe less. She is terrified of what he might do to her. She is petrified of his anger.

  She has thought about leaving, about simply running away all day, but where can she go?

  Olivia sits down on the couch. She sits on the edge like she is ready to jump up and run if necessary. After a few seconds, she realizes she is biting her nails again. She has just been able to grow them long and nice, but now they’re almost gone.

&
nbsp; She still remembers with terror the night she came home after having spent the evening with Blake and he was sitting in the living room, on that same couch, waiting for her, fire in his eyes. She still remembers how she froze, how every cell in her body froze to ice. He had come home early from his trip, he told her. And what had he found? That she wasn’t here. She wasn’t at the house or even on the base.

  “I was out with an old friend,” she lied.

  But he didn’t buy it. He had her followed, he told her. Had been doing it for about two weeks now. And, guess what he learned? She didn’t need to answer. She knew from the look on his face she was in deep trouble. Just like she knows it now. The general is always one step ahead of her. She is never going to get out of this mess. She is never going to be able to get the divorce she has been wanting for so long.

  He’ll have to die before you can be free.

  Olivia lets out a deep sigh. She looks anxiously at the clock on top of the fireplace. It will not be long now.

  She gets up from the couch and walks to the big window facing the Intracoastal waters. The sun is completely gone now. Bugs are swarming outside the windows, drawn by the light from her living room. Olivia wonders what will happen if she takes the neighbor’s small boat and simply rows into the darkness. Will he find her? Of course he will. In minutes, he will have hundreds of men in helicopters and boats searching the area.

  Of course he will.

  She’ll just have to stay here and take it like the big girl she is. She’ll have to face his wrath like she did the day before.

  “You have humiliated me! Do you understand? And now, they come running here on the base asking questions in front of everybody, and what do you do? You invite them into our home?”

  Olivia exhales to calm herself down. She closes her eyes and tries to think of something nice. Her stomach is in knots. She hasn’t eaten all day. She has been too nervous. And sad. She is sad because Blake is still in that awful prison. She misses him terribly. She wonders if she will ever see him again. She doubts it. The thought makes her want to cry.

  A sound startles her. The sound continues, and she turns to look. It sounds like a tapping on the big dark window. A continuing rhythmical tapping.

  Tap-tap-tap

  Tap-tap-tap

  She chuckles lightly when she realizes it’s just a big bug that keeps hitting the glass, probably thinking it can get through and swarm towards the desirable light. Olivia shakes her head thinking what a fool she is, to be scared of such a small bug. She, who used to be a fighter pilot, who used to beat all the boys in most of their training. How had she become this shaky shadow of herself?

  You’re being ridiculous. So what if the general is angry? What can he do to you?

  Olivia takes in another deep breath and looks at the clock once again. Only a few minutes till he is usually home on a day like this.

  Tap-tap-tap

  Tap-tap-tap

  The sound behind her is back. Olivia chuckles again and decides it’s just the bug again. The sound is louder now and more persistent.

  Tap-tap-tap

  Tap-tap-tap

  Tap-tap-tap

  Thinking it has to be a really big bug this time, Olivia turns to look, then gasps. On the other side of the glass, her eyes meet those of her past. A set of eyes she thought and hoped she was never going to see again.

  Chapter Sixty-Nine

  March 1984

  “HELP ME!

  Penelope runs into the emergency room holding her adopted daughter in her arms. A nurse approaches her. Penelope doesn’t know this woman. She usually knows everyone, but this one is new.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “She’s been vomiting all morning; it won’t stop. She has severe diarrhea and can’t hold anything down,” Penelope says, then adds. “It’s the third time this week. I think it’s her heart. Something is very wrong with her. She had seizures on our way here in the car that lasted about three minutes, and her eyes rolled back in her head. She is not responsive to any contact. You might want to do surgery right away on her heart.”

  The nurse nods, then takes the child out of Penelope’s hands. “I’ll get a doctor to take a look at her.”

  Penelope smiles vaguely, then nods. “Thank you.”

  A doctor is called and soon arrives. He knows Penelope and looks immediately at the unresponsive child.

  “Doctor, you have to help her. She is in a very bad condition,” Penelope says.

  “This is not the same child,” he says and starts examining her. He lifts her eyelids and looks into her eyes with a small light. Penelope knows the procedure and knows what he will do next.

  “She is adopted,” Penelope says. “We brought her home only two months ago. Unfortunately, we don’t know her family medical history, if there are heart problems among her close relatives,” she says, sounding more like a doctor herself. “I am afraid surgery might be necessary.”

  The doctor finishes his initial examination, then admits the child to intensive care. Penelope waits all day in the hospital and lives on nothing but coffee and snacks from a vending machine. She calls home to Peter, who is with their other daughter. He was supposed to go to the office this morning, but decided to stay home and take care of their other daughter, who is still very sick and needs observation. Penelope only hopes he doesn’t have to go to the office tomorrow, in case their daughter needs to stay for several days or even go through surgery. They’ll have to understand at the office, won’t they? Yes, of course. After all, they are only doing what they can for their children. It’s not their fault they are very sick…both of them. It’s just what happens. They’ll understand. Of course they will. There really isn’t anything else they can do. They’re all doing the best they can.

  A few hours later, the doctor comes out to Penelope. She stands up from her chair. He rubs the bridge of his nose and closes his eyes. Penelope has been with enough doctors to know their every little sign. The rubbing of the bridge of their nose is always bad news.

  “Is it bad, Doctor? Tell it to me straight. I need to know. It’s her heart, isn’t it? She needs surgery, doesn’t she?”

  The doctor clears his throat and then looks at Penelope. “She is stable now. I have run several tests on your child and found nothing wrong with her heart.”

  “But…but, I was so sure…There were palpitations. Definitely. Maybe if you take another look.”

  The doctor interrupts. “But I did find her sodium levels to be highly elevated, beyond what is healthy in such a young child. Sodium in this amount in such a small body can be fatal.”

  “Sodium…but…I don’t understand…”

  The doctor sighs. “Penelope. I can’t help but notice a lot of similarities with the symptoms your other daughter is suffering from. I hate to ask you this…but do they somehow have access to salt? Or have you maybe given her salt?”

  Penelope stares at the doctor. She holds a hand to her chest. “What…what are you implying, Doctor? Are you saying I somehow did this to my child?” Her voice is breaking as she speaks. “Here I am, in the worst place a mother can be in, while her child is fighting for her life in there. I can’t eat, I can’t sleep, I can hardly breathe until she is better. Do you have any idea how hard this is on a mother? And…then you…then this? How can you be so heartless, Doctor?”

  “There is a condition…I have been thinking about it as objectively as possible, I mean, these two girls are not related in any way and…it just seems incredible that they could even possibly have the same type of problem. I was recently at a pediatric staff conference where I heard about this condition. They call it Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy…”

  “A condition?” Penelope asks, baffled. “You mean to say that something is wrong with me? How dare you…?

  “As a doctor, I have to consider the possibility that your children are being poisoned. If that is the case, then it needs to stop immediately before one of the children dies. This is very serious.”

  Penel
ope snorts. She can’t believe the doctor would talk to her like that. She turns on her heel, then walks right into the room where her child is lying in the bed, pulls out all tubes, and lifts her up in her arms. A nurse comes running in.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m taking her home,” Penelope says.

  Chapter Seventy

  September 2015

  “We need to warn her.”

  I look at Joey. We’re still sitting in Chloe’s old bedroom. Chloe is upstairs feeding her mother. I feel so bad for Mrs. Edwards. She is eaten up by cancer. The doctors gave up on her years ago, and yet she is still alive.

  “Who are you talking about?” he asks.

  “Olivia Hartman. She was one of them back then. She was in the same group of friends as Coraline, Jean, and Cassie. Olivia might be in danger.”

  “So, you want to go back to the base?” Joey asks. “After the general threatened you? They’re never going to let us in again. Besides, it looks like AK is in there somewhere as well. It’s hardly safe for you.”

  I shrug. “You got another suggestion? If AK is in there, she can get to Olivia any time she wants.”

  “Call her?”

  “Great. Do you have her number?” I ask.

  He shakes his head. “Maybe Chloe can get it for us.”

  “Maybe Chloe can get what?” Chloe asks, as she walks into the room.

  “We’re thinking about calling Olivia Hartman,” Joey says, “to let her know that most of her old friends have been killed and that she might be next. But we don’t have her number. She lives on base, maybe you could find it somehow on your computer?”

  “Sure,” she says and sits down. Ten minutes later, she hands me the number. I am relieved that I don’t have to go all the way back to the base for this, but still it feels really awkward to have to call her and give her a message like this. How do you begin?

  I dial the number, but of course she doesn’t pick up.