“Get out.” She shoved Emily out the door and followed too closely for any chance to escape.
Emily felt the gun press hard into her back. Cheryl was much bigger, at least four inches taller and probably forty pounds heavier. That alone wouldn’t stop Emily from fighting back if she got an opening, but Cheryl was prudent and pushed her up the steps and through the tattered door.
They stepped into a broken down old house. The interior matched the outside perfectly. It looked like a smoky fire had done serious damage to the home. Emily turned to face her. “What is this place?”
“This is where we used to live, this was the last place my family was happy.” Cheryl kept the gun on her.
Emily felt the floors moving under her feet. It was not a stable platform. She was barely one hundred thirty pounds and she felt like she was going to fall through in places. “Why are you doing this, Cheryl?”
“I told you: you ruined my life.”
“How did I ruin your life?”
“Because you took my father away from me.”
“I had no choice. He was going to kill me.”
Cheryl made a face and used her free hand to punch herself in the thigh. “That’s not what I’m talking about, you stupid bitch.”
“What’re you talking about?”
She moved in closer, putting the gun right to Emily’s face. “He always liked you better. No matter what I did, it was Emily this and Emily that. Why can’t I get good grades like Emily, why can’t I play sports like Emily. Then when you got older, you’d flaunt that hot little body of yours all over the place. He would rather spend time gawking at you than looking at my mother or talking to me.”
Emily was stunned that this was coming back again. She had no idea any of this was going on. “Cheryl, I never intended anything like that to happen. I didn’t do anything.”
“You knew what you were doing, you little whore—you knew it. Nobody wears skimpy clothes like that without some ulterior motive.” She shoved the gun towards Emily. “Look at you right now! Those little pink shorts couldn’t be any tighter if you painted them on, and that tight T-shirt showing off those boobs. You’re a whore and you know it.”
Emily shook her head. “Cheryl, everyone dresses like this.”
“I don’t! How would you’ve liked it if I dressed like that and went sticking my goodies into your father’s face?”
“You don’t know anything, you stupid bitch!” Emily didn’t mean to say that, but it slipped out and she was mad. “Did you know that your mother had an affair with my father? Did you know that?”
Cheryl’s face started to tremor with ticks. “Of course I knew, you fool. That’s because my mother was a whore just like you.”
“Cheryl, I’m sorry. I’m sorry if your father was obsessed with me. But I never did anything to lead him on.”
“It’s too late now.” Cheryl went over to her and pushed her up against the wall, sticking the gun into her already sore stomach. “When my father pulled that trigger, I demanded he shoot you in the head. I called checkmate on the game, but he refused.” She slid the gun down, pushing the barrel against Emily’s crotch. “I should torture you just for the fun of it, but I’d rather watch you burn alive.” Before Emily could move, she felt her hand being cuffed and latched to the water pipes that ran from floor to ceiling along the wall between the kitchen and dining room.
Cheryl disappeared out of the room. Emily yanked the pipes as hard as she could, but couldn’t break free. The thick pipe didn’t budge at all.
Cheryl came back into the room holding a large can of gasoline. “Don’t even bother. Those are old cast-iron pipes, they’re not going to move. In fact, when they find your body, you’ll be dangling from that pipe. Unless your arm burns off, which is entirely possible, I guess.”
She made a trail of gasoline around the room. “I love fire, Emily. Do you know that? I’ve loved it since I was a kid. They blamed me for the fire in this house, but it wasn’t my fault. If my mother wasn’t so stupid, collecting all those old newspaper clippings, it wouldn’t have gotten out of control.”
She continued pouring gas on the walls and floors. “Fire is so cool, it’s so fun to watch things burn. The way it consumes and leaves no trace. I love the way it has no limits. It can just get hotter and hotter and hotter, only dependent on the fuel you feed it. It can melt steel—it can even melt rock when it gets hot enough. It’s the most powerful force in the Universe. You can’t stop fire, Emily, you can only delay it.”
She poured gasoline on the kitchen cabinets across from Emily. “Chess was the only game my father would play with me. We used to play all the time until I went away to school. It was about the only time I could get him to be impressed with me. I never once heard how Emily was good at chess, but I was.”
She took out the matching rook and knight pieces and placed them on the floor in front of Emily. “So when he asked for my help to play one more game I couldn’t resist. All I had to do was place a couple timely phone calls, book a couple remote cabins, no big deal. He thought I was helping him, but I was going to kill you the moment I had the chance. When he finally got you to that cabin, I planned to burn it down. I was going to get him all to myself once and for all.”
Emily shook her head. “You’re crazier than he was.”
Cheryl laughed and returned to pouring the gas again. She poured it all around the front door, and then came to Emily. She stopped short of pouring the last bit on Emily. “Hmm, I think you’ll suffer more if I don’t pour the gas right on you. I don’t want you to die of smoke inhalation, that’s no fun. I want you to feel the heat. I want you to watch the flames crawl across the wood planks towards you. I want you to feel that pain of burning alive, because that’s what I felt every time my father looked at you. I felt like I was burning alive.”
She poured some gas down the sink. “I tried to burn up my father’s mess at your house to protect him, but he was stupid. And if he knew anything about setting a fire like I taught him, that boyfriend of yours would have never gotten out of that cabin. But he put the propane tanks in the wrong spot and he opened the valves too much.”
She poured a few drips of gas around Emily’s feet and onto her shoes. “This way, you’ll catch on but you won’t burn up right away. It’ll take some time.” She tossed the can across the room and took out a fancy silver lighter and a cigar. She lit the cigar with a few turns and puffed some thick smoke into the air. The smell of gas was so thick that Emily thought they were going to explode right there.
“Well, Emily Bontrager. Do you have any last words before I watch you die?”
Emily looked outside, praying that Zack was somewhere ready to spring out. She had to delay as long as possible. “Cheryl, I never meant any harm.”
She puffed the cigar and then held it tip down towards the pool of gasoline in the center of the room. “The best part about this whole thing is this.” She took out her phone. “Mike, it’s me—bring in the boyfriend.”
Emily felt her heart sink when she saw Zack walk in with his hands held up high. He stopped at the front door. But Emily was confused when no one else was with him.
Cheryl tilted her head in confusion. Zack dropped his hands, pulled out a gun. “Sorry, Mike’s not going to be joining us.” He shot her in the chest.
Cheryl groaned and stood there, looking at him, then, she looked over at Emily and dropped to her knees as blood poured from her chest. She then flicked the lighter and dropped facedown to the floor.
Chapter 41
Zack saw the lighter falling towards the gasoline but it was too late to stop it. It hit the floor with a whoosh and flames started spreading out in all directions.
He ran past the flames to Emily and yanked on the handcuff, but that pipe wasn’t moving. The heat was growing more intense by the second. Zack felt the sweat start to pour down his face. He looked towards Cheryl’s body, knowing that key was probably in her pocket.
He shielded his face with his hand and tr
ied to step towards her body, but she fell right in the center of the gas and it was already burning.
“No, Zack don’t!” Emily yelled.
“I need that key!”
“No, you have to get out of here.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
“Please, Zack, you have to go.”
The fire jumped across the floor and latched onto Emily’s sneakers, burning them. Zack bent over and quickly doused the flames, but they came back, so he yanked the shoes off her feet and flung them across the house, aflame. He didn’t know what to do.
He looked at her, tears streamed down her face, mixing with the sweat that poured down from the growing heat. “Zack, you have to leave, please. If you love me, you have to leave.”
There was no way he was leaving her, not a chance in hell. “I love you, and I won’t leave.”
She started crying hysterically as the flames wrapped up the wall around them and split in two directions. “Please, I’m begging you, Zack, just go.”
He put both hands on either side of her face. “I love you. I couldn’t live one day knowing I left you here to die. If we have to die, we die together.” Wrapping both arms around her to shield her from the heat, her sobs of anguish pouring into his chest got him crying. He wasn’t crying for himself, he was crying for her pain.
It was so hot. It was a burning heat, licking at their bodies with vengeance. Zack felt the floor shift, and shudder, it sank under his feet and gave him an idea. “Jump! Start jumping now!”
He started jumping as hard as he could, she jumped in unison with him, and after a few shots, the floor gave way and they both broke through the boards and plummeted into the unknown below them.
It was a farther fall than Zack expected, but they dropped into a pile of furniture debris. He tumbled away from her. She screamed in pain, as she was hanging by her wrist, unable to reach the floor because some debris blocked the pipe.
Zack started clearing the debris, a table, chairs, small bed, away from the pipe and tossing it to the side. He looked up, and the floor was broiling and pieces of wood were cracking. He knew it was only a matter of time before that entire structure came down on them.
He got the debris cleared and Emily was able to drop down to the floor. She was still latched to the pipe, but the pipe curved towards the wall.
She saw right away that she could follow it all the way across the floor. They came to a bracket that stopped the cuff where two pipes were lashed. Zack kicked the pipes hard and broke the bracket apart, allowing Emily to continue along the path.
A huge beam came stabbing through the floor, crashing down right there they’d just been, but they pressed on to the far side of the basement where an old furnace sat. Emily was able to get right up to it, but not free as the pipe led into an old box.
The pipes down here were not the heavy cast-iron, they were softer copper, and after a few pulls, the two of them were able to break the pipe out of the box and get Emily free.
The structure above them started to come down, they were running out of time. They ran to the far side, where a bank of narrow windows stretched across the basement. Zack helped Emily up to the ledge and pushed her outside. She rolled out of the way so he could follow. They were outside, but still too close to the house as the building started to tilt towards them.
On their feet, they started running as the two-story structure fell towards them. Zack could feel the heat closing in on his back. He ran with everything he had and dove, taking Emily down with him and the structure slammed to the ground just inches from his feet.
They got up again and ran another few steps clear as the cracking and roiling structure crashed in a heap down in on itself and all around. They stood there in the tall weeds, trying to catch their breath.
They faced each other and shared a long exhale.
Chapter 42
It was finally over. They both sat there in the same bubble of silence they’d been in since they started walking away from that house. Emily was unsure how to feel. Certainly, she was supposed to be happy. She was free. But she’d been here before already and a little part of her didn’t want to believe the moment was real.
She looked over at Zack, who sat with his hands on the steering wheel like he was driving, but the car wasn’t even running. There were so many words she wanted to say, but looking at her dirty and bloodied feet, the only thing she could think of was, “Can we go buy some new sneakers?”
Zack tipped his head back and looked over at her. “What color do you like?”
She pursed her lips. “In sneakers? Or just in general?”
He shrugged. “Just in general.”
“I like yellow.”
“And in sneakers?”
“I guess it depends. I think I want orange ones.”
Zack nodded and started the car. “Where do you want to go to get sneakers?”
“How about Florida?”
“No problem.”
They drove for hours in complete silence. Emily had been working on the lock on her handcuff, determined to pick it on her own without help. Zack told her how to do it, but it was so much harder than it looked on television. It was a good challenge, and after a long effort, she finally got it. She sighed in relief, but didn’t make a big deal about it. She just dropped the cuff to the floor and enjoyed the satisfaction.
The highway seemed to lull them both deeper into a trance. Emily broke it when she said, “I’m mad at you.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because you could’ve died in there.”
“Sorry, but I wasn’t leaving.”
“You’re stubborn.”
“Yup.”
“And stupid.”
“Yup.”
“And I love you.”
He nodded slowly. “I know.”
“And you love me.”
He nodded again. “I know.”
She smiled and lightened the mood. “And you want to be with me forever and ever.”
“Most certainly.”
“So we should like, go to Florida, buy sneakers, and get married.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Okay.”
She suddenly felt less playful and swallowed hard. “You want to actually marry me?”
He met her eyes. “Absolutely.”
She blew an audible breath and fanned her face with her hands. “Oh, my God, you’re not kidding.”
“Not in the slightest.”
“You’re crazy.”
He twisted his lips. “Yup.”
She looked down at her stomach and felt a pinch of sadness. “No, there’s no way it could ever happen. I can’t marry you.”
He glanced over at her. “Yes, you can.”
Tears started to bubble up and blur her eyes. “No, I can’t do that to you.”
He sighed and pulled the car off the road into a sandy space near the ocean, shut off the engine, and got out of the car. He walked around the front and leaned on the hood. She sat there looking at the back of his teal T-shirt and hesitated. This was apparently what he was going to do whenever they needed to talk about something.
She finally got out and sat on the hood next to him looking out at the ocean. “It doesn’t matter to me, Emily,” he said. “And it never will.”
“You say that now. But you don’t know how you’ll feel when the time comes and I can’t give you a family.”
He shook his head. “I don’t love you for what you can give me. I love you for who you are and what we’ve shared. Besides, there are always ways to have a family. Just because you can’t carry a baby doesn’t mean we can’t have a family. There’re surrogates, and there’s always adoption. Or we can just get a bunch of dogs and cats.”
“I feel like damaged goods.”
He put his arm around her. “Emily, you’ll never be damaged goods. And you shouldn’t feel like that. Your sole purpose on this earth is not to carry a baby. You can laugh, love, and live a wonderfully
fulfilling life. We’ve both been dragged through hell by none of our own doing, and now it’s our time. It’s our time to enjoy life. And I want to do that with you. Forever.”
He got down on one knee in front of her. “Emily Bontrager, I have known you for just a breath in time and you’ve stolen my heart like a cat burglar riding on the tip of a lightning bolt. I can’t imagine a single second on this earth without you by my side. I think we both know how precarious life is, and I don’t know what the future will hold, but I know as I go into it, I want to hold you, because you hold my heart.” He took out a ring. “Emily, will you marry me?”
Even though she knew this was coming for the last several minutes, the sight of that ring, the ring of those words, it just seemed so unreal. She nodded, but had trouble opening her mouth. But as he took her hand and slid the ring onto her finger, she finally said, “Yes, I will.”
He stood up and kissed her. She looked down at the ring. “When’d you get this?”
“Oh, I’ve had it for years. I give it to almost every girl with a cute butt. You’re just the first one that’s said yes.”
Emily nodded. “Seems legit.”
“Oh, it’s legit.”
She looked at the water. “We’re crazy, you know that, right?”
He nodded. “Yup. And I think, given what we’ve been through, we have every right to be a little crazy.”
“Funny thing is, I don’t feel crazy. I’ve given up Yale, escaped a psychopath, and gotten engaged to a guy I’ve known for like a month, most of which was spent in a hospital.”
“It’s silly.”
“But that’s the weird thing.” She looked at him, met his eyes. “Silly and crazy has never felt so sane and right.”
“The world works in mysterious ways.”
They kissed.
THE END
Acknowledgements
As always thanks to the incredible team at Limitless Publishing for all their hard work.
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