I don’t hide the confusion in my eyes. I know nothing happened. She’s lying.
“Oh, he didn’t tell you?”
“He wouldn’t willingly touch you. You’re lying.”
She skips over to me, putting her face directly into mine. “He’s going to do so much more once you’re out of the picture. What we can be together…” She smiles, looking as if she’s lost in mental thought. Bringing her eyes back to focus, she continues. “It’s going to be magical.” Then she twirls around and skips into the darkness.
Bat. Shit. Crazy.
She has absolutely lost her mind.
I look around, trying to find a way to escape. The binds around my wrists are too tight. Fuck. I’m fucked. I don’t know how long it’s been, or how long I’ve been here. It’s dark outside, which tells me a while, and that worries me. I’ve been missing for some time, and no one’s found me.
Not good.
I try to remember how long Damien said he would be gone. What if work took longer than he imagined? What if he sent me a text saying he would be late and to go home or eat—or get kidnapped by a psychopath and die in the woods!
“Fuck!”
“What was that?” Sylvia returns, holding a phone. Phone! Oh my God, is that my phone? The tracker Damien put on the bat phone. Oh, please let it be the bat phone.
“You calling to turn yourself in? Realizing men aren’t into crazy—”
Her fingers wrap into my hair, and I scream as she yanks down. “You stupid bitch. You think I would have your phone just sitting here? No, no…this is your pathetic friend’s phone. Just sending a little message from her phone to yours. I mean, who would they suspect first? The jaded best friend, ya know!” Her evil smile does nothing to assure me I’ll make it out alive.
“You won’t win in the end. He won’t want you.”
“I always get what I want!” she yells. “This will be no different. It’s you who loses here, freakshow. Not me. I win. I win!”
She tugs hard, trying, and possibly succeeding, at ripping half my head of hair out. My eyes blur from the pain and my scalp feels like it’s on fire. A shadow appears from beyond the trees and she lets go as someone comes into view. Sylvia turns around letting off a grade A sorority level huff. “Where have you been? How long does it take to light a match?” she snaps.
“I had to stop at an urgent care. That bitch broke my nose. Not to mention the four stitches I had to get in my head.” Jake walks onto the landing, showing a bit of wear and tear.
“Oh, poor baby. Did you get your ass kicked by a girl?” Gone is the kind smile he tricked me with at school. In its place is anger and resentment.
“Bitch, you’re the one tied to a chair in the middle of the woods. I don’t think you should be talking shit. If you want, I’ll let you suck my dick as your last dying wish.” He laughs, and Sylvia rolls her eyes.
“Hard pass,” I respond. “Curious, though. How did Sylvia get you to do her dirty work? Or have you always been a fucking psychopath like her?”
He comes at me, and my eyes shut as I wait for the blow. Nothing comes, and when I reopen them, Sylvia is on him, with her tongue down his throat.
“Oh my God, seriously? I thought you didn’t like her? Jesus, your cheesy letter-wearing club cults confuse me.”
Sylvia pulls away and wipes at her pink lipstick. Jake looks like he wants to finish me off. “Well, when I told him what a conniving little slut you were, and how you were just stringing him along, I took it upon myself to do what you couldn’t. Please him. And you know men. They’ll do anything for a fuck. Little ol’ Jakey offered to kidnap you for a simple blowjob. Isn’t that cute?”
All I was worth was a measly blowjob? Gee. Thanks. “Hope it was worth it, douchebag, ‘cause your freedom’s coming to an end soon. Damien will find me. And you’re both fucked!”
Jake comes at me. “You lying bitch,” he snaps, but the nervousness in his tone tells me he’s not so sure. He turns to Sylvia. “She’s lying, right? We’re good? You said this couldn’t be traced back to us.”
Sylvia scoffs, throwing her hair over her shoulder. “Chillax, she’s just trying to mess with you. No one saw us. We took the back way and she was covered in a sheet.”
They covered me in a sheet?
Okay, I take it back, she’s not batshit crazy, she’s a lunatic.
“Oh yeah? Did you clean up the blood bath? DNA, pal. Your blood is all over that room.” I dig at him some more, hoping they’ll turn on each other. Jake’s head snaps to Sylvia. I’ve succeeded in freaking him out.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she hisses at him.
“Then tell me she’s fucking lying. Is she lying? Can they track that shit?”
Sylvia shrugs her dainty shoulders, trying to come off unfazed, but she’s failing at not looking nervous herself. “Well, how should I know? I don’t watch those FBI shows.”
“Sylvia—”
“What! I didn’t tell you to get whacked in the head with a lamp and bleed everywhere!” Jake starts to flip out, pacing back and forth. Sylvia looks like no one’s home. I try to sway back and forth, hoping to fall over and break the chair. I’m an okay runner. I can run into the woods and hide.
“This was all your idea. If we get caught, this is your fault. I won’t fucking hesitate to tell them—”
A horrified scream leaves my throat when Sylvia picks up a log and bashes it against the side of Jake’s head. I watch in horror as he goes down like a tree. “Jesus Christ, what’d you do that for!” I shout, but I don’t think she hears me. She certainly seems to have forgotten about me. “Sylvia!”
“It’s fine. Daddy will fix this. Daddy will fix this. It’s fine. Everything is fine.”
What the fuck? “Sylvia, your dad can’t fix this. He’s bleeding. You need to call for help, or he’s gonna die.”
“It’s fine. Daddy will fix this. Daddy will fix this. Daddy will fix this.”
“I don’t think Daddy is fixing any—”
“DADDY FIXES EVERYTHING!” Cocking her shoulders back, she raises the log, readying herself for another deadly blow.
BEEP, BEEP, BEEP…
Jensen’s soft body lies under me as I open my mouth, cover her nipple, and suck hard without remorse. She wiggles, her back bowing off the bed.
“I’m going to take you, push you, bring your body to the deepest edges of insanity, do you hear me?” A place I feel I already am. Her soft laugh seeps into my veins. My dick hardens even more if possible, and I can no longer play. I need to be inside her immediately. “Laugh now, my little pet, because soon, I’m gonna be fucking you so hard and deep, you won’t be laughing, but screaming my name as my cock owns you.”
“Where are you, Damien?” she asks as I pull her other breast into my mouth.
“I’m right here.” I suck hard, knowing she loves the pain mixed with pleasure.
“Where are you, Damien?” she asks again.
I release her nipple and pull away to gaze at her. “Baby, I’m right here.”
She stares back at me, not hearing anything I say. “Baby, I’m here. What’s wrong?” I ask, concerned. Her body heat rises. Her skin is becoming too hot to touch. “Jensen. Jesus, what’s wrong?” I panic, having to jump off her to avoid getting burned. “Jensen!” I call her name again.
“Where are you, Damien?” she asks one last time, then explodes into a burst of flames—
The beeping sound brings me out of my nightmare. My eyes shoot open, and I sit up from the bed I’m soaked from my own sweat. I look around for Jensen, but she’s not here. The bright lights send a shooting pain to my head and severe dizziness blasts me back against the bed. My hand goes up to touch my forehead and it’s met with cloth. A bandage? Confusion strikes as I open my eyes again and look around. I’m in a hospital room.
“You’re finally awake. Welcome back, Mr. Cross.” My eyes whip to the nurse entering my room, causing another wave of dizziness.
“Why am I…What happened?”<
br />
She’s at my bedside, checking the machine. “You were in a fire. You sure are lucky.” Her hands are cold as she checks my pulse. “How are you feeling? You got yourself a pretty nice concussion there.”
My eyes squeeze shut, fighting to remember.
The fire.
The blood.
Jensen—
“I need to speak to—”
I make another attempt at sitting up, but my head spins and my stomach threatens to expel from the pain. I go back down, cradling my head. “I need to—”
“You need to rest, Mr. Cross. You’ve been out for the past seven hours. It’s in your best interest to lie back. Would you like something to help you sleep?”
Seven hours?
I need to get out of here. “Jensen…have they found Jensen?”
The nurse offers a kind smile. “I’m not sure. Is this a family member? Would you like me to contact anyone for—”
“No! She was kidnapped. Have they found her? Where’s Commissioner Stephens?”
She’s oblivious to what I’m asking. “Sir, you really need to calm down. It’s not good—”
“HAVE THEY FOUND HER—?”
“Hello, Mr. Cross.”
I give my attention to the doctor and officer entering my room. Relief floods the nurse’s features, and with a quick nod to the doctor, she scurries out.
“Mr. Cross, I’m glad to see you’re awake. We were starting to get worried about you.”
“I’m fine. I need to get out of here.”
The doctor walks up to the end of my bed and takes a look at my chart. “I understand that. Mr. Heywood is here to answer any questions you have, but for now, I would advise you against leaving. You’ve taken a bad hit to your head.”
“I said I’m fine,” I repeat even as the pain shoots through my frontal lobe.
“I understand, but your head scan says otherwise. You should be thankful for just the head injury. The other gentleman brought in with you suffered severe burns.”
Other?
Kade?
Fredrick?
“Where are they? Are they okay?” The doctor’s expression changes. The fear of his next words, like a noose around my throat, choke me. “Are they—?”
“Your friend, Mr. Turner, suffered third-degree burns on his back and legs. He’s been in and out of surgery. They’re doing the best they can to clean the wounds and remove any debris out of his back. Next steps are skin graphing. But he’s stable and awake.”
Fredrick.
“What about Kade? Kaden Forth?”
The doctor checks the chart in his hands. “I don’t see that a Kaden Forth was brought in with you.”
No. Fuck. No.
“He had to have been. Check again. He was in there with me. He was going to grab…”
Fuck.
The pain in my chest explodes. This is my fault. His death is on me.
“There was a woman in there as well. Was she…” I don’t finish. The officer steps forward. “Mr. Cross, my name is Officer Heywood. I was hoping to ask you a few questions about the fire.”
“Answer mine first, dammit!”
The officer nods. “You and Mr. Turner were the only ones brought in. A body was retrieved from the building, but it was too badly burned to identify. It may be some time before we are able to know if the remains are Mr. Forth or Patricia Phillips.”
“I need to see Fredrick.” I need to know what Patricia had planned. I sit up, forcing myself to fight through the dizziness. “Do you know who started the fire? Where’s Commissioner Stephens? I need to talk to him.”
He pulls out his pad of paper. “From what we know from the surveillance we’ve recovered, it shows a young man setting low-grade explosives around the building. They shouldn’t have been powerful enough to do the damage they did, but unfortunately, one struck the gas line, which caused a whole lot of damage. I don’t have to tell you the building is old, which didn’t help the impairment to the structure.”
“And Jensen? What’s the update on Jensen Stone?”
My stomach threatens to heave, waiting for his response. I already know by his expression he’s going to tell me they haven’t found her.
Seven hours.
“There’ve been no leads. Mr. Turner was questioned. His story pans out at this time. There was no reason to list him as a suspect. We put out a missing person’s and notified the university. We’re doing everything we can—”
“If you were doing everything you could, you would have found her by now!” I snap. I’ve been held up in this bed for seven hours while she’s been enduring God knows what. She could be—
“Excuse me, Mr. Cross?”
Everyone turns to the girl standing in the doorway. She’s well put together, but looks scared, nervous maybe. Her face is stained with tears.
“Can we help you, miss?” The doctor questions.
She looks unsure, but after a few seconds, steps into the room. “Yeah, uh…my name is, uh…Christine Bigsby.”
Anger rises inside me. Christine. The friend who blew her off. The one who caused all this mess. “What the fuck do you want?” I bite out, and she physically sinks into herself.
“I’m…I think I know where Jensen is. I know how to find her.”
I force myself to stay conscious. “Where is she?”
“Syl—Sylvia asked to borrow my phone yesterday. I didn’t think anything of it, but when she never returned it or came back to the house, I thought it was strange. Not long after, all the news came out about the club fire. Then the school posted about a student missing. Sylvia hates her. I know it. I think…I think she has something to do with it.”
I throw my legs over the bed, grabbing the railing as a rush of dizziness threatens to throw me back.
“Mr. Cross, lay back down. You are not permitted to leave.”
I push him away and stand. Fuck, the nausea is about to win this one. I shut my eyes until it passes, then reopen them to search for my clothes. “Where are my things?” I ask.
“Mr. Cross, I highly recommend against this.” I don’t give a fuck what he recommends. I need to save Jensen. I did this. Fuck, I’m the cause of everything she’s going through.
I walk to the small closet in search of my clothes. Thankfully, I find a set of scrubs. I don’t give a fuck who sees as I drop my hospital gown, and with every last bit of energy in me, change.
I bring my searing eyes to the girl. “How do I find her?”
“My phone has a tracker. My dad put it on there. He just wanted to make sure, if I ever lost it or got stolen, he’d be able to find me.” Her voice is laced with panic. “I’m sorry I didn’t think of it sooner. I just didn’t know. I thought Sylvia was nice and—”
“I don’t give a fuck! How do I track your phone?”
“I called my dad. He sent me this location. It’s in Morrison Woods, just outside the city.”
I don’t bother with her a second longer. I don’t care that she’s a crying mess right now. She’s the reason Jensen is in this mess. So are you, asshole. I turn to Officer Heywood. “Call Commissioner Stephens. Tell him she’s here.” I hand him the tracker location.
“Mr. Cross, you can’t seriously think you are well enough to leave this hospital and go on a search and rescue. That’s just absurd. Let the law enforcement do their job.”
I ignore the doctor’s pleading demands and turn back to Christine. “Do you have a car?”
“Yes,” she whimpers.
“Let’s go. You’re fucking taking me there.”
She complies instantly. The doctor still yells for me to return as I make my way down the hall. I need to save my girl.
LIFE’S A BITCH, AND THEN you die.
I feel like that saying fits me pretty well right about now. When planning out my dreams and goals, I seem to have failed to add in being kidnapped, tortured by a lunatic, and tied to a chair in the middle of the woods. I thought my biggest struggle was living in a home where money was scarce. The
hardships of having to manage on one income. I wasn’t spoiled with all the newest trends. My outfits were mostly hand-me-downs from family friends, and I just didn’t shine like most kids at school. I learned from a young age if I wanted something, I was going to have to work hard to get it. I always labeled myself as a go-getter. A self-starter. I busted my ass, turned down dates and social gatherings—okay, maybe those were never put on the table—but I sacrificed those so-called things to make sure I rose above.
Basically, I spent my entire adolescence holed up in my house like a bookworm all so I could die at the hands of a psychopath.
I’m not sure what time it is. It’s still dark. And thankfully, I still have my face and all its parts in place. Just as Sylvia was about to rearrange my nose with the log, I convinced her blood splatter would ruin her pretty dress and Damien hates blood. Loathes it. Luckily, for me, that swayed her to drop it. The bad thing, she left immediately after to change because naughty Jake may have gotten some on her clothes. So that leaves just me and possibly dead Jake stuck in the woods.
“Jake?” I whisper his name, but nothing. “Jake!” I yell this time, but he doesn’t budge. The heebie-jeebies quickly set in at the thought of a dead person just inches away from me. I start to have trouble breathing. “Don’t panic. Don’t panic.” I’m totally starting to panic. I open my mouth to start screaming bloody murder when Sylvia reappears.
“Jesus, where did you go! You can’t just leave me here tied up with a dead guy!” I snap. When she comes into better focus, I notice she’s changed. “Dude, are you wearing my green dress?”
She smiles and spins like goddamn Cinderella wearing the dress Damien bought me on the first night of our arrangement. “It looks way better on me, don’t you think?” She does another twirl. She’s been in my room. In my closet. And how has no one found me? This is not looking good for me. I’m hungry, weak. My running ability has diminished terribly since I can barely feel my ass from being stuck in this chair for so long. Not to mention my horrible headache.
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