by Ryan Casey
And as he cut her free of her ties, he could only keep apologising.
“I’m sorry he did this. I’m sorry he did this.”
When she was free, she looked at him a few seconds. Silent. Not saying a word. Just searching his eyes.
And then she finally spoke.
“I told you not to follow me.”
Then, she collapsed into his arms.
He held her tight. He wanted this moment to last forever.
But the same time, he knew the urgency.
He leaned back. Put his hands on Candice’s shoulders.
“What’re—what’re you doing?”
He took her hands in his. Leaned in close.
“We’re getting out of here,” he said. “We’re… we’re going to find our own way. We’re going to start again.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Jack knew what day it was the second he woke.
The sun shone in brightly through his partly-open curtains. There were no sounds from the rest of the farmhouse. No movement. He figured everyone else was probably lying there, like he was, just waiting.
The most important day of the last few weeks—maybe of their lives—was about to unfold.
There were just hours to go before the exchange.
He closed his eyes, wishing he could drift off a little longer. He’d only got a couple of hours. He’d gone to bed late, stayed up drinking one of Farmer Stan’s old whiskeys and wishing he could doze off on the sofa before finally going to bed.
But there was no use in lying around and mulling over the day’s events.
He climbed out of bed, walked across his bedroom, and out into the hallway.
He was surprised he hadn’t heard any protestations from Wayne yet. He knew Wayne wasn’t happy about the exchange proposal. He’d kept a low profile yesterday, not really saying much, just going about the day in his own way. Perhaps Jack’s promise that eventually, they’d get Candice back was enough to put him at ease for now.
Even if Jack was beginning to doubt that as a viable option at all.
He heard what Hazel said. The advice she’d given him about Candice.
She’d told him they had to let her go. That they had to do whatever they could to stop conflict from unfolding. And this could be the resolution. The line in the sand.
And Emma’s hopes, too. Maybe Logan would see sense. Maybe he’d let Candice join them after all.
He shook his head. There was no point imagining how things might unfold. He figured he’d only find out as the day went on.
He went to walk down the hallway when he noticed something.
Villain was scratching at Bella’s door.
“Villain,” Jack said, walking towards him. “Don’t be daft. There’s nobody in there. There’s…”
That’s when he noticed something.
There was a sound behind the door.
A small scratching sound, but a sound nonetheless.
Hesitantly, Jack opened that door.
Mrs Fuzzles came running out.
Villain raced off after her across the farmhouse. Jack frowned. That was odd. Mrs Fuzzles must’ve got herself trapped in there somehow. Seemed strange, though. It wasn’t something that had happened before.
He walked further down the hallway, past Wayne’s room, and saw Hazel’s door was ajar.
Hazel was sitting in the living room sipping some water.
“Hey,” Jack said.
Hazel glanced around at him. “Oh. Hi.”
“You okay?”
“Yeah,” Hazel said, still a little shaky. Mornings were always awkward between them. Too many memories of the past life they used to lead together. Now, they were as distant and detached as possible. “You?”
Jack sat down across the room from her. “I will be. Once today’s done with. Once we get some kind of resolution.”
Hazel nodded, staring into space. He could tell she wasn’t convinced that today was going to have a happy resolution. He wasn’t convinced himself.
But they could only try.
It was the best option they had.
“No sign of Wayne?” Jack asked.
Hazel shook her head. “Not a wink.”
Jack nodded and sipped some water himself. “Only so long he can lie in bed.”
“Go easy on him. Today’s going to be difficult.”
“I know,” Jack said. “It’s just, promises are promises. We said we’d have everyone there to witness it. No secrets. All cards on the table.”
“So you’ve changed your tune about getting Candice back eventually? About crushing Logan?”
Jack looked past Hazel, out of the window. “I’m not sure yet. Let’s just get today done first though, hmm?”
Hazel shrugged. The longer they sat there, the closer Jack knew they were getting to the moment he’d have to brief Candice, fill her in on exactly what was happening.
And as time ticked on, he knew there was no time like the present.
He stood. Grabbed his rifle, then walked out of the farmhouse, out towards the barns.
He didn’t think much about the fact his keys weren’t on the side, where he’d left them.
He looked across the fields at the vast expanse around them. He felt exposed, like he was being watched. He didn’t usually feel this way even though he knew there were always people passing by, and other farmers keeping themselves to themselves aside from the occasional trade, something Jack didn’t mind.
So he picked up his pace, walked a little quicker.
He didn’t notice the little office door was open until he was a few feet from it.
Keys dangling from its handle.
He stopped dead.
Stood still.
Rifle in hand.
“Shit,” he said.
He threw himself towards that door. Opened it.
That’s when he saw it for himself.
There was no sign of Candice.
She was gone.
Jack froze. He didn’t know what to think. Multiple scenarios spiralled around his mind. Endless options battled within for supremacy.
But in the end, he could only keep settling on one.
One undeniable truth.
He rushed away from the storeroom, back to the farmhouse.
“Wayne!”
He ran across the farm grounds. Pushed the farmhouse doors open.
Hazel looked at him with curiosity. “Jack?”
“Wayne,” he said, heart racing, body covered in sweat. “Where’s Wayne?”
“He’s in his room,” Hazel said. “Is something wrong?”
Jack reached Wayne’s room and he prayed his fears weren’t confirmed. He prayed he wouldn’t find what he feared he’d find.
He opened the door to Wayne’s bedroom and his stomach sank.
Wayne was gone.
Wayne was nowhere to be seen.
Jack knew exactly what had happened right away.
Hazel emerged by Jack’s side. “What…”
“He’s gone,” Jack said. “He’s gone and he’s taken her. He’s frigging taken her.”
He looked at Hazel and saw her eyes widening as she got to grips with what was happening.
“My boy,” she said. “My Wayne.”
Jack felt betrayed. Because he knew this had to be an escape. It was the reason Wayne hadn’t mentioned much of it yesterday. Why he seemed to be so okay with it.
And there was only one choice now.
He pushed past Hazel, rifle in hand.
“Jack?”
“I need to find them.”
“But—”
“If I don’t find them, there’s no exchange. If I don’t find them, there’s no knowing what’ll happen. To us. And to Bella. Okay?”
Hazel stood there, Villain and Mrs Fuzzles by her side, staring on.
“I need to find them. I need to find them and I need to bring them back here. No matter what it takes.”
He pushed open the door to the farmhouse before Hazel coul
d say another word.
And then he walked off across the fields, off in pursuit of Wayne and Candice.
The sun crept towards its highest point.
Time was running out.
Chapter Thirty-Two
“So what’s the plan? We just walk off into the sunset and pretend none of this happened?”
Wayne heard Candice’s voice and no matter what she said, he couldn’t help feeling grateful. Grateful that he was alone with her again. Grateful that they’d found one another, despite all the odds being against them.
Grateful that they were away from everyone else and making their own way.
It was a nice day. Still. There was a slight cool breeze to the air. Wayne had walked off into the woods with Candice just before sunrise. They’d been walking for some time now. His plan was simple: they were going to make their way as far from this farm as possible. Find somewhere else like it. Whether they were on their own or with other people didn’t really matter. Wayne was sure he’d learned enough from his time with Jack to run a place like the farm if he had to.
The most important thing was that he and Candice were together—and they were out of the grips of conflict.
“We find somewhere else,” Wayne said. “Somewhere we don’t have to be held down by the past.”
“And your mum? Your dad? They’re really okay with this?”
Wayne thought about Mum and D… and Jack, and his skin crawled with guilt. “Not exactly,” Wayne said. “But they’re… they’re okay there. I don’t like Jack, but he knows what he’s doing. He’ll look after my mum. She’s clever. She’ll keep him in line.”
“And Bella?”
Wayne turned to Candice. “What about Bella?”
Candice looked exhausted. There were big black bags under her eyes, and her hair actually looked a little thinner than he remembered. “Last I heard, she was still with Logan. You really going to just walk away from her? Let her go? Risk losing her?”
Wayne felt an instant hit of guilt about how he’d handled the Bella situation. She was a nice girl. A good person. He liked her.
But there wasn’t much he could do for her. Not now.
“You think Logan will be okay with her?”
Candice tilted her head. “I’ve spent some time with Logan. If I’ve learned one thing about him, it’s that he’s not the monster people say he is. He’s made mistakes, sure. He has a temper, sure. But if you’re asking if I think he’ll harm Bella? No. No, I don’t think he will. Especially not with Emma by his side. But…”
Wayne didn’t like the sound of that “but.” “But what?”
“I can’t endorse this, Wayne. It’s a recipe for disaster. That exchange proposal you told me about. You should just let it happen. It might be the only way to resolve all this. If it doesn’t, what happens when your mum and dad get to the exchange point with nothing to exchange? How does Logan act then?”
“You tell me,” Wayne said.
“I wouldn’t like to say. I just feel like this is risky, Wayne. Really risky. Maybe we should—”
Wayne shook his head right away. “I’m not letting you go.”
“And have you ever stopped to think what I might want for a second?”
Wayne tasted bitterness in his mouth. “You’re going to tell me you want to be with Logan’s group?”
She looked at him with uncertainty in her eyes. “It’s not as simple as that,” she said. “I’m… I’m glad to see you again. I’m glad you’re safe. I’m happy you’re okay. But Logan and Emma… I’ve travelled with them. Jean, too. The girl. The girl your dad shot. I travelled with her. We’re a group. We work together. And Logan… there’s a lot you don’t know about him. Sometimes he just needs a moral compass. Someone to point him in the right direction. I hope to God Emma’s strong enough to do that on her own.”
Emma. The little girl Logan was with. “She his kid or something?”
“Not exactly,” Candice said. “More… his moral compass, like I say. She gave him a purpose. A reason to live. A reason to try and be better. She’s good for him. She’ll keep him in check. But God forbid he ever loses her.
“I know a lot has happened in the last month,” Candice said. “But… but we can’t just pretend like nothing happened between us. We need to talk, Wayne.”
Wayne felt a knot in his stomach. He’d been hoping to avoid this conversation; hoping to just pick up where they left off before all the fallout between them. “Candice—”
“You did what you did. I get you have your own shit going on. But we don’t just go back to normal. We don’t just pick up where we left off. These things take time to heal. Especially with everything else that’s happened.”
It wasn’t what Wayne wanted to hear, but he had to take it. It wasn’t as savage as maybe he’d expected. “I can’t change what happened,” Wayne said. “But I just want you to know I never stopped searching for you.”
“Wayne—”
“I got a train. Got caught up in an accident. I found…” He rustled around his pocket. Pulled out Candice’s locket he’d found in the train and the ring he’d found in the woods. “See? I found these. And I knew I couldn’t stop. I knew I couldn’t give up.”
She looked at the items Wayne handed her, eyes wide and tearful. “The ring… it’s not mine. But the locket.”
She looked back up at him. Smiled.
“Thank you for finding this, Wayne. Truly. But that doesn’t mean—”
“I’m not begging you to forgive me. I’m not even going to try winning you back, or whatever. Because… because in the grand scheme of things, that doesn’t matter. What matters is I love you. Nothing will change that. And I’m here for you. And I… I’ll look out for you. Because I care so much about you. Whether you like it or not. Okay?”
Candice looked like there were so many things she wanted to say.
But in the end, she just half-smiled at Wayne and nodded. “Thank you,” she said.
It wasn’t quite the “I love you” Wayne expected or hoped for. It wasn’t the fireworks he’d pictured in his mind time and time again.
But it was something.
It was something.
“Now come on,” Wayne said. “We’ve got a new home to find.”
She shook her head.
“It doesn’t change a thing,” she said. “This is still the wrong thing to do. We need to go back. You need… you need to be willing to let me go.”
Wayne felt a void opening within. “I can’t do that.”
“You have to be. Or this could cause—”
“Maybe I’ll join you.”
Candice frowned. “What?”
“You say Logan and Emma are your people. Then maybe I can join you. There’s… there’s nothing for me at the farm. I can’t live under Jack’s rule. Maybe I can join you.”
Candice shook her head, a slight smile to her face. “You’re wrong when you say there’s nothing for you at the farm. What about your mum?”
Wayne took a deep breath. It would be painful, but it was a sacrifice he was willing to make for the good of everyone. “I can’t forgive Jack. But… but they’ll be okay. They’ll find a way. I have to believe that. Besides. Mrs Fuzzles? Best frigging guard cat I’ve ever met.”
Candice’s eyes widened. “Wait. What?”
“Yeah. Mrs bloody Fuzzles. I went… I went to your aunt’s to find you. And I…”
He trailed off then, realising Candice didn’t even know about Aunt Jean. So many things he had to fill her in on. So much they had to catch up on.
“Candice,” he said. “I’m sorry, but your aunt. She… she didn’t make it.”
Candice lowered her head. She wiped her eyes, sniffed. Then she looked up at Wayne. “Thank you for checking on her anyway. And thank you for looking after her cat. I know I wouldn’t have.”
Wayne smiled. He put a hand on her shoulder, saw the way she looked into his eyes. The connection between them building, strengthening, all over again. A moment Wayne
wanted to last; a moment he didn’t want to end.
And then he heard footsteps behind Candice, and he saw someone appear.
His first thought was Logan.
But this wasn’t Logan.
There were more of them.
Five of them, total.
All stepping out from the trees.
All looking at them.
Surrounding them.
Some of them holding sharpened spears.
And a couple of them holding guns.
“Well well,” a bald, pale man holding a spear said. “What do we have here?”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Jack headed off into the trees and knew full well finding Wayne was an impossible task.
The heat from the sun was stifling. The air was dry, his eyes stinging. He tried to scan every inch of ground he walked over; tried to find a trace that Wayne had been here, that Candice had been here.
But there was nothing.
He was just going on blind hope right now.
He walked further into the mass of trees. Villain was by his side. He didn’t remember calling him to come with him; he’d just joined him, tagged along. He was sniffing at the ground. Maybe he’d find a trace of Wayne, some kind of trail.
But Jack wasn’t exactly holding out much hope.
He descended further into the woods and lamented Wayne’s choice to escape with Candice. He should’ve seen the signs. The way Wayne had backed down and gone quiet without protestation seemed like something he’d never do. Now he thought of it, he swore he heard something in the night. Movement. He should’ve got up. Should’ve investigated it.
Instead, he’d just left it.
And now here they were.
The further he headed into the woods, the more uncertain he grew about everything. But above anything was the concern that this was going to ruin everything. It was going to jeopardise the entire exchange mission. How had Wayne not seen that?
Or had he, and decided there had to be a better way after all?
That was the scariest thing to consider.
Just where had Wayne gone, and whose side was he on now?
He went further into the woods when he heard movement behind him.
He spun around. Villain growled.