by Amanda Stone
He obviously didn’t know about Kane and his grandparents reconciling, which now had me believing that he didn’t know anything at all about Kane now. And I was pretty sure I had not told him the reason Kane and I were no longer together.
“It should have been you and me from the start. I didn’t pursue you because I thought you would be smart enough not to fall for Kane’s shit, but you see now, don’t you? You see how he deceived you and how he could so easily forget about you when it came to Katie.
Now that you’re not burdened by him anymore, we can give us a shot, though. I can show you how it feels to be spoiled and pampered.” He smiled, but it had a disturbing edge to it now, and made my stomach turn.
“You are quick to forget, Nate, that you haven’t asked me what I want, and I don’t want those things. Not with you, not with anyone! I’m not the type of girl who can be bought into a relationship. You would have known that if you were really my friend,” I hissed at him, then something else he had said sank in and I glared at him, “I never told you that I caught Kane with Katie. I never told anyone besides Jessi, and I am pretty sure she never told anyone.” I jerked my body one last time, which broke the hold he had on me, and I turned to run and find Jessi.
I made my way toward the back where the bathrooms were, still glancing over my shoulder to see if Nate was following me. I didn’t see him, but I also didn’t see him standing where I had left him on the dance floor. All the hair on my body stood on end. I needed to find Jessi and I needed to get out of here and away from him.
I pulled out my phone and began typing out a text to Jess. I knew if I couldn’t find her, she would at least get my text.
Big trouble. Need you now. Nate is a psycho. Meet me at the bathroom.
There, now all I would need to do is wait by the bathrooms for her and then we could leave and I could forget about this whole mess.
What the hell was that?! Had I given Nate the impression somewhere along the way that I was interested in him as more than a friend? Looking back I didn’t think I had, so I didn’t know what tonight was all about.
I was looking down at my phone, willing it to chime with a text from Jessi, when someone grabbed me from behind. The person who had me placed one hand over my mouth, and knocked my phone out my hands with the other.
“Shh, we are just going to go talk,” Nate’s voice hissed in my ear. “You can’t just walk away from me, Kelsey. No one disrespects me like that. Now you’re going to keep real quiet. You’re not going to put up a fight and you’re going to come with me.”
I started to shake my head no when I felt a sharp poke in my side. I wasn’t stupid, I knew what it was. It was a knife. The bastard pulled a knife on me.
“Please don’t make me hurt you, Kelsey. I don’t want to hurt you. I just need to talk to you. To make you understand, but know this, if you cause a scene I will hurt you and if I can’t hurt you … I will hurt the people you care about. Do you understand?”
I began to panic. Where was Jessi? Had he already gotten to her? There was nothing else I could do. I couldn’t take a chance on him hurting anyone else, so I nodded to let him know I would do whatever he wanted.
“Good. Now we are going to slip right out this door over here. Come on.”
He began pulled me to the back exit of Shot’s. I heard the door open and I felt a rush of wind. I looked around at the bar full of people, and no one seemed to notice what was going on. At the last minute I spotted Kane. He was standing tall above the other as if he was looking for something. I was praying he would glance my way and see what was happening but he never did and the door to Shot’s slammed shut along with any hope I had that someone would save me.
He dragged me around the corner to where his car was. The rain had finally stopped, but there was now a fog drifting along the ground. I could still feel the knife poking at my side so I tried not to put up too much of a fight. I obviously didn’t know Nate as well as I thought I did, so it was hard to say what he was capable of and I didn’t want to chance pushing him too far, so I went willingly.
He opened the driver’s side door and leaned down to my ear. “Climb in this side. I’m going to take my hand off your mouth to let you do this. Please don’t make me do something we both will regret.”
I nodded and he released the hold he had on my mouth. I crawled my way across the driver’s seat and into the passenger’s seat. This wasn’t an easy feat to do, because he drove a small sports car. The thought had crossed my mind to make a run for it while he climbed in, but I was already so cramped in the tiny car that I knew I would get tripped up in my attempts, and he would end up catching me and then there was no telling what he might do. So I thought to myself, maybe if I played along long enough, he would finally let me go. We had been friends—or so I thought—maybe if I could get him to remember the friendship, he would be less likely to hurt me in the end.
Nate climbed in and started the car. “Where are you taking me?” I asked him.
He turned his head and smiled. “Just somewhere to talk, Kelsey. We need to talk about this. I need you to understand where I’m coming from.” He put the car in drive and pulled out of Shot’s onto the main road.
He headed in the opposite direction of the college, toward a part of town I had never been to. The street lights became fewer and farther in between, as did the houses and businesses. He was taking me somewhere where no one would be able to bother us … or find me, and I began to panic.
“Nate, really we can talk about this back at school, or maybe over a cup of coffee tomorrow morning when you’re not so worked up.” I was pleading with him. I didn’t want to get to the destination we were headed, because I wasn’t sure I would make it back.
“No. We are going to talk about this tonight and I have to get you away from all the noise and people that might cloud your judgment,” he said as he turned on his signal light and took a left onto a dark street. Through the darkness I could see a large mass, and as we got closer, I saw that I was an old abandoned building.
“What is this place?” I asked as he slowly pulled the car to a stop.
“Just an old building my father owns. It’s been closed for years and sometimes the frat comes here to party when we don’t want to get in trouble with the university.” He popped open his door and stepped out. With the help of the security lights, I could see him motioning for me to get out when he stepped in front of the car. I guess he figured there was no way I would run now, and he was right. Where would I even go? The last house we had passed was a good ten minutes back the other way. I was going to have to ride this out and hope for the best.
I slowly opened my door and stepped out, and took in the big dark building. Some of the windows were busted out, and it had the obvious graffiti that abandoned buildings seemed to accumulate over time.
“Don’t worry. It’s a lot better than it looks. We have lights and old couches inside. I told you, the frat uses this pace to party sometimes.” He smiled. He obviously had no clue that I didn’t want to be here, that I didn’t want to be out here alone, with him.
He began walking to the doors of the building, but turned to glare at me when I made no attempt to follow. He said nothing as he pulled the knife from his pocket, the blade glinting in the light from the headlights of the car.
I gulped as I took a step closer to him. He reached out and grabbed my hand, roughly pulling me closer to him.
“We are just going to talk, Kelsey.” He smiled, but I couldn’t fake a smile back.
Nate pulled me inside the dark building. He let go of my hand long enough to plug in some security lights. The room flooded with the harsh lighting, and I could see that the walls were splattered with paint and more graffiti. There were a couple of old, worn couches and chairs spaced sparsely throughout the room, and huge sets of speakers in each corner. This place screamed squatter party house.
I wrapped my arms around my torso, hugging my body. “Nate, please take me home,” I begged him. I didn’t want
to be here. I wasn’t sure what Nate was capable of anymore.
Nate crossed the room to stand before me, he wrapped his hands around my upper arms. “Kelsey, I told you. We have to talk first. Then I will take you home.”
A door slammed and both our heads turned to see who it was. I was elated at first because I thought finally someone had come to rescue me. But the person I found in the doorway was anything but a rescuer. It had been six years since I had come face to face with him, but I would remember those cold eyes anywhere.
“Who the fuck are you?” Nate let go of my arms and turned toward the person standing in the doorway.
“I would be that pretty little thing you have there’s father.” My dad’s deep voice echoed throughout the room chilling me to the bone.
His face was hollow. He was much thinner than the last time I had seen him in the courtroom, but he still held this aura about him that screamed dangerous.
“Oh, Sir, we were just out here talking.” Nate began to stutter. He didn’t know anything about my past and what my dad had done. He probably thought my dad was here to save me. But now, more than ever, I knew I was never going to make it out of this old, dirty building alive.
My father held up one hand to silence anything else Nate had to say. He was staring straight at me with and ugly snarl on his face.
“My, my, how you have grown,” my dad said as he walked along the wall, circling me like a wild animal stalking its prey.
“How did you get out?” I asked. My voice barely about a whisper.
“You would know if you would have been at the hearing a few months ago, sweet pea.” He grinned like the Cheshire Cat.
I shook my head. This wasn’t possible. He was supposed to never get out that place. I was supposed to never have to face him again.
“What’s wrong? Not happy to see daddy?” he asked as he pulled a black handgun from his back.
My whole world stopped when he brought the gun up and pointed it straight at me. I closed my eyes. I heard the explosion of the shot and waited to feel the burn of the bullet piercing my skin. But it never came.
I opened my eyes to see that my dad still had the gun pointed at me but Nate was no longer standing beside me. Instead he was lying on the floor, unconscious and bleeding from his abdomen.
Immediately I dropped to my knees and pressed my hand over his wound to try to stop some of the blood from flowing out of his body.
“Get up!” my father screamed, startling me and causing me to fall back on my butt. “I said, GET UP!” The gun rattled in his shaking hand as he pointed it at me. I scurried to stand, but I couldn’t stop watching the blood flow from Nate’s stomach. He skin was turning paler by the second.
“It was all your fault, you know.” I looked at my dad. “All of it. Everything that ever happened to her was your fault. We were fine before you came along. We were happy. Then she found out she was pregnant with you,” he spat the word you like it was the most disgusting thing in the world to him.
“I tried to talk her out of having you. I wanted her to have an abortion. She was MINE! I didn’t want to share her with anyone, but she threatened to leave me and raise you on her own, and I couldn’t let that happen. I couldn’t let her go. So I let her have you as long as I could keep her.” He paused for a minute, as if he was reflecting back on the memories. “She loved you more than she did me. That’s why I did the things I did to her. She wasn’t supposed to love anyone more than me. I loved her so much,” his voiced cracked on his last sentence, and I wanted to throw up.
How could he beat her and treat her the way he did, if he loved her? I had always known my dad was evil, but I didn’t know he was a lunatic.
“How did you get out?” I asked him again.
He chuckled. “Smart thinking on your old man’s part when I ran back in the house and planted that knife on your mother. I knew eventually they would believe my story about self-defense and have my conviction overturned. I just had to wait and find a lawyer that wasn’t a complete moron to represent me.” He smiled, clearly proud of his victory. “It was more difficult to find you when I got out, than I thought it would be. Changing your name. That was clever.”
“I didn’t do it to hide from you! I wanted no reminder that you even existed!” I screamed at him, causing him to stalk over to me and slap me in the face.
“I can see that six years has not been long enough for you to learn some damn respect!” he yelled at me, and I spit the blood that was pooling in my mouth onto his shoes.
This enraged him and he tackled me to the ground. I fought against him, and in the struggle I felt a tug at my wrist and then a pop. My charm bracelet. I glanced at my wrist and could see it was no longer there. I started blindly slinging my fists in the air, hoping to connect somewhere on his face.
He was stronger than me though, and grabbed my wrists in his hands before forcing them to the ground above my head. He then held them together with one hand while his other hand came down to grasp my throat. I immediately struggled to pull air into my lungs. I could feel my eyes bulging with panic as I bucked my body to try to throw him off, but it was no use. I was going to die. And I was going to die just like my mom had.
I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of looking me in the eye as I died, though, so I looked anywhere in the room but at him. My eyes eventually fell on the door to the warehouse. I wasn’t sure if it was the lack of oxygen my brain was getting, but I could see Kane standing there. He put his finger to his lips in a ‘Shh’ motion.
I glanced at my father who was concentrating so hard on me that he didn’t see Kane come storming into the room. Kane hit my father with his body. Tackling him like some pro football player.
When my throat was clear of my father’s grasp and I was able to breathe again, I scurried to stand. My dad and Kane were still rolling around on the floor in a struggle. I couldn’t tell who was getting the best of who but then I saw the glint of metal in the light and I knew my father still had the gun.
“Kane! Watch out he has a…”
The bang from the gun stopped any other words from leaving my throat. The commotion from the two of them ceased and I waited for what seemed like eternity for one of them to move.
“No!” I screamed when my father stood and I caught sight of Kane lying on the ground bleeding. “You bastard!”
“You’re next, sweet pea.” He raised the gun and pointed it at me again. This time I wouldn’t close my eyes. I wanted him to see how much loathed him before he killed me.
But right as my dad’s finger rested on the trigger Kane’s arm shot out, knocking my father’ s feet out from underneath him. When my father fell to the ground, his gun flew from his grasp and landed at my feet.
I hurried and picked it up, and pointed it at where he now knelt in front of me.
Kane was no longer conscious. He laid behind my dad, still bleeding, with his eyes closed. The fear that he might already be dead ripped through my body as I placed my finger on the trigger.
My dad looked up at me. No fear in his eyes and said, “You don’t have it in you. You were always a coward. That’s why you did nothing to stop me that night from killing your mom.”
Anger and hatred toward this man took over my every sense. It was now becoming so clear to me that everyone was right. HE had killed my mom. Not me. He was the evil one.
“I hate you,” I said to him as I pulled the trigger and shot him square in the chest. His body fell back onto the floor. He blank eyes staring at the ceiling. I dropped the gun on the floor and rushed over to Kane.
His eyes were still closed and his shirt was soaked in blood. I lifted his head to cradle it in my lap. Tears streaming down my face as I held him.
“I’m so sorry, Kane. I’m so sorry I came into your life and caused so much damage.”
Kane’s eyes fluttered open and he looked at me. I laid my hand on his cheek that was becoming cold from the amount of blood he was losing. “I love you. I don’t care about what happened with
Katie. I love you so much. Please hold on. Please don’t die on me. Stay with me.”
Kane slowly lifted his hand and rested it against my cheek. “I didn’t kiss Katie like you think I did. She kissed me. I pushed her away a few second after our lips touched, but I guess you had already turned away. I’m sorry, Kelsey. I’m sorry I didn’t just tell you right away. You were mad and I wanted to give you time to cool off before I approached you again. Then I saw you dancing with Nate tonight, and I thought I had already lost you.” He coughed and a tiny trail of blood ran from the corner of his mouth down his cheek.
“Kane, please don’t talk anymore. Save your strength. I’m going to go see if I can find you some help.” I started to lift his head from my lap but he stopped me.
“Called … police … before I came,” he struggled. “Found Jessi … at bar … said she had a text about Nate.” He coughed again and more blood ran down the side of his face. “Knew he would bring … you here. Called … police,” he finished and his eyes closed.
“No, Kane! Wake up! Stay with me!” I begged him through my sobs.
His eyes fluttered open to look at me. “I love you, Kelsey Rien.” He said as he closed his eyes one last time.
I traced the name that was carved in stone over and over. It had been too long since I had been here—to my mother’s grave. Kane stood a few feet behind me, letting me have a moment with her.
I didn’t like that he was standing back there like that. After the shot he had taken a few weeks ago, the doctors said he should be resting, but he insisted on coming here with me today. I loved him for that. He had almost lost his life trying to rescue me from my dad.