by Jane Blythe
“This way,” he announced.
Xavier didn’t argue, just drew his gun and followed him into the woods. They walked in silence, both aware that either Ricky or Isabella or both were out here somewhere and that both were still a potential threat.
They had been walking for approximately fifteen minutes when he heard footsteps. A glance at Xavier confirmed that he’d heard them, too. They both froze, listening carefully to gauge which direction the sounds were coming from.
Apparently, whoever it was had already heard them because a tentative voice called out, “Xavier? Ryan?”
Relieved, they both hurried forward, where they found Annabelle with an arm around Sofia’s waist. Sofia’s arm was slung over Annabelle’s shoulder and she leaned heavily against her. Although she was clearly injured, her clothes were ripped, and even from a distance he could see she was shaking, she was still the most beautiful sight he’d ever seen.
“Sofia,” Ryan rushed for her. “I got her,” he told Annabelle as he extracted Sofia from her grip and swung her up into his arms. “I got you, honey,” he told Sofia as he cradled her.
Dazed silver eyes looked up at him as her head drooped against his shoulder. “Ryan?”
“I'm here, cupcake, I'm here,” he assured her, pressing a kiss to her forehead. Beside him, Xavier had wrapped his arms around Annabelle, who was clinging to him.
“Where are Ricky and Isabella?” Xavier asked, he was the only one of them still alert.
“Dead,” Annabelle replied. “They’re both dead.”
Relief rocked through him. Isabella could never hurt Sofia again. Nor could she hurt anyone else. However, he also knew that Sofia was going to be devastated. “Does she know?” he asked Annabelle.
“Yes, but she’s been out of it since I found her, so she might not remember,” she answered.
In his arms Sofia was shivering uncontrollably, her teeth chattering together. She was as cold as ice, her thin sweater and pants were no match for the freezing night, and she wasn’t wearing any shoes. There were rips in her clothes and a blood-soaked scarf was wrapped around her stomach. Balancing her from arm to arm, Ryan managed to get his coat off and wrap it around Sofia.
“What happened?” he asked Annabelle.
“Ricky hurt her; stabbed her, I think,” she replied. She was shaking, too, burrowed against Xavier’s chest.
For a moment, it felt like his heart stopped. “Did he rape her?”
“She said he started, but Isabella stopped him. But he’d pulled her pants down, so he did something,” Annabelle added uncomfortably.
Started? What exactly did that mean? Did it mean that he had penetrated her, but never finished the act? Did it mean that he had never done more than remove her clothing? A glance at Sofia indicated he wasn’t going to get any answers to his questions for a while; she was barely conscious. Right now, his priority was her physical condition—the most pressing, the cause of her bleeding. He was about to set her down on the ground to examine her wound when Xavier stopped him.
“Don’t put her down.” Xavier released Annabelle and stepped closer. “She’s cold enough as it is. I’ll check her out.”
As carefully as he could, Xavier unwound the scarf, tossed it aside, then lifted the hem of her sweatshirt. Sofia moaned in pain and buried her face against his neck.
“Sorry, honey,” Xavier apologized. “I'm being as gentle as I can, but I need to look at this.”
“How bad is it?” Ryan asked fearfully. They were miles from anywhere, and it had already been a while since she was stabbed. If the wound was too bad, she could bleed out before they got her the medical attention she needed.
“It’s deep, but not too deep,” Xavier assured him. “Her low body temperature is probably helping keep blood loss at a minimum.”
Adrenalin was masking his own cold. “Here, you hold her; I’ll take my shirt off so we can bandage her wound,” Ryan went to pass Sofia to Xavier, but once more the other man stopped him.
“No, she needs your body heat,” Xavier reminded him. Shrugging out of his coat, he didn’t bother undoing the buttons, just simply pulled his shirt over his head, then put his jacket back on. “Sorry, Sofia,” Xavier apologized once more. “This is going to hurt, but I need to make it as tight as I can because your wound is still bleeding.”
Sofia whimpered softly, snuggling closer, as Xavier pressed his shirt against her wound and then tied it tightly around her middle. She was still shivering, which was a good thing because it indicated her body was still attempting to generate heat, but she was cold. Too cold. No doubt already hypothermic. They needed to get her back to the car immediately.
“All right, let’s go,” Ryan announced as soon as Xavier was finished attending to Sofia’s injury. “Sofia’s hypothermic; you probably are, too.” He cast a glance at a shivering Annabelle. “You aren’t dressed much warmer than she is. We need to get you both someplace warm.”
“I'm fine,” Annabelle assured them through chattering teeth.
“No, you're not,” Xavier pulled her to him. “Did Ricky do anything to you?”
Annabelle shook her head and rested against him.
“Good.” Xavier kissed the top of her head. “Let’s move. Can you walk?” he asked Annabelle.
“Yes,” Annabelle said tiredly.
They hadn't been walking more than a couple of minutes when they heard the crunch of footsteps. Freezing, he and Xavier exchanged glances. Someone was out here. And it wasn’t Jack, Rose, and backup; they were on their way, but they would have heard sirens and seen flashlights if it was them.
“Are you sure Isabella and Ricky are both dead?” Xavier whispered to Annabelle.
Her white eyes grew wide and she shook her head. “Isabella looked dead, but I never looked at Ricky. He wasn’t moving and Sofia was bleeding. I was more focused on her.”
“Then he could be out there.” Xavier looked panicked now.
“And he’s armed,” Annabelle looked ready for a full-blown panic attack. “There were two guns. I have the one I found in the car, but Isabella had one, too.”
“Get Sofia to the car,” Xavier had his own gun back out.
“No, he could double back; go around us and get her,” Ryan countered, no way was he leaving a barely conscious Sofia at Ricky Preston’s mercy. “I’ll hide her someplace. It’s dark and he’s probably injured, he won't be searching under trees and bushes if he’s looking for her. Annabelle should hide, too; then we’ll take care of Ricky. Backup should be here soon,” he added.
Xavier nodded. “All right.”
Leaving Xavier to help find a place for Annabelle to hide, he quickly carried Sofia to a small group of bushes and set her down on the ground. Brushing away as much of the snow as he could, he placed her under the bushes. “Hey,” he held Sofia’s face between his hands and waited till her heavy eyes blinked open. “I need you to stay here, stay still, and don’t make a sound.” Sofia gave a groggy nod and Ryan wondered whether his words had even registered. He didn’t have time to find out. He pressed a quick kiss to her lips, and then he covered her with branches.
Praying that they found and disabled Ricky Preston quickly, without his body heat, and lying on the cold earth, Sofia was going to succumb to hypothermia much quicker.
Joining Xavier, they began to search the woods. Moving as quickly and as quietly as they could. They had been searching for a good ten minutes without finding a thing. Ryan was ready to give up and suggest that all they had heard was an animal of some sort, when they saw a body lying face down on the ground about twenty yards ahead of them.
A glance at Xavier confirmed that he had seen it, too. With Xavier covering him, Ryan knelt beside the body and pressed his fingers to its neck. Even before he did, he knew what the outcome would be. The body was ice cold, and as he has suspected there was no pulse. Isabella was dead.
“I'm sorry,” Xavier murmured quietly. “I know Sofia will be devastated.”
Ryan nodded and reached out a h
and to close Isabella’s eyes.
“Ricky’s not here,” Xavier continued. “But I see blood.”
Following Xavier’s gaze, he scanned the surrounding area. “I don’t see the gun. Annabelle said she had one; Ricky could have it.”
“We have to get back to the girls.”
Ryan was about to say that he agreed when he was suddenly hit by a jolt of electricity and collapsed.
* * * * *
3:47 A.M.
They’d been gone too long.
Annabelle was starting to panic.
Scratch that, she was way past panic.
She hadn't wanted Xavier to leave her alone. She had wanted him to stay glued to her side. She was cold and tired and scared and she just wanted to go home, climb into bed and curl up in Xavier’s arms.
It was probably nothing, anyway.
Ricky Preston was dead.
He had to be.
She couldn’t deal with him again.
Why didn’t Xavier and Ryan come back?
Maybe she should go and check on Sofia. She hadn't wanted to leave her alone. Sofia was so out of it that if Ricky were still alive and he got to her, she wouldn’t be able to do anything to fend him off. Annabelle had wanted to hide with her, but Xavier had insisted they were safer apart. There wasn’t a place big enough for them to hide together and remain unseen.
The boys should be here by now.
Even if he wasn’t dead, Ricky had to be injured. Isabella had shot him. How long could it realistically take for two able-bodied police officers to locate one wounded man?
That was it.
She was not staying here another second.
She was going to completely lose it if she stayed here alone, crouched under a bush.
Slowly, Annabelle inched her way out while cautiously glancing all around. She didn’t see anyone—Xavier, Ryan, or Ricky. More than anything, she wanted to call for Xavier. She wanted him to come and scoop her up and hold her in his arms and make her feel safe. She needed him.
She was unsure what to do next. Should she go and check on Sofia or look for Xavier?
“Hello, Annabelle.”
The voice sent shivers up her spine.
It couldn’t be. She had been so sure that it was over.
It couldn’t be and yet it was.
“Bet you thought I was dead,” Ricky teased.
Maybe she was hallucinating—overtired and overstressed and creating her own worst nightmare to torture herself. She deserved to be tortured, she supposed; she had killed a person tonight. Yes, she convinced herself, Ricky was nothing more than a figment of her overwrought imagination.
To persuade herself, she turned around, expecting to see nothing more than a forest full of trees.
But there he was.
Illuminated by the moon’s light.
Standing there grinning at her.
Blood covered his coat, but he didn’t seem to be bothered by it.
Without even realizing what she was doing, Annabelle was screaming, “Xavier,” at the top of her lungs.
“He’s not coming,” Ricky chuckled.
“Did you kill him?” her voice trembled terribly. She wished she could be brave, that she could stand up to Ricky, find a way to end his reign of terror, but she couldn’t. She wasn’t strong enough.
“Nope, but he’s a little tied up at the moment.” Ricky laughed at his own joke.
She let out a relieved breath knowing Ricky hadn't killed Xavier. He could still come and save her. She needed him so badly. She was so used to him taking care of her that she didn’t think she could do this on her own. In fact, she knew she couldn’t. She was too weak.
“He’s not going to come running in to save you this time,” Ricky told her.
Of course, he would, Annabelle wanted to yell at him. Xavier always came running to her rescue. Instead of yelling at Ricky, she did what she always did, kept her thoughts to herself and got ready to run.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Ricky commented mildly. “Run, I mean,” he added. “I have a gun.”
He held it up and it glinted in the moonlight. His comment started the wheels turning in her head. She had a gun, too. It was in the pocket of her hoodie. Without thinking she wrapped a hand around the gun and pulled it out, aiming it at Ricky’s head. “Me too,” she told him.
Instead of being scared, Ricky merely burst into peals of hysterical laughter. “You're going to shoot me?” He laughed so hard tears were streaming down his cheeks. “You? Annabelle Englewood? The woman who is too scared to actually have a life is going to take one?”
“I killed Isabella,” she countered.
“Well, yeah, I guess you did,” Ricky drawled. “I wonder how your new friend Sofia will react when she finds out you killed her sister?”
Not for the first time, Annabelle regretted trusting Ricky so much that she had opened up to him. He knew everything about her—all her fears and worries and internal struggles—and he never passed up an opportunity to use it against her.
“Look,” he began matter-of-factly, “we both know you aren’t going to kill me. And we both know that you're never going to be rid of me. For the rest of your life I am going to be there, haunting you. Everything you do is going to be tainted by me. You’ll never be free of me. You may as well give up. Let me have you. I own you, anyway. You can show me where the detectives stashed your friend and the three of us can go away together. Give me the gun.” He took a step toward her, hand out ready to receive it.
“No.” Her hands trembled, but she didn’t lower her weapon.
“Come on, Annabelle,” he sounded exasperated now. “You don’t have the guts to kill me. You don’t have the guts to do anything. You're weak, pathetic, useless. You're nothing but a scared little girl. You may as well give up now. You're already ruined. You're never going to achieve…”
The bang caught her by surprise.
It shouldn’t have. She was the one who had pulled the trigger.
Still, the noise was deafening and Ricky suddenly dropping to the ground for some reason seemed incongruous with her firing the gun.
Footsteps sounded and two people appeared before her.
She swung around to face them, gun aimed in their direction.
“Whoa.” A tall blond guy, who looked vaguely familiar, held up his hands. “It’s okay, we’re police officers. You're Annabelle, right? I'm Jack, Ryan’s brother.”
That made sense, he looked just like Ryan, but her heart was pounding painfully in her chest and she was breathing too shallow and quick. Her head was spinning, making logical thought difficult.
He took a tentative step toward her. “It’s all right, it’s over. He’s dead.” Jack cast a glance at the woman who was kneeling beside Ricky’s body. She nodded at him in confirmation. “That’s Rose; she’s my partner. Ryan called us after Isabella called him.”
Rose stood. She was tall and had long red hair pulled back in a loose ponytail. “Give me the gun, Annabelle,” she said gently.
Annabelle couldn’t lower her arms, but she didn’t protest when Rose carefully placed her hands on top of hers and twisted the gun from her grip.
“Annabelle?” Rose’s hand rested lightly on her shoulder. “Where are the others?”
“We need to get Sofia.” Her common sense was slowly returning. “She’s hurt; Ricky stabbed her. She’s hypothermic, too.”
“Where is she?” Jack asked.
“Over here.” She started jogging toward Sofia, Jack and Rose at her heels. “Ryan hid her over here so Ricky couldn’t find her. Under there,” Annabelle gestured at the bushes.
Dropping to his knees, Jack shoved the branches aside, then hooked an arm around Sofia’s shoulders and dragged her out. Fingertips pressed to her neck, Jack muttered under his breath as he yanked off his jacket and wrapped it around Sofia’s still form.
“Is she…is she dead?” Annabelle fearfully trembled.
“Jack?” Rose sounded just as fearful.
“Do you know where Ryan and Xavier might be?” Rose asked.
She shook her head. “No, they went looking for Ricky. He must have found them, done something to them because he said Xavier couldn’t help me because he was tied up.”
They exchanged glances. “How long were they gone before Ricky found you?” Rose asked.
“I don’t know. It felt like forever, but maybe only ten minutes,” she guessed.
“Then they can't be too far away.” Jack picked up Sofia and stood. “We’ll look for ten, fifteen minutes, and if we don’t find them we’ll take you two back to the car and then keep looking.”
With Jack carrying Sofia, they set out. Annabelle found herself relieved when Rose slipped an arm around her waist. She hadn't realized just how exhausted she was, but with the adrenalin draining from her system she was shaky now. She just wanted to find Xavier and Ryan and go home.
She got her wish a couple of minutes later.
Xavier and Ryan were tied to a tree, tape over their mouths, but both began fighting their bindings when they saw them. Ryan was staring at Sofia hanging limply in his brother’s arms, his blue eyes frantic.
“She’s alive,” Jack answered Ryan’s unasked question. “She’s unconscious and she needs immediate medical attention, but she’s alive.”
Rose released her and rushed toward the guys. Annabelle dropped to her knees at Xavier’s side and leaned against him. Still bound, he couldn’t hold her, but he rested his head on hers.
“Are you guys okay?” Rose asked as she pulled the tape off their mouths.
“Fine, he got us with a stun gun,” Ryan replied.
“Ricky?” Xavier was searching her face anxiously.
“He’s dead,” she whispered, pressing closer against him, needing him more than she ever had before. “I killed him.” Annabelle wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Part of her felt stronger. She wasn’t weak and pathetic anymore. She’d been scared, but she’d done what she had to do. This time she hadn't just sat back and waited for someone to rescue her. She had saved herself. And yet despite all that, the knowledge that she had killed two people tonight left her feeling shaky and disconnected.