Beautifully Broken Pieces

by Catherine Cowles

  I slowly lowered my hand and let my gaze adjust to the brightness in increments. As it did, my body turned to stone. No. It couldn’t be. My heart spasmed. This would kill Jensen. “Bryce?” My voice came out as a croak.

  “Hey there.” He crouched down three feet from me, and I pushed back harder against the wall.

  The jagged edges of the stone piercing my body felt like a warm embrace compared to what I might receive at this man’s hands. “W-what’s going on?”

  A feral grin stretched over Bryce’s face as he toyed with the flashlight in his hands. “Come on now, Taylor, don’t play dumb with me.”

  My fingers dug into the dirt floor of the cave. “I-it was you? You killed Caitlin and that hiker?”

  The grin turned into a smirk. The same kind of expression a guy would wear if you’d asked if he lifted something particularly heavy. “Not just them. Lots more. Some you may have heard about, many more you haven’t.” My mind flashed to the woman from Willow Creek Walker had told me was missing, and my heart broke a little more.

  “They were easy prey. Not even really a challenge.” Bryce rested his chin on the lens of the flashlight, the beam casting creepy shadows over his face. I shuddered. “Though you did throw a little wrench in my plans when you wandered off the trail. You almost interrupted me while I was dealing with Miss Caitlin.”

  I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from crying. I did not want this asshole to see me break, he seemed like he would get off on it. Bryce shone the beam back at me. “Something tells me you’re a fighter. You might actually be some fun.” He edged just a bit closer, and I held my breath. “I haven’t had a real challenge in far too long.”

  Bryce reached behind his back, and my world slowed. Was he reaching for a weapon? Was this the end? Walker’s face filled my mind. His rugged jaw, almost always covered in stubble. His piercing green eyes that could set me aflame with one look and put my soul at ease with another. I’d never get a chance to tell him how sorry I was. To tell him how much I loved him.

  A water bottle flew at my head. My reflexes, still a little slow, barely reacted in time. Bryce rose. “Drink up. And eat this.” He tossed a granola bar at me next. “You’ll need your energy for the hunt to come.”

  The hunt. “What does that mean?”

  Bryce turned, a glint in his eyes that spoke of arousal. “It means, I’m going to let you go.”

  My heart rattled in my chest, its rhythm chaotic.

  “But then, I’m going to catch you. I’ll wound you first. Somewhere non-lethal. Maybe the shoulder like your nosy boyfriend. You’ll be bleeding then. That will slow you down. I’ll take my time tracking you. You won’t be able to hide.”

  My fingers dug harder into the ground, my nails snapping. Bryce’s deviant grin reappeared. “You won’t know how to hide. You’re a city girl. You should have stayed there.”

  I wanted to rage against him, rake my nails down his face. Scream at him that I did belong here. Here with Walker. Bryce’s grin widened. “A little of that temper wanting to come to the surface I see. Good. That’ll make things interesting. We’ll have lots of fun, you and I. And then I’ll snap your fucking neck.”

  With that, Bryce strode towards what must have been the mouth of the cave. When he disappeared from sight, my body began to shake. The trembling was so strong, I could barely hold onto the bottle of water. Silent tears tracked down my face. Hugging my legs to my chest, I bit down on one knee to keep myself from letting loose my sobs.

  My chest burned with the weight of my fear. Burned with the pain of possibly losing Walker and everyone else I loved. Forever. How many minutes, hours, days had I wasted giving in to my fear? Allowing it to control me. I thought I had been controlling it, keeping those around me at arm’s length as a way to push the terror of losing someone else down. But really, the fear had held all the strings.

  I cursed myself for being so stupid. For being such a coward. Images danced in my mind. My first glimpse of Walker that had stolen my breath. The sound of his laugh. Falling asleep to the strong beat of his heart at the movie. His callused fingers trailing up my bare back.

  The burning sensation in my chest grew stronger. I let the feeling sink deeper, spread throughout my body.

  Things snapped into place as if I had suddenly been given the final piece of a puzzle I’d been missing for years. A part that changed the entire image. I simply needed to relish the burn. The pain that would always fill your life if you loved fully and deeply. That pain was proportional to love and joy and all the other wonderful things you might be lucky enough to fill your existence with.

  My mother’s gentle smile filled my memory. Would I have traded any of the million moments of pure joy I shared with her for less pain at her passing? Never. I would experience the worst of that pain every day for the rest of my life for just one of those precious seconds. But that’s what I had been doing. Preemptively erasing those moments with Walker by pushing him away. Hoping that if I didn’t let him too close, it wouldn’t kill me to lose him.

  I’d been lying to myself. All I had succeeded in doing was losing time with him that I would never get back. Time I would give anything to have right now. The tears fell faster and harder. I would allow myself this moment to break down, to let everything out. All my pain. All my grief. And then I would figure out how to fight.

  I would fight for Walker. I would fight for myself. I would fight for our future. I would give my all for a lifetime filled with joy and pain, abundance and loss. A life with him.

  My tears began to slow. I straightened my spine, wiping at my face with the bottom of the t-shirt I wore. Walker’s tee. He was with me. I pressed the material to my nose and inhaled deeply. The scent of his cologne was even fainter now, marred by dirt and sweat. I would take in that smell again. I swore it to myself.

  I exhaled a shaky breath and reached for the water at my side. The first thing I needed to do was build up my strength. I needed it to fight. My hands still trembled as I opened the bottle of water. I listened for the crack of the seal. The sound of the little plastic tines popping was music to my ears. At least the water wasn’t drugged. Or so I hoped.

  I forced myself to take slow, careful sips, even though I wanted to guzzle the thing down. Slow meant giving my stomach a chance to get accustomed to having something in it again. I felt around on the floor of the cave for the granola bar Bryce had thrown at me. It took a minute to find the small, plastic-wrapped treasure.

  This would be more of a risk. There was no way to know if he’d laced the bar with something, I’d just have to hope that the sicko truly got his rocks off from the challenging hunt. I shuddered just thinking the words in my head, but I forced myself to move forward in my actions.

  I tore the wrapper around the bar, happy to feel that my hands were a bit less shaky. I took a small bite. The combination of chocolate and peanut butter, normally a favorite of mine, barely registered. I counted ten chews before swallowing, then took another small drink of water. I repeated the process until the granola bar was gone and the water was down to its last dregs.

  My gaze roamed the cavernous space. I could see things more clearly now, my eyes having adjusted to the lack of light a bit more. I searched for a loose rock, small enough for me to lift easily but large enough to do some damage. After precious minutes wasted searching, I had nothing. Bryce must have checked out the space before leaving me here with the dead guy.

  The dead guy. I gathered all the courage I could muster and inched towards the man with the vacant stare. I had to see if there was something on his body that I could use to defend myself. Careful not to touch his graying skin, I turned each of his pockets inside out. The only thing I found was a wallet.

  I flipped through the worn leather billfold. Nothing. I squinted at the driver’s license. Frank Pardue. Wasn’t that one of Walker’s suspects? Had he been working alongside Bryce, or was he just in the wrong place at the wrong time?

  I shook my head forcefully. It didn’t matter.
I needed to focus on a way out of this mess. I sat back down, wanting to conserve as much energy as possible. My fingertips traced patterns in the dirt as I tried to think back to the one self-defense workshop I’d taken.

  Carter had dragged me to the free seminar that had been held at the gym her husband, Austin, owned. It had been two years ago, and I struggled to remember what the instructor had said. Never let them get you to a secondary location. Well, too late for that. Go for the soft targets: eyes, throat, junk.

  That was something I could work with. I gathered dirt into my hands as a plan formed. I played various scenarios over and over in my head as I waited. All the contingencies I could think of. I stood, practicing the moves I would need to make—first slowly, focusing on precision, and then faster.

  Footsteps echoed against the stone, and I froze, my entire body seizing up. I shook out my arms and legs, forcing the muscles to release the majority of their tension. I perched on the edge of a boulder. I tried to make it seem as though I were as relaxed as possible.

  I hung my head, letting my hair cover most of my face so that I could get a peek at Bryce but still hide my expression. I began sniffling and then let my shoulders shake as though I were crying. I needed him to see me as weak. A girl who had crumbled from the strain of it all. Not someone who would fight him tooth and nail with everything she had.

  The footsteps came closer. I could do this. Bryce’s shadowy form appeared. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” He continued striding forward. “I thought you might have some promise, but here you are, sniveling like a child.”

  I let my shoulders shake harder. “W-why are you doing this?”

  “Why am I doing this, she wants to know,” Bryce said with a sneer. “I’m doing it because I like it. I’m doing it because I can. And I’m doing it because girls like you, who show up where they don’t belong, need to be taught a lesson.”

  His words twisted my stomach. There was pure evil leaking from his tone. “P-p-please don’t do this.” It killed me to give in to my voice trembling even if I was using the waver to my advantage.

  “They all fucking beg. It’s so damn pathetic. ‘Please don’t kill me, I’ll do anything.’” Bryce let out a harsh laugh. “Do you know that a lot of them offer to suck my dick, fuck me, anything. I hadn’t expected that. Like I would want their whore selves.”

  Bile churned in my stomach, but I forced it down. I just needed him to come a little bit closer.

  “What, you’re not going to offer the same?” I said nothing, just bided my time, keeping my head down. Bryce took another three steps forward. “Come on, you whore yourself out just fine for Walk—”

  His words cut off as I sprang up, throwing the dirt I’d gathered in my hands at him, as close to his open eyes as possible. Bryce let out a strangled curse as his hands automatically flew to his face. I used that split second of distraction to grasp him by the shoulders and plunge my knee into his groin.

  The sound that came out of him was a garbled cry. He dropped to his knees. This was it. I was going to make it. I was going to escape. I braced to run, making it one and then two strides before a hand clamped around my ankle and jerked. Hard.

  My legs flew out from under me, and I slammed into the ground below. Light burst in my vision as my jaw slammed shut. I cried out in pain.

  Bryce dragged me back towards him, the rough ground tearing at my skin. “You fucking bitch! You’ll pay for that.” He was on top of me then, sitting astride my pelvis. My breathing came in quick pants—so fast, I had no hope of slowing it.

  Bryce leaned over, closer to me, studying my face. Then, he burst out laughing. The sound grated against my skin as tears leaked from my eyes. “I knew you’d be fun,” he said, slapping my cheek twice without any real heat and then winding up and hitting me again with such force my teeth split my lip.

  Blood filled my mouth as I gasped to catch my breath. Bryce seized a fistful of my hair, pulling it taut. “You’ve made things interesting, but now I have to level the playing field. Things must be fair when we enter the fight, don’t you think?”

  Stars danced in my vision as he tugged harder on my hair. “DON’T YOU THINK?”

  I could only moan in reply. My vision seemed to be fading in and out. My mind felt foggy, as if I didn’t have a firm hold on reality.

  Bryce kept a firm hold on my hair with one hand while he reached behind himself with the other. I blinked rapidly at the item he retrieved. The blade. Acid choked my throat as I felt him harden against me. He loved this. Terror was his drug, the thing that turned him on more than anything.

  I bucked against him with the little strength I had left, doing anything I could to get him off me. It got me nowhere. Bryce simply chuckled. “Stop moving, or I might slip and make things worse.” I froze. “You’ll still have a chance to run from me, don’t worry.” He slowly lifted up my shirt, and tears stung my eyes. “Don’t move a muscle. I’m only evening the playing field. This is what’s fair.”

  I squeezed my eyes closed. I wasn’t strong enough to fight him off. I could only hope that he wouldn’t kill me immediately. That I’d have a chance to outrun him. The flat side of the blade pressed against my stomach. I filled my mind with thoughts of Walker. I traced every detail of his face with my memory.

  The knife bit into my skin, slicing along my belly in one long line. I held my breath and saw the magical blue rim of Walker’s green irises. Another slash of the blade. “X marks the spot, Taylor. Now, I have something to aim for.”

  Pain overrode all of my senses, but I held on to my vision of Walker. My mind held the memory, my soul called out for his heart, and as darkness took me, I relished the burn.

  43

  Walker

  My tires screeched as I pulled up to the Forest Service station. I swung my truck into a parking spot. Grabbing my phone, I slammed my door with such force, I was surprised it didn’t crack the window.

  As I jogged toward the station’s front door, I tried not to focus on the what-ifs, but it was impossible. Was Taylor cold right now? Hurt? Dead? My entire body locked. She couldn’t be. Some part of me was sure that I would feel it if she were. She had to be alive. And I would find her. This wouldn’t end the way Julie’s story had.

  I shoved open the door and jerked a chin at the young guy behind the front desk. The kid’s eyes widened at the rage that was clearly emanating from me in waves. “Tuck’s in the conference room. He said to send you back.” The guy’s voice trembled just a little.

  “Thanks.” I was already taking off towards the back room.

  I pushed open the door without knocking and found Tuck studying a set of maps that covered the conference room table. His head snapped up at the sound of the door. In two strides, he grasped my hand and pulled me in for a tight half-hug. “We’ll find her.” His voice was gruff. He knew how much Taylor meant to me.

  I was so thankful for this man who was more brother than friend. I swallowed against the emotion gathering in my throat. “I know we will.” I released Tuck and stepped towards the table. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

  Tuck knew the woods better than anyone. He was my best hope of finding Taylor. “I’ve been studying where we found the bodies in relation to the surrounding access roads, trails large enough to fit an ATV…anything that would help this guy get around quickly.”

  “Find anything?” I couldn’t disguise the hope in my voice. I checked my watch. Time had to be running out. My jaw clenched as an image of Taylor filled my mind, her head thrown back in laughter, blue-gray eyes twinkling in the light.

  I needed her with me. Needed a chance to make things right. If I got her back, I swore that I would do what I should’ve done all along: never leave her side. She could push me away all she wanted, but I wasn’t going anywhere.

  Tuck drummed his fingers against the wood table, drawing my attention back to the task at hand. “It doesn’t make sense.”

  “What do you mean?” I followed the direction of his gaze to a specific a
rea on the map.

  “I think we need to check out Pardue’s property again. It’s the only area that has a road that would give the killer easy access to both hiking trails while avoiding the more populated trailheads.”

  My muscles tensed. I clenched and unclenched my fists in an attempt to relieve some of the pressure. It didn’t work. “You think it’s him?” We’d had the guy in an interrogation room. Gone at him for hours. I would never forgive myself if we’d had him in our grip and let him go, allowing him to hurt Taylor.

  Tuck’s gaze met mine in a hard stare. “I think we need to check it out.”

  “You know this is totally off the books, right? If something goes wrong, we could both lose our jobs. Or end up in jail.”

  “Don’t be a little bitch.” Tuck slapped me on the back. “Like I’d let you go into this on your own.” His serious stare morphed into a slight grin. “Always trying to steal all the glory. Sometimes, I need to rescue the damsel, too.”

  I wanted to smile, but my lips refused the action. “All right. We gotta leave our service weapons. Do you have something else here?”

  Tuck snorted. “Who do you think you’re talking to? I’ve got my rifle in my truck, and my Glock in my desk.”

  Of course, he did. “Okay, let’s head out then. We’ll take my truck.”

  “Control freak,” Tuck called over his shoulder as he headed to his office for his personal weapon.

  I was grasping onto any semblance of control I could, even if it was something as simple as being the one in the driver’s seat. Taylor’s face flashed in my mind again, sunlight glinting off her golden strands as she stared out at the ranch. I would get her back.

  Tuck reappeared, holding two bulletproof vests. “Better safe than sorry.”

  There was a slight twinge in my chest where the bullet had struck. I resisted the urge to rub at the spot. “Not a bad idea.”

  Tuck’s jaw tightened. “Are you sure you’re ready for primetime?”