Prisoner

by Annika Martin

  I stand. “I’m saying let’s look at this.”

  “We’ve looked at it our whole lives,” Stone says. He directs Cruz and the other guys to tie Dorman to the bedposts.

  I listen, disoriented, to the furious sound of ripping sheets. Part of me still wants him to pay. I want his pain. It’s all I ever wanted, but when Abby talked to me that way, when she told me I was good—that she loved me—it changed something.

  “Please, no,” Dorman says. “Please.”

  “Shut up.” Stone drives a fist into the man’s belly, then he flicks out his blade. Will Stone really slice off his balls and shove them into his mouth? Will Calder rip his guts out?

  “I’m sorry,” Dorman rasps.

  Sorry. And I feel this new kind of pain.

  Stone’s eyes meet mine. He never could stand to see me in pain. Not any of us.

  He stalks over to the governor, and with a movement swift and sure, he shoves the blade in the man’s throat. There’s this gurgling sound. “One blade to protect my brothers, one blade for vengeance,” Stone growls. With vicious force, he yanks the blade across the governor’s throat. The gurgling stops. He pulls out the blade and looks up at me, face spattered with blood.

  It’s done. A gift.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Stone says.

  “Fuck me!” Calder has his phone out. “Somebody’s coming. A team. Not the cops. Up the road. The front.”

  “Abby,” I breathe.

  “They’re safe by now,” Stone says. He’s right. Nate would’ve pulled her out the back the easy way.

  “The team’s up on the road, coming in the drive.”

  “Take the back stairs.” Calder grabs the pack. We follow him down the hall and down a narrow staircase, careful not to make a sound.

  We move out through the dark spaces on the first floor. Just as we clear the study, something crashes. Loud.

  Calder speeds up, leading the way out over the veranda, and we all follow. A gun blast rips the cool night air.

  Cruz disappears from my periphery. I look back. He’s down.

  “Fuck!” I shoot wildly into the house as the guys pull him over the stone rail. He’s hit in the thigh.

  “I’ll cover,” Stone shouts. “Get him the fuck up to that ridge. We’ll crash out with the Hummer. I’ll find Nate and Abby.”

  Stone is already in position, shooting from between the stone balustrades. It should be me going after Nate and Abby, but there’s no time to argue. Calder and Knox have Cruz between them. They need me taking rear or none of them will make it out alive.

  Every part of me screams to find Abby, to be the one to make sure she’s safe, but I can’t abandon my crew. We rush across the dark, grassy lawn and out the back gate, which we’d unlocked.

  “You keeping pressure okay?” Calder pants.

  “Yeah,” Cruz says. “I don’t think it’s an artery.” We carry him up the hill, helping each other. It’s slow going.

  Finally we arrive up top, up to the Hummer. We lay him out on the ground. Calder’s talking to Cruz, about where the pain is, how he feels, in case Cruz’s passed out by the time Nate comes.

  I go to the edge of the hill, wounded shoulder screaming in pain and wet with blood. Nate’ll have to stitch me back up, but I don’t care.

  You can see everything from up top. The place is lit with flashing red, and all I can think about is Abby. Out there with Nate. Freaked out of her mind. And what if the cops get her? Even worse, what if the governor’s men get her?

  There’s a rustling from the bushes to the side. I lift my piece.

  “It’s me.” Nate.

  “Where’s Abby?” I say.

  “Stone’s getting her out the access alley.”

  “Fuck!”

  “She’s slow.” Nate kneels at Cruz’s side. Calder trains a flashlight on the wound as Nate cuts away the bloody fabric. “They’ll circle back.”

  The guys have been casing this place and preparing forever, and there are endless escape ideas and contingency plans. This one’s the obvious choice, and easier on Abby too, but I still don’t like it.

  Nate’s asking Cruz questions, hands all over the wound. “You’re okay,” he’s saying. “This isn’t a bad one.” I hear the rip of medical tape.

  I look out over the sea of flashing red. Calder comes to my side and hands me the binoculars.

  I lift them to my eyes and try to find where Stone and Abby could be, but it’s too dark, and the side escape route has a wall blocking most of the way. I give them back to Calder and call Stone. It goes to voicemail. I don’t like the feeling I get.

  “Stone’s got her,” Calder says.

  And Stone wants her dead. “I’m going down there.”

  “Don’t be an idiot. You’ll get picked up,” Calder says.

  “I have to.”

  The next thing I know, there’s a gun shoved in my gut. Calder. “You think we can come after you out there? You’re not going.”

  “Fuck you.” I pull out my piece and jab it in his gut. We wouldn’t pull the trigger. We’re brothers.

  Except if Stone hurts Abby. Then I’d have to kill him.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  ~Abigail~

  Everything happened like a dream—too surreal, too fast. Grayson going wild on the governor. Nate forcing me back into the service alley, a walled alley that runs up the side of the mansion’s grounds. I tried to get back to the house, back to Grayson, but Nate had my arm, and he wouldn’t let me go.

  People came, and there was shooting. Nate said it was the governor’s guys. I don’t know how he knew. Then the sirens sounded.

  When Stone arrived, I knew things would go bad. He sent Nate up to the ridge that overlooks the river. He said Cruz was shot.

  I want to go, to follow Nate and make sure Grayson’s okay, but Stone has my upper arm in what feels like a vise. “I have to see him,” I say. “I have to tell him it’s okay.”

  Stone jerks me by the arm—hard—as soon as Nate’s out of sight. “You think Grayson wants to see you after what you did? Grayson trusted you to be with him in the most important moment of his life, and you wrecked it. You made him feel like shit for what he had to do.”

  I try to pull away from Stone, heart racing. “I couldn’t let him—”

  He tightens his grip. “Do you know what it’s like to go through what we went through?” Stone snarls. “No. And you never can. You can never be like us. You can never be with him.”

  “Did he—” I’m afraid to finish the sentence.

  “What do you think he did?” Stone snarls. “The man took everything from us.”

  “Not everything.” If he really took everything, then there’s nothing left. If he took everything, there’s no hope for Grayson—and I can’t believe that.

  A car approaches, and Stone yanks me between two dumpsters, gun at my temple. I can feel the rage seething from him. I don’t move; I know he’s looking for an excuse to open fire—on me, on the cops.

  The car passes, but he keeps me down there on the coarse gravel, fingers digging into my flesh. This cold feeling comes over me as he turns to me and presses the gun to my neck.

  I can feel his anger through his grip, his breath on the side of my head. I try to pull away, but his hand is steel. This is it. He finally has me alone, without Nate or Grayson to stop him.

  He’s going to kill me now.

  “Let me go,” I beg. “Please—I won’t say anything, I promise. I’ll say he kept me drugged the whole time. I don’t remember anything.”

  “You won’t pull it off.”

  “I will.” My heart pounds. “I swear it!”

  “You think I can trust my guys’ lives to you? No fucking way.”

  “He knows secrets about me too. This one 9-1-1 call—it’s a horrible secret. He has stuff on me too.”

  There’s a pause where all I hear is my own panicked pulse. Then he says, “I’m sorry.”

  At that moment, everything comes crystal clear. T
his man will shoot me. There were enough shots being fired that he could blame it on somebody else. Or maybe Grayson wouldn’t care, if he’s really furious with me for trying to hold him back.

  “You ready?” he asks softly as if he’s read my mind, his eyes almost soft, almost kind, as he prepares to kill me.

  My heart lurches. I try to pull away, but he’s expecting it. He has me.

  “You want me to count?” he asks.

  “Count?” It seems crazy—who counts when they’re going to shoot somebody? “Count?” Tears stream down my cheeks. I take a shuddery breath. “Wait. Tell him…tell him I think he’s a good person—I still do,” I say. “Tell him I know what’s inside of him now. Tell him he’s a good man,” I whisper. “Those monsters never touched what was important in him.”

  Stone glares at me.

  “Fuck you,” I say. “Those monsters never took what was important in him. Tell him I love him.”

  There’s this silence, and he presses the gun harder into my neck, angry. “You hurt him.”

  “I know,” I gasp.

  “You fucked him up.”

  “I love him.”

  “That didn’t do him much good, did it?”

  I freeze, waiting for him to shoot. My eyes squeeze shut. Does Grayson hate me now?

  “I can’t help that I love him,” I say in a small voice.

  There’s this long silence.

  He lowers his weapon then, and I finally suck in a breath. “Go. But if you say one thing about us, one fucking police sketch, one fucking peep about the Bradford, you are dead.”

  “Okay.”

  “You try to make contact, any contact with him, and you are dead. He doesn’t want to see you. Go before I change my mind.” He shoves me and points. “All the way to the cop car at the end. Turn yourself in like you got away. Go back home.”

  I take off running, face wet, knees shaking. I desperately want to see Grayson. Even if he hates me, I have to see that he’s okay. But I don’t know where he is, and Stone is still behind me, waiting to shoot.

  As soon as I get onto the street, a spotlight gloms onto me. Somebody says to put my hands up. I slow, hands raised. I’m led up the driveway. I end up sitting on the back of an ambulance.

  They’re saying I’m traumatized. I guess it’s true. I give somebody my name. Everyone wants to know where Grayson is. I say I don’t know. It’s the truth.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  ~Grayson~

  Stone bursts through the bush line, panting. “Let’s go.”

  No one shows up behind him. “Where the fuck is Abby?”

  “She ran to the cops. She turned herself in. I’m sorry, man.”

  Denial slams in my gut. “What? No.”

  “Did you not hear me? She ran to the cops.”

  I stomp over and grab his collar. “What the fuck did you do?”

  He shoves me off. Pain like lightning sails through my shoulder. “She’s gone. She left.”

  “Fuck you! She wouldn’t do that.” I start down the hill, but Calder’s got me from behind, arms around my chest.

  “She wouldn’t just leave!”

  Stone grabs me by the hair. “She said she won’t give anything up,” Stone says. “That you both have secrets, and she’s staying quiet about our secret like you’ll stay quiet about her 9-1-1 call. That mean anything to you? A 9-1-1 call?”

  I try to rip out of Calder’s grip. “It’s not right. You’re lying!” Even as I say it, some little voice wonders how he’d know about the 9-1-1 call if she didn’t tell him. As a message to me. Like maybe this is real and she wanted to be done with me. “Don’t come after me!”

  I break free, and I run down there blind. Something hits me from behind. Stone, tackling me to the ground. We roll. My shoulder screams in pain.

  “Let me go.”

  Stone’s on top of me. “She made her choice!” he growls. “After what she saw in that bedroom? She watched you beating the bloody hell out of a man. You destroyed his face after she begged you to stop. Think what she saw, Grayson!”

  My strength drains from me as his words seep in. What I did in front of her. The crunch of his face on my knee still lives in my muscle memory. Like a fucking animal. “I need to get to her. I need to explain.” I’m ripping the hell out of my shoulder, trying to get away.

  “She saw her one chance to be free, and she took it,” Stone bites out. “She can still sell that she’s a hostage who got away. It’s not too late for her, like it was for us.”

  “Fuck you,” I say.

  “She was hysterical, Grayson.” Nate’s there, kneeling next to me, hand on my arm. “If you care about that girl at all, you’ll let her go. Give her this one kindness.”

  I’m panting, struggling. This can’t be how it ends.

  “You know what she said?” Stone says. “She said, I know what’s inside of him now. That’s what she said, Grayson. I know what’s inside of him now.”

  It’s then that all the fight goes out of me. It has the ring of truth. The ring of her words. She knows what’s inside of me. Vengeance. Death. Ugliness.

  I collapse and stare up at the dawn sky, lighter on one side than the other.

  Barely human. Fucking caveman. How many times did she call me that?

  “She was never yours,” Stone says.

  Because she knows what’s inside of me now. It even sounds like something she’d say. I could convince her that I didn’t kill him and it still wouldn’t matter, because she saw enough of what was inside me. The thought of capturing her again moves through my mind, but Nate’s right—I need to do her this kindness.

  And there’s the bit about the 9-1-1 call. That’s a secret only she and I know. She told him so I would know her message was genuine. To be free from me.

  “She knows where you live,” Nate says. “If she wants to see you, all she has to do is to show up.”

  “We can’t stay at the Bradford,” Stone says. “Just in case.”

  “She won’t talk,” I snap.

  “We’ve got the feed from the camera at the entrance,” Nate says. “We’ll see if she comes.”

  “Get up.” It’s Calder. He’s got binoculars. “You need to see this.”

  Stone helps me up. Nate and Knox are helping Cruz into the vehicle. Calder directs me to look at the driveway. All I can find is lights and confusion. He directs my gaze, and suddenly I see it—an ambulance, and she’s sitting in the back. She’s alone, but her chin is held high, shoulders back. She seems calm almost. Calm in a way I’ve never seen her.

  “Let’s go,” Nate says.

  A cop comes over, carrying a bottle of water. Her face lights up when she takes it, so grateful for one small favor. He wraps a blanket around her, and I grit my teeth as I watch him touch her shoulders. She’s just been fucking traumatized, and this guy thinks he’s Romeo. A tear glistens as it rolls down her face, reflecting the red-blue light from the sirens.

  Why is she crying? I want to bash the cop’s face in for making her cry even though I know…it’s not sadness. She’s relieved. Happy. Happy enough to cry.

  I gave her water and blankets, and she never felt relieved. Never got so happy she cried with it. God, was she just surviving me? She liked me enough not to let me die, but she didn’t want to stay.

  My chest feels like it’s caving in.

  A hand on my shoulder. Nate. “Let’s go, brother.”

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  ~Abigail~

  A lawyer meets me at the police station and offers to represent me. I get the feeling my case is somewhat famous. She tells me not to answer questions. And she tells me something else too. She tells me the governor is dead. I’d expected that, but it stills hit me like a blow to the chest.

  Stupid as it is, there was some part of me hoping that Grayson hadn’t killed the governor after I left. As if maybe I’d been enough to save him.

  But I failed.

  Somebody has hot chocolate for me. I sip it, feeling calm in a way
I never have before. Maybe because I have nothing left to lose. The prison journal is a distant memory. Class schedules and final exams feel like a world apart. And Grayson, I’ve lost him too.

  You said you were strong enough. That’s what he told me in the governor’s mansion. I guess I’m not, because I couldn’t stand to watch him kill like that. Couldn’t stand to watch Grayson kill the last spark of humanity inside himself. So he pushed me out and did it without me watching.

  I’m grateful when Esther arrives. I wrap myself around her and hold on for dear life.

  My new lawyer thinks that if I tell where Grayson might be, I’ll do no time. I tell her I don’t know. I give a version of the truth over the next day—roughly what happened, without the sex.

  I say I was drugged. In fear. I leave out the part about his guys and about the Bradford Hotel. I wouldn’t have told, even without the promise to Stone to play dumb. I wouldn’t do anything to hurt Grayson, even if he doesn’t want me anymore.

  I say we spent the night in a car and he brought me to the governor’s home. No, I couldn’t get away. Yes, I was scared for my life. The guy from the gas station has never come forward, and it’s unlikely he will now. I’m guessing the guy has something to hide, and I really didn’t take that much, anyway.

  The governor’s murder is national news, of course, and he’s made out to be a hero. It makes me sick, knowing what I know, but I stick with my role of the barely conscious hostage with no useful information. I was with Grayson only a few days. The manhunt that’s on is intense.

  My lawyer has short brown hair and minty breath, and she convinces the powers that be not to file charges. They stop asking me to tell where Grayson is—they’re believing my story. I just have to sign a paper that says I won’t sue the prison or the university.

  It’s that easy—except I can’t go home yet. They say I have to stay in town, so Esther gets us two motel rooms. She stays near me and asks no questions.