by Eva Ashwood
“It’s a trap, Blue,” Elias says quietly. “Can’t you see that? They want you, and they’re using her to lure you in.”
That should scare me, but it doesn’t. All I can think about right now is Max and getting her back before they do anything to her.
My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I glance at the text. The contact says MAX, and I desperately wish the words that follow were something like just kidding, I’m safe, I’m back at my dorm.
But when I read it, I know it’s not from her. It’s from her kidnapper.
This is real.
Wordlessly, I lift my phone and show the guys. The text is short and to the point. A set of coordinates and a time, followed by a simple warning. Don’t be late.
Gray shoves his hands into his pockets. “We have two hours. The drive will take at least thirty. We need to come up with a plan.” He turns to me. “We’re going with you whether you like it or not. This isn’t up for discussion, Sparrow. We’ll stay out of sight, but you need backup.”
“Okay.”
I nod, giving in. I hate the idea of putting the Sinners at risk, but I know it’s smarter to accept help than to go alone. If Max is in danger, having more of us out there trying to bring her back can only be a good thing.
Jesus. I told Gray he needed to prove he’s on my side, but I never imagined this would be the way he’d prove it.
For the next couple of minutes, the Sinners and I gather in a tight huddle, talking in low, urgent voices. As we come up with a rough plan, and I try not to think about what the kidnapper could be doing to Max right now.
Please, Max. Live through this.
None of us say a word as we make the drive up into the foothills.
What is there to say? My best friend has just been fucking kidnapped, and I don’t know if she’s still alive. I trust the Sinners to keep me safe, but I don’t trust whoever has Max to keep her safe. I can tell by the way the guys keep looking at me that they’re worried. The tension in their bodies makes it clear they don’t like this one bit, but I’m not afraid for myself.
I’m afraid for Max.
What if we’re too late? What if whoever kidnapped her doesn’t wait? Doesn’t hold up their end of the deal?
I’ve been trying not to think about that. Fear clouds my head, and I need all the strength and focus I can get right now. I’ve spent the past twenty minutes numbing myself, steeling my emotions for whatever is to come, but the knots in my stomach twist even tighter at the sight of the trees towering above us and the looming darkness ahead.
I’ll never forgive myself if something happens to her.
It won’t. I won’t let it happen.
All too soon, we come to a rumbling stop by the side of a two-lane road. As Gray cuts the engine, the car is plunged into the kind of silence that only the deep woods can bring—far away from the city, the lights, the noise. I can hear my own heart rushing in my ears as I push the door open, stepping out onto hard, cold ground.
It’s chillier up in the foothills than it is in the valley where Hawthorne’s campus is located. I fight the urge to pull my loose jacket tighter around my shoulders. The tips of my fingers are already growing numb, but it’s not really from the cold, I know that.
Before I can step away from the car toward the dark woods, Gray pulls me against him and presses a hard kiss to my lips.
When we break apart, he cradles my face in his hands. “Don’t be a hero,” he murmurs, his voice strangled. “Don’t do anything risky. I’ve almost lost you way too many fucking times, and I can’t bear to lose you again.”
He kisses me one more time, like he’s trying to seal a promise, and the second he releases me, Declan spins me around, his lips finding mine. His hands run up my arms, cradling my neck, his fingers brushing up against the soft skin behind my ears.
When he pulls away, his eyes are dark in the faint moonlight. “We’ve always got your back, Soph, okay?”
I nod, not trusting myself to speak. I don’t know why this feels like a goodbye, why I feel like I’m about to walk into the forest and never come back, and I try to convince myself that it’s a crazy premonition.
Just nerves making me jittery.
“I really don’t want to win that bet about you getting in a fight,” Elias says when it’s his turn, and although he tries to make his tone joking, his voice catches in a way that makes my heart constrict. “Okay, Blue? You got that?”
His arms sling around me in a tight hug, pulling me close. His kiss is soft, searching, intense—nothing like his usual flirty, hungry kisses. When our bodies mesh together, I can feel the soft brush of his breath against my ear.
And then there’s space between us again, the mountain air a cold chill after his hot skin against mine.
“We’ve got this,” he says quietly. “It’ll be okay.”
I nod, turning away from them before I can rush back into the car like a coward. I made this mistake, and I’ll fucking fix it. I should have never let Max go off with Aaron like that right after he learned that she shared Cliff’s secret with me. I should’ve known better than to trust any of the Saints.
My heart thuds in my chest with every step into the woods. The guys follow close behind, cloaked in shadows. So well hidden that if it wasn’t part of our plan for them to stick close by, I would never guess they were there.
I suck in a breath, flicking on the small flashlight I pulled from beneath my sink. Every dorm has one in case of power outages, and I never thought I’d have to use it.
But here I am, I think bitterly, using the flashlight, in the middle of the woods, in the middle of the night, looking for my best friend who’s been kidnapped.
A few minutes pass. I can’t hear the telltale sounds and signs of movement behind me anymore, but I know the Sinners are there. They won’t let me face this alone, and as much as part of me hates that, part of me loves it too.
Abruptly, the faint path I’m following stops.
Up ahead, the beam of my flashlight illuminates limp black hair, a body slumped against ropes that bind it to a tree.
Max.
Oh, fuck. My heart falls into my stomach, the flashlight nearly slipping out of my hand. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“No,” I whisper. It’s a raspy plea into the darkness. “Be alive. Please. Fuck. Please.”
My heart pounds out an erratic beat as I rush over to her. Someone has tied her up against the tree with thick rope, restraining her. I don’t know if she was conscious when it happened or not, but I can tell by the cuts and scratches on her olive skin that she didn’t go down without a fight.
Her body is chilled from the cool night air, but she’s clearly alive. Thank fuck. She groans and stirs as I tug at the ropes around her, trying to untie them.
Leaves rustle to my right.
A twig snaps.
My heart leaps up to my throat as my head whips around. I expect to see one of the guys coming to help even though they were supposed to hang back—but instead, a fucked up Halloween mask shines in the halo of my flashlight, scaring the shit out of me.
I realize almost too late that the person is holding a thick branch, lifting it—
Shit.
It hits my body with a heavy thud, sending pain rushing through me as I stumble back. The world spins in my vision, and I struggle to reorient myself.
I hear the sound of something whistling through the air, and I realize my masked attacker is about to try to hit me again. I duck blindly, but before the branch can connect with my body, Elias comes out of nowhere, tackling the person around the waist. They both hit the ground hard next to me, grappling for control of the branch. Whoever is hidden by the mask is a vicious fighter, but Elias manages to jam a forearm into their neck, making them gag and choke. He rips the branch out of their hands as they both stagger to their feet.
Get to Max. It’s all I can think of, a steady mantra in my head as adrenaline surges through me. Get to Max.
“Soph! You okay?” A strong arm wraps around my
waist, helping me stay on my feet as my ears ring and my head throbs.
“Yeah. Help me.” My legs wobble as I try to keep my balance, stumbling toward Max. Gray is already there, working at the ropes.
“Fuck!” Elias yells. “Son of a bitch.”
He lunges after my attacker, but they dodge his tackle this time, disappearing into the darkness. I can see him debate whether or not to go after them, but his protective instincts win out. He turns back to us just as the ropes start to loosen around Max’s limp body.
“Got her.” Gray catches her in his arms as she slumps forward.
Her eyes flutter, glazed and confused, and my heart wrenches in my chest. Goddammit. This is all my fault. Whoever took her only did it to get to me.
“It’s okay, Max,” I tell her, my throat tight. I stumble as I step away from Declan’s steadying grip. “We’ve got you. Can you walk? We need to get the fuck out of he—”
A rushing sound, like wind whipping through the trees, cuts me off as a roar of flames bursts to life around us.
“Shit!” Elias’s voice rises up above the sound.
Another patch of ground nearby goes up, flames rising so fast and violently that I know they must be helped by some kind of accelerant.
“Get Max! Help her!” I scream, moving toward the tree where Max is barely on her feet, held up by Gray’s grip around her.
“I’ve got her!” he yells back, waving an arm to gesture me away. “Get out of here! Go!”
The flames are slowly enclosing the area around the tree, forming a rough ring in a wide perimeter. Every time more of the brush and undergrowth catches fire, the ring gets closer to closing up entirely, trapping us inside.
I hesitate, but Gray is already dragging Max away from the tree. I’m still woozy from getting hit, and I know I won’t be much help. Elias steps up to help him, and that’s all the reassurance I need. I turn around and dash toward the only small opening that remains in the flickering flames.
The brightness of the fire makes the surrounding shadows seem even darker. I’ve lost track of where Declan is, and the heat of the flames is making my skin feel prickly and too tight. I surge through the small opening in the steadily building ring of fire, licks of flame reaching out as if they’re trying to grab me.
I can smell the acrid scent of singed hair and cloth, but I make it through to the other side, whipping off my jacket as soon as I’m through and beginning to beat at the flames. I hear a shouted curse from inside the ring, but the flames are surging out of control, and I can’t see through the haze of smoke and orange light.
I raise my arms again, trying to beat back the flames, when a flicker of movement to my right catches my eye.
This time, the masked attacker catches the back of my head with the heavy branch.
And the world goes dark.
23
I drift in and out of consciousness, everything around me fuzzy and indistinct—like the weird moments of dizziness I used to get, my mind turning on itself and making me reel.
My head throbs, and I keep trying to claw my way back to alertness, to get my body and brain to function right. Adrenaline is still pouring through me, flooding my veins and allowing little pinpricks of clarity to pierce the fog in my head.
Max.
The fire.
The Sinners.
Goddammit, no!
The air around me is quiet and dark. I can’t hear the flames, and as my eyelids flutter open, I can’t see any hint of orange light. Just the pale cast of starlight and moonlight on the trees around me.
But the fire is still burning… somewhere. I have to get back to my friends. They were all surrounded by flames, by a roaring fire that licked toward the sky.
And me? Where am I?
I grit my teeth, shoving away the hazy darkness in my head as I blink my eyes open and force them to stay open this time. As I begin to get a better grip on my surroundings, my pulse picks up, my stomach twisting.
My body is being dragged across the forest floor, snagging on branches and rocks and thorns. The person who’s dragging me isn’t all that strong. I can hear the huffs of effort and strain as they try to keep hold of my ankles, pulling me farther and farther away from the flames and the guys. From Max.
No. No you fucking don’t.
Rage and panic swirl inside me. Groping wildly, I try to reach up and grasp my kidnapper’s wrist, hoping to pull them down with me. My nails are ragged and my fingertips are raw from the effort of trying to get Max’s ropes undone, but I manage to sink my fingernails in deep and scrape up my attacker’s skin. A pained shriek rises up in the darkness—high pitched and feminine.
A woman?
Who the fuck is she?
Her grasp loosens, giving me a small opening. I have seconds to flee from her, to get back to Max and the guys. I push myself up onto my feet, the trees spinning around me as I begin to run blindly, but she’s quicker, grabbing on to my hair with a yank.
It’s my turn to scream as she pulls me back to her and tries to get me under control, the mask lifting just enough to show hair sticking to her neck, slick with sweat.
For a second, I imagine Cliff’s face underneath the party mask, smirking and taunting. I know it’s not him—that fucker doesn’t have a scream this feminine—but something about the image, the memory of his attack on me, ignites a primal instinct inside me.
It’s the same instinct that drove me to fight back on the night he tried to rape me. It sparks inside every cell of my body, filling me with animalistic fear and strength.
My limbs move as if I’m possessed, feet kicking, hands striking, nails gouging. Every part of my body becomes a weapon, and I put all of my will and focus behind one simple objective: to get away. To hurt this person before they hurt me.
It was enough to stop Cliff in that alley. Enough to give me an advantage against him, to drive him to the ground and let me overpower him.
But whoever it is I’m fighting now, they’re not Cliff. They may be smaller than him, closer to my size physically, but unlike Cliff, this attacker doesn’t give up. There’s something wild about her, something just as vicious and uncontrolled as I am in this moment. Unlike him, this girl is a match for me.
We hit the ground with a thud, my stomach landing on her back as I pin her to the forest floor. I drive an elbow into her shoulder and tug haphazardly at the back of her mask, snapping the elastic strings that hold it in place. With a grunt, I yank it off her face and roll her roughly onto her back.
As I catch a glimpse of her face, my head rears back in shock.
What the fuck?
Reagan.
What the hell is Reagan doing here?
My first instinct is to look around for Caitlin, half expecting to see her come out of the shadows with a triumphant smile on her face. But there’s no sign of the bitchy blonde. She’s not here.
It’s just… Reagan.
The girl beneath me smirks, the curl of her lips just visible in the dim moonlight. Her dark hair is stuck to her forehead in sweaty strands, and a smear of blood runs from the corner of her lip across her cheek. She looks almost pleased, as if my reaction is just what she was hoping for.
My mind feels like it’s been turned inside out. For a second, I almost wonder if the blow I took to the head earlier is making me see things. Maybe it really is Cliff beneath me, or Caitlin or—somebody who makes sense.
In a flash, Reagan moves. She uses the half-second that I’m taken off guard to flip us over, bucking her hips and shoving me off. My head slams into the ground as she covers my mouth and nose with hands that seem far too powerful for her small body. Screaming, I bite into her flesh, pushing us over again.
I have the advantage.
Then she has the advantage.
Our bodies roll and scrabble on the forest floor, a fucked up dance as we brawl and punch and kick.
Why don’t you have a fucking dick? I knee her in the groin, wishing the stupid move would work on her like it did on Cliff.<
br />
Something warm drips onto my face—her blood, pouring from her nose and onto my skin, mingling with my own open, stinging cuts. Three more seconds of scrabbling and I’ve pinned her to the ground again, straddling her with all of my weight. I’ve got her pinned, her blood smearing beneath my fingertips as I steal her move, pressing my hand over her mouth and nose with everything in me, trying to get her to stop breathing for just a few seconds so I can escape.
But I wasn’t wrong earlier. This girl fights just like I do—with everything in her.
With a strength she shouldn’t fucking have, she punches me in the stomach so hard the wind rushes out of me. She bucks her body, launching herself onto me as she cuts off my airway. And this time, instead of covering my mouth and nose, her hands wrap around my throat.
The wild, manic, look in her eyes sends a chill through me.
She wants to kill me.
“You always did make that mistake,” she huffs, squeezing my throat tighter. I choke for air, but my throat is closing up, my lungs burning. “That’s why you could never beat me. You always left yourself so fucking open…”
She keeps talking, her breathless, shrill voice seeping into my ears. But the words stop making sense as my eyelids slide closed. My fingernails scratch at her hands, but the movements are growing weaker.
For the second time tonight, darkness swallows me up.
24
When I wake up, it’s not slow or gentle. My mind jerks back into focus like a rubber band snapping, every single detail of the evening rushing back in.
I guess I should be thankful that I didn’t lose any memories this time, but it’s hard to feel grateful for anything right now.
My head throbs, and I can feel the lump on the back of my skull from where I got hit with a baseball bat-sized branch. It pounds in time to the beat of my heart, which is fast and uneven.
I’m not outside anymore. An eerie silence surrounds me, and as my eyes adjust to the darkness, I realize that there are no windows in this cold, cement room. I’m tied to a chair, but I manage not to panic. I suck in a deep breath, making my throat burn. It hurts when I swallow, and I cough as I inhale as if my body is still getting used to accepting oxygen.