We walk up to the podium. Coleman leans forward so no one else can hear what he is saying. “I had a little meeting with Eliza and Jenna this morning.”
Jaxon makes a move to lunge forwards, but Frederick grabs his arm holding him back. “Don’t be stupid Jax.” The armed cop at the door already has his hands on the gun ready to charge us.
Jaxon stills. “I’m going to kill you,” he says under his breath. The promise in his voice is undeniable.
Coleman flashes his overly white teeth with a conceited smirk. “Don’t worry, everybody walked away unharmed. Well, except Colt. He left with a bullet in his stomach. Probably didn’t make it far, considering how much blood he left behind. Good thing you two didn’t care about him anyway, right?”
I feel like I just got hit by a bus. Colt is dead. I suddenly can’t remember what he did wrong. All I can think of is the friend I have lost. I glance over at Jaxon who looks equally as shaken. If Colt is dead, then what happened to Josephine? Is she with Jenna or is she back home with her adoptive family?
Coleman doesn’t leave us any time to think. He pushes two papers toward us. “Look what Eliza and Jenna signed for me. Wasn’t that nice of them?”
I don’t have to read over the statement to know what it says. I am not the least bit mad at either of the girls for signing this. Quite the opposite. If this is what it takes to get Coleman away from Jenna then I will gladly spend the time in prison.
“We all know that this is not going to stick for long. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have called out a hit on me and Jaxon in jail,” I say to let Jaxon know to watch his back. It’s highly likely that he already knows but I feel better now that he knows for sure.
Coleman doesn’t even try to deny it. “Or maybe I just want to be rid of you once and for all.”
21
Jenna
I think the only reason I was able to go to sleep that quick and actually stay asleep for a while is that Josie is here and lying next to me. When Eliza wakes us up, it is already in the afternoon.
“Frederick just called.” Her voice is small and gentle with a hint of sadness. “I told him what happened this morning and that Josie is with us now.” She had tried to call him earlier, but she was only able to reach his office. They were already at court and he didn’t have his phone turned on. Josie and I sit up in bed waiting for her to continue.
“Coleman was the judge they saw when they went to court.” Of course, it would be him. That bastard. “No bail was set, and our statements were added to the case as evidence.” Eliza looks like just saying the words hurt her.
“Also, he told the guys that Colt was shot this morning and that he didn’t make it.”
I let the words sink in waiting for some kind of feeling to emerge. I think I should feel something, but I don’t. I don’t feel happy about him being gone, but I am not sad either. Just nothing.
Josie next to me is being unusually quiet and looking torn. She must be glad that he is dead. “Don’t feel bad about feeling relieved that he is dead. He kidnapped you and held you against your will.” I cover her hand with mine and she gives me a tiny forced smile. “It’s going to be okay Josie. Everything is going to be fine.”
I let my fingers run through some strains of her hair, hoping that it would make her feel better. She always liked when I would play with her hair. Her hair is a good bit shorter than mine. We kept it like this since, what we refer to as, the ‘hair cutting incident’.
Three Years Ago
“Can you braid it this way?” Josie shows me a picture of a braid going around the head and coming down on one side.
“I can try. I think I can do it.” I have never braided sideways like this, but I do my mom’s hair frequently and I am a quick learner. I can figure this out. I keep looking at the picture as I go, trying to make sure it looks the same on Josie’s head. It takes me a few tries, but I finally got it.
When I finish, and Josie looks in the mirror she lets out a loud squeal. “Oh my god Jen, how are you so good at this? This looks amazing!”
I shrug, “I braid Mom’s hair all the time.” As soon as the words leave my mouth, I regret saying them. Josie’s face falls. “I am sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.” Even though Josie knows that my home life is anything but perfect, she has always wanted to have a relationship with our mom. Her adoptive parents made her choose. They do not want her to have any contact with our mom whatsoever. They only allow me to see Josie if my mom stays completely out of their lives. Every time I accidentally mention her, Josie gets all gloomy and sad.
I told her before that she really should be glad, she found a nice family with money. They are not wrong to want to stay away from my mom. Even I know that she is bad news. She constantly gets in trouble with the law. She comes home drunk and high if she comes home at all that is. She can’t hold a job other than at the strip club, and even there she sometimes gets sent home because she is too drunk. I’m surprised she has kept custody of me for so long. CPS has been involved my whole life, but somehow they just now think I should live in a group home while my mom gets sober. I find that amusing since I am now old enough to take care of myself anyway. Where were they when I was six and frequently didn’t eat but one meal a day?
“You want me to braid your hair now?”
“Sure.” Josie copies what I did. It takes her a few more tries than me, but after a while she manages to make my hair look identical to hers.
“Dinner is ready,” Someone yells from downstairs. We walk to the dining room hand in hand to be greeted by two frowning faces. I release Josie’s hand and sit down at the table. Her mom put plates in front of each of us with food arranged as it comes from a five-star restaurant.
“This looks and smells amazing,” I tell her. We wait until Josie’s mom sits down with us before we start eating. “This food tastes amazing too.”
“I’m glad you like it,” she says unusually polite. “What do you girls think about having a little spa day here tomorrow? I could have a nail tech and a hair stylist come to the house tomorrow. We can all get our nails done and our hair cut.” Her niceness catches me completely off guard and I don’t know what to say.
“You know Jenna, I was thinking,” she continues. “You would look so cute with your hair cut short. Don’t you think?” I almost choke on my green beans.
“Yes, I agree with you. Jenna would look great with shorter hair,” Josie’s father chimes in.
Josie makes a snorting sound. “You just want Jenna to cut her hair, so we don’t look so much alike.”
Josie’s dad drops his fork on the table. “Look, girls, elections are coming up and people are just looking for a story. I just can’t have anything like this come up right now.” He motions between me and Josie when he says the word ‘like this’. “We are already taking a huge risk letting you two see each other so often. The least you can do is try not to look so much like twins.”
Josie pushes her chair away from the table with a loud scratching sound. That’s going to leave marks on their fancy hardwood floor. She gets up and stomps into the kitchen to grab a pair of scissors from the butcher’s block. Before anyone can react, she holds them to her braid and with one snip, cuts into her hair.
“Better?” She asks, holing up eight inches of her braided hair.
“I’m going to take a quick shower,” I tell Josie who is sitting on the bed flipping through the channels on the TV.
“Eliza just told me that she has a large steam shower in her bathroom and that’s exactly what I need right now.” She nods in response and I head into the bathroom down the hall.
As I am washing my hair alone in the shower, images of Hunter with me in the shower come to my mind. The way he took care of me, so sweet and caring. I miss him so much already. Frederick needs to find a way to get the guy out of jail and back home. I want Hunter back and I want him to meet my Josie just as much as I want Eliza to get Jaxon back.
After my shower, I don’t see Josie in our room and instantly f
reak out. I am about to start screaming her name on the top of my lungs when I hear a low sob coming from the corner. I find her sitting on the floor beside the bed. She is curled up in a ball hugging herself and for some reason, she is wearing Colt’s jacket again. Why is she wearing his jacket? Her face is covered, but I can hear her crying and her body jerks with each sob.
“Josie, what’s wrong?” I sit next to her on the floor and put my arm around her. “Josie, please talk to me.”
She lifts her head up a little, so she can look at me. “I don’t know. It’s stupid.”
“What is stupid?”
“I just feel like it was my fault that Colt died.”
“What?! No, Josie. How could that possibly be your fault? He was the one who kidnaped you. He got himself into this all by himself.” How can she feel like this? I am so angry that even now when he is dead, he still manages to bring misery to us.
“I know all of that, but at the end, he did let us go and saved us from who knows what. We should have helped him.” Now the regret Josie is feeling creeps up on me too. We should have helped him. Even after everything he did, we should have done something.
“You are right, we should have tried to help him.” Because now, we are no better than him. I think about what Hunter told me about Colt, that he was a good person once.
That makes me realize that I haven’t even thought about how Hunter and Jaxon and how they must have felt, especially when Coleman was the one telling them. Colt was their friend and now he is dead. I might not be able to do anything to make Hunter feel better right now but I will try my best to get my sister's mind away from all these bad thoughts.
“Eliza laid us out some clothes, you don’t have to wear Colt’s jacket anymore.”
Josie nods and stands up. When she slides the jacket off, her forehead wrinkles and she looks down. I follow her gaze about to ask her what’s wrong. She puts her hand in the pocket and gets something out. She opens her hand revealing a small thumb drive in her palm. “Please tell me we have a computer here.”
I run out of the room calling for Eliza who rushes out of the bathroom. “Do you have a computer?”
She looks up at me bewildered at my urgent tone. “I got a laptop in my room.”
“Get it, hurry.” She turns and runs towards her room. A moment later, we are all sitting at the kitchen table with the laptop in front of us. Josie puts the thumb drive in the USB slot that has a single name written on it, “Coleman”.
22
Hunter
The rest of the day I spend sitting in my cell. I can’t bring myself to eat anything or do anything for that matter. I can’t believe Colt is gone. I didn’t realize how much I was missing my friend. Now I will never have the chance to see him again, tell him that I am sorry for failing him. Maybe part of me was hoping that he would have been my friend again one day.
Coleman's words ring in my ear. “Probably didn’t make it far, considering how much blood he left behind. Good thing you two didn’t care about him anyway, right?” Is that how he died? Bleeding out, alone in some alley, thinking that no one cared? He will never know how much I still cared.
It’s almost time to lock up for the night when one of the guards tells me that I need to report to the laundry room downstairs to pick up some jumpsuits. I know right away that this is an excuse for someone to get me alone and out of view.
“I’d rather not,” I say, interlacing my hands behind my head and recline against the wall.
“That wasn’t a multiple-choice question. Get your ass up and go,” the guard growls impatiently.
He follows me downstairs all the way to the hallway leading up to the laundry room. He lets me walk through the barred door, but instead of following me he closes it behind me and locks it in a hurry. I turn around to glare at him, but the coward can’t even look me in the eyes. He turns as soon as the door is locked and hurries back the way we came.
The guy with the Russian accent from lunch creeps up from the far corner. Two guys flank him, each holding makeshift weapons.
“And here I thought that I made a new friend,” I say sarcastically.
“This is nothing personal.” He motions towards me and the two guys lunge forward to grab me. I haven’t been in an official fight for a while, but I do train with Jaxon and my reflexes are on point. I don’t give them a chance to get a hold of me. Instead, I throw myself at the one guy, rotate his arm so I can grab on to the homemade knife. I twist us both, so his body is between mine and the other guy. I punch him in the ribs twice with my free hand before he falls over and let’s go of the weapon. The knife falls to the floor and I kick it away from us.
The second guy doesn’t waste any time. He steps over the body on the floor and tries to slash my face with a large shard of glass that he is holding. I dodge him twice before he gets me once on the arm. The pain just fuels my anger and intensifies my fighting instincts. I push him against the wall and grab his wrist holding his hand to his jaw, so the glass is flat on his face. Then I punch the glass, so it shatters on his cheek.
The Russian guy comes up from behind and pulls me off his friend before delivering a few punches to my ribs. I turn out of his hold and my fist flies up landing on his nose with a loud crack. He stumbles back with a groan holding both of his hands to his bleeding face. Blood is running over his arms and dripping onto the floor where my own blood is already pooling. The cut on my arm is pretty deep and bleeding profusely.
I hear two sets of footsteps running from the end of the hallway. I look up to see the same officer who brought me here with one of his colleagues heading for us. Both of their expressions grim and shocked. “Stop! Stop and drop the weapon!” I hold up my hand showing him that I don’t have any weapons. I realize too late that he wasn’t talking to me.
A sharp pain erupts in my ribs as the knife slices through my flesh. I slam my elbow back into the guy’s face before he can turn the knife. The two guards are at the door, one is jiggling the key in the lock trying to get it to open. They are screaming something at us, but I can’t make out what they are saying. My mind is hazy, I am getting dizzy and my vision starts to go black. I have to lean against the wall, so I don’t fall over. When the guard finally gets to me, I can’t keep my eyes open any longer. The last thing on my mind before I pass out is Jenna’s beautiful face and the sweet scent of lavender.
23
Jenna
“Why is this taking so long?” We called Frederick hours ago and sent him all the information we found on that thumb drive. Turns out Colt was keeping files and recordings of Coleman. Enough evidence to not only free Jaxon and Hunter, but also to put Coleman away for a very long time. I can’t believe that I am even thinking this but, I am thankful for what Colt did. Without all the info on that thumb drive, we would have nothing against him.
“I don’t know,” Eliza is on edge as well. “I am starting to worry.”
“You heard what Frederick said. The evidence we found leaves no question that Coleman was behind all of this. They have to let them go. It’s probably a lot of paperwork and that’s what’s taking so long.” I try to soothe her while not freaking out myself. We found a lot of stuff on that thumb drive. We only went through a quarter of it before we sent everything to Frederick. So, it makes sense that it's taking a long time.
Still, this whole waiting in front of the phone thing is getting really old. The only thing that is making this situation a little bit better for me is Josie being here. She still refuses to call her parents. I know I am being incredibly selfish, but I am glad that she hasn’t. She is right, they would pick her up as quick they could and then we wouldn’t see each other until we are eighteen. I want her to stay with me and finally meet Hunter.
Eliza answers the phone half a second after the first ring.
“Hello.” She puts it on speaker right away, so we can all hear.
“Hey Baby,” Jaxon’s voice comes through the phone. Eliza’s whole-body slumps down in relief.
“H
ey, where are you? Are you on your way home?” She sounds hopeful and anxious.
“Kind of. We are on the way to the club and then we will be home right after that. Or I can come and get you. I just need to drop Hunter off at the club.” I know Jaxon well enough to know that something is up. Why the hell does Hunter need to go to the club first?
“What’s wrong?” I ask nervously.
“Jen don’t freak out. Hunter is fine…” I can hear the “but” coming. “He is fine really, but the doc needs to patch up his arm. Hunter didn’t want to stay at the jail's infirmary or go to a hospital. We have someone that comes to the club and patches us up when we have fights. He is going to do it.”
“Hospital? Jaxon, tell me what happened, now!” I know he said not freak out but guess what. I am freaking out.
“He got into a fight right before Fredrick negotiated our release. Hold on.” I hear Jaxon do something with the phone and then Hunter's voice comes on.
“I’m fine, Jen.” Hunter’s voice is music to my ears and hearing him sound so normal does make me feel a million times better. “The doc is just going to put a few stitches in my arm and then I’ll pick you up, okay?”
“Okay,” I say in defeat. I want to see him now. I can’t wait any longer.
Eliza interrupts our conversations. “We will meet you at the club.”
“Okay, drive careful.” Jaxon answers. “I love you.”
“I love you too,” Eliza grins into the phone before hanging up.
We hurry out the door and into the car. I can tell Eliza is having a hard time going the speed limit. I would floor it if I was driving. It’s probably a good thing that I don’t have a driver’s license yet.
We pull up behind the Bunker and I spot Hunter's car still parked where we left it. There is only one other car in the lot and I am assuming its Frederick’s. We walk up to the back door and my heart rate speeds up. I am so excited to see Hunter and I am even more excited for him to meet Josie.
The Things We Hide: A Friends to Lovers Young Adult Romance (Pushed Aside Book 2) Page 11
