by E. F. Jacks
The trees rustle behind me. Ellis? Or another one of Seth’s guys? As I turn, I’m curling my head a little into my chest, as if I’m protecting myself from something I don’t wish to see.
Someone is standing in front of me. A man. I can smell his faint aftershave and feel his heat. His tall, broad shadow arcs over the ground’s fine earth. I raise my head and peek.
Ellis.
He takes a step toward me and reaches for me. The words “watch out” escape from my lips like a soft breeze. Then Ellis’s eyes flick to Seth, who’d been eclipsed by Nick’s height. “What the…”
Seth moves out from behind Nick as his eyes slice through Ellis. “For the most part you did a pretty good job, man.”
My eyes stretch in horror, and I grab Ellis’s arm, my small hand shaking the entire bulk of him. “You…knew about this?”
Ellis doesn’t speak, but in his eyes, with his lids half closed and his gaze avoiding mine, reveals his answer. I let go of him faster than I ever thought I could.
Ellis’s voice cracks as he hurries to explain himself. “After my head injury, I don’t remember much about who I am. I do know I was in the war.”
His journal. The pills. I feel terrible for him, but I stand as far away from him as is possible to still be able to hear him. “So this is, what, like your job now, scaring the shit out of people for a living?”
Or killing them? I swallow air. When I move farther back, Seth holds out his hand and wags his finger at me. As his arm stays raised, his shirt’s hem is lifted. A small black handgun is tucked into his waistband. My eyes pore into Ellis’s and then back to Seth’s gun again, and a silent alert is passed between us. Why do I still think he’ll care?
Nick speaks to Seth and glances at Ellis. “He has knives on him.”
Seth makes Ellis hand over the knives to him and then tosses them into the woods, and out of our sight. Nick doesn’t mention Ellis’s gun. He must not have seen it.
But now that I know whose side Ellis is on, has been on the whole trip, I also know he won’t help me. It’s too late. My fate is in the hands of these three men. And Ellis, the one I thought I could depend on? I now know him no more than I would a random stranger.
Ellis’s fingers hover around my sleeve and I lurch back. “I’m not going to hurt you, Pauline, and I never was.”
Elli. Was it a nickname, short for Ellis? Elli is like a father to me, Seth whispered the night we washed dishes together, and I welcomed his warm breath on my ear.
Saliva shoots out of my mouth and dribbles onto my coat. I’m enraged—and terrified. “It’s nice to know that’s my real name, isn’t it? Too bad I don’t know who the fuck you are.”
Ellis’s voice is lower and more beaten when he speaks again. “Pauline, I’m…” Through his voice he’s implying he does care about me.
A moment passes before he continues. “When a client wants to pay someone to carry out a task others won’t, I’m their guy. If a woman needs a guy to trail her ex-husband and their kids he kidnapped during a custody battle, I’m their guy. All I knew about this mission is someone paid me to assume the identity of Ellis from River Tours and act as your guide. I never knew either of them was going to show up.” He glances at Seth. “I never even met the guy who hired me.”
I lurch back, blown away by his answer. I’ve completely forgotten that less than a moment before his full confession, I was convinced he still cared about me in some way. His affection has been a farce.
I flick a look over at Seth. “Is this the truth?”
He nods at me. “You humiliated my manhood, Pauline. Do you know what that does to a guy? Everyone thought I was a pussy for letting you show your ass to whatever guy paid to watch. They thought you hadn’t an ounce of respect for me. Want to know what happened after you bailed out? People at school didn’t react how I thought they would. They started saying, if Seth lets his girlfriend do that, then what kind of man is he? You weren’t the only one who had to leave school. Every time I saw someone while I was there I knew what they were thinking about me. It drove me so fucking nuts. I never graduated. You caused this. I was terrified about how my father would handle my failure. He gave me my trust fund, but kicked me out of the house. How does it feel to be terrified, Pauline?”
My legs, like wobbly sticks of candy, can barely hold me up. Tears mist my eyes, and my voice trembles with each word I utter. “I had no idea you didn’t graduate. I’m sorry, Seth. You know I am. I told you so many times, I…”
I’m mindful of each word I speak, because it takes so little to upset Seth. Even when Seth and I argued over the smallest things he’d lock himself in his home office for days after, only leaving to go to class or to see his friends, refusing to accept my apology or speak to me. Days later he’d show up with a piece of jewelry, but would never say he was sorry through words.
My core shakes. “I don’t know how many more times I can apologize to you so you can forgive me. It isn’t healthy for you to hold on like this—”
“Don’t tell me what’s right and what’s wrong.” Seth’s eyes are intense and greedy. His gaze is directed only at me, with his salacious sneer disturbing my stomach and my sense of pride. He’s already made up his mind, and there’s nothing I can do to change the course.
“I don’t want anything from you, Pauline. Though I suppose you’d give me anything. Like you showed him,” Seth says, glancing at Ellis. “A good time in the tent – twice.” His lips twist in revulsion at Ellis. “That certainly wasn’t what you were paid to do.” Then he shakes his head at me in disgust. “You’d put out for anyone. Seeing you with him sure answered a question that’s been going through my mind these past months—you’re still as big of a slut as you were when we lived together. Remember living together, Pauline? I do. I loved you. I don’t want anything from you now. I’m going to give you something instead.”
Although Seth’s language appalls me—beneath his polished veneer lurks a snake—his final words strike a weak spark of hope within me.
“I’m going to kill you,” he finishes, and my hope burns to ash. He beams at Ellis. “And your new boyfriend here.”
“He’s not my boyfriend.” I refuse to acknowledge the imploring stare in Ellis’s eyes.
“Don’t bullshit me, Pauline.” Seth nods at a log to my right. The smell of pine around us does nothing to quell my sense of dread. “Sit.” He gestures to Ellis. “You sit, too, boyfriend.”
I comply. Ellis glares at Seth and balks, then sits next to me. I hate feeling so powerless. Seth paces back and forth, as though he’s deciding how to end our lives. Nick watches us with red-hot anger in his eyes. I flick my tongue across my dry, cracked lips as I wait for Seth to choose our fate, and think of the many ways he can hurt us. There’s that crossbow strapped to his back. Will he use that? Even if Ellis’s affection has all been a ruse, I’m confident he won’t allow Seth to kill him, so where does that leave me?
The log is rough through the seat of my pants. Seth’s eyes are dull and crazed. Whoever Ellis is, I’m seated so far from him if I move an inch to my right I’ll tumble off the log. Nick takes his boot from his backpack and puts it on.
The closer Ellis scoots to me, the farther I edge from him. If he doesn’t stop trying to sit close to me, he’s going to make me fall off the log, damn him. I want to sock him hard on that handsome jawline of his. River Tours said they’d send a replacement. They hadn’t given me the guide’s name. My eyes drop down to Sam’s delicate gold bracelet on my wrist, which was supposed to serve as a reminder for why I was making this journey in the first place. For her. Mom and Frank were right when they said I shouldn’t have left school because I’m not cut out for the real world. I shouldn’t have even left their house.
Seth stops moving between his brother and us. “It was lovely seeing your folks the other day. I can tell they adored Evan.” His pointed grin is reserved for me.
My pulse pounds in my head, and I’m up out of my seat before Ellis can hold me back. “
You asshole.” If I had claws, I’d tear Seth’s nasty smile off his face. I’m hot all over as my mind races with horrid outcomes. When had Mom sent me that text? I hadn’t received another after. Were they okay? “What did you do to my parents?”
“Nothing.” Seth reaches out and guides me back down to my seat on the log. I struggle against him and then submit. He holds my gaze as he speaks. “I didn’t hurt them. Actually, I enjoyed visiting them. It was great to hear how shitty your life’s turning out. You’re basically unemployed, isn’t that right? How did your Mom put it? You’re finding your way, or some other bullshit.”
My eyes drop to my knees. Ellis leans over and rubs my back, tries to reassure me, but I edge away from his touch. I don’t want him near me ever again. I don’t even know who he is. I thrash my arms out at him. “I know nothing about you. Ellis isn’t even real!”
Seth and Nick are silent with me as I wait for Ellis’s reply, as though they, too, are curious to hear what his answer will be.
When Ellis speaks, his voice is almost inaudible above the river and the birdsong in the forest. “I have trouble remembering my own name.”
“You’re kidding me.” I slap my hands down on my thighs in exasperation.
Ellis shakes his head. “After my injury, I forgot a lot about who I used to be before. I remember some things, like dating my old girlfriend Linda. I remember what she looks like. A little about who she is.”
That explains why he’s writing down things to remember them. And why he forgot to check out the boot prints. I watch his face and the impenetrable image of himself he’s created collapsing from the side. I almost feel sorry for him. And before I would have. But I can’t now. Not after what I know he was paid to do for Seth.
Ellis’s eyes skim over Seth’s face, and then his gaze falls on me. “I never would have agreed to this, if I knew what he was really after. I swear, Pauline. I never knew this Nick guy was involved.” He raises his arm, his finger pointing weakly at Seth. “Hell, I never even met him.”
I recoil and turn from Ellis. For some crazy reason I believe him. Though I won’t show him I do.
Ellis goes on despite my silence. “I was anonymously paid half of the money upfront to take you on this course as a guide named Ellis. And that’s it. No one ever said anything about hurting you, or I wouldn’t have agreed.”
I don’t look at him when I speak. My voice is flat. I don’t want him to have even the slightest glimmer of hope that I’ll forgive him. “How did you know about the trip’s route?”
“I ran it as practice before my assignment.”
I cringe at his word choice. Assignment is such a cold, sterile way to put what Seth’s hired him to do.
“I knew the situation changed when Fiona and Mitch turned up dead,” Ellis says.
There’s an edge to my voice as I speak. “You still went along with it in the first place.”
“At the time I convinced myself I needed the money. Now I don’t want any of it.”
I blow air out of my mouth and shake my head.
Seth stands over us on the log and grins. “Aren’t you two sweet?” His focus turns to me. “He isn’t lying, Pauline, when he says he didn’t know my true plan. Before you die, you can enjoy knowing you actually met a decent guy for once. That is, before I came to kill you.” He’s smiling and talking more to himself than to me, and I angle my head down toward my chest in fear of what he’ll do next. He’s capable of anything.
Nick works as a guide? A memory speeds into my mind and idles. I heard about River Tours through Seth and then introduced Sam to the company.
“My brother here told me about you taking your sister’s place,” Seth says. “He heard about her death from Fiona. And don’t think Fiona didn’t help push her over the edge. Obviously, money meant more to her than your sister’s friendship.”
My breath catches in my throat.
“It was like having a line to your life, Pauline. It was beautiful. Fiona bailing out at the last minute fucked everything up, but only temporarily. My brother told River Tours he’d go in her place. But because he needed to guide me out here, we found this guy,” Seth says, sliding a look at Ellis “to pretend to be him. We started on the river shortly after you.”
Then Ellis is whispering to me, and I only hear half of what he’s saying. Who am I supposed to believe? As far as I’m concerned whatever Ellis says is all lies anyway. Or he weaves some truth in with his lies.
“I know I did have an older brother who died. That wasn’t a lie. And I’ve learned to love you, Pauline, and I’ve known since a while back on this trip that I can’t go through with what I was paid for. Because halfway through our journey I changed my mind and fell in love with you.”
I can’t decide how I feel about his outpouring. I want to believe him and yet…it’s too hard. “You never worked in finance, did you?” I bring my gaze up to his level and scowl at him.
He’s unable to match my stare. “For a short time I did, after I was released from the hospital. But it didn’t work out.” His eyes move down to mine. “My memory wasn’t—isn’t—what it once was. I couldn’t focus.”
Seth bends to our eye level. “Blah. Blah. How cute. Can you two shut up already?”
Courage takes my mind to a place above the trilling of birds in the treetops where I soar. “Did you kill Mitch?” I ask him, and I wait for his answer like a stone sinking down my throat.
“Who the hell is that?”
“He was a park ranger.”
Nick nudges his brother aside and leans down to talk to me. His voice is a mere whisper. “That uniform wearing dick? That guy gave us shit because we didn’t have a license when we shot a squirrel to eat it. Seth’s got our dad’s gun on him, in case you haven’t noticed. He’s a clean shot, so that should make you feel a little better.”
As I whimper, Nick’s laughter is like a repeated slap across my tear stained face. Ellis yells at him to shut up, and Nick chuckles more and more until he can hardly stand and is bent over clutching his stomach as he laughs.
“All right, that’s enough.” Seth pushes Nick off to his side. His foot kicks mine. “Get up.” He glares at Ellis. “You as well.”
Nick scurries behind him and grabs his backpack from the ground. He unzips the bag and takes out a long line of thick, braided rope. Which explains why the backpack is so heavy. Nick murmurs to Seth and gestures to Ellis.
Seth talks to his brother through clamped teeth. All my ear picks up is, “Tie them together, then.”
Ellis and I haven’t moved from the log, and Seth jabs our feet with his. When we remain sitting, he orders us to remove our boots. Ellis wavers as though he’s planning on something, as I take mine off. Seth picks up a thin branch and lashes the soles of my feet. Even through my socks it stings like hell. I jump out of my seat. My head flails with each strike Seth takes at my arms and legs. He stops beating me to glower at Ellis. “Take yours off, or else I’ll beat her raw.”
There’s a glow in Ellis’s eyes that tells me he’s planning something. An escape. Will he include me? I reach my hands out in front of me as though to block Seth from attacking me further. The fury in Ellis’s eyes directed at Seth deepens as he hunches forward and then pulls off his boots.
Nick and Seth reposition us on the log with our backs touching and our socked feet on the soggy ground. Seth turns to Ellis as he threads the first line of rope around us. With each tug on the rope, tears burst and flow from my eyes.
“It’s too bad you don’t want to help me,” he tells Ellis. “I know I’m not going to get a refund for the money I already paid you, but in my mind, this should more than equal a reimbursement.” He pulls the rope tighter around Ellis’s wrists.
Ellis winces, and the color in his face rises and deepens, but he doesn’t cry out. He’s braver than I am.
I hang my head and peek up at Seth with one eye. “Fiona…Why?”
Seth hunkers down to my level, and I flinch as his face draws close to mine. His breat
h is warm and minty on my face. Even out in the wilderness he manages to suck on breath mints. My bottom lip trembles. His lips graze the flesh below my ear in a shockingly gentle kiss until I turn my head from him, and his lips brush across my neck. I fight the urge to scream. A low noise that can only be described as a growl comes from Ellis.
When I peek up at Seth again, he’s scowling at me. “Fiona was supposed to be your guide. It’s amazing what a lot of money can buy. She started having second thoughts, then got cold feet and tried to cancel the whole thing.”
I gasp and close my eyes, angle my head away from him, trying to get out of my mind what he said. All those lies told to me during the barbecue where I met Fiona. She was Sam’s friend. Or so I thought. After what happened to me at school, I’ve wanted, and have tried so hard, to believe that there are decent people in the world.
“Don’t feel bad,” Seth says. “She had a quick ending. I think. Unlike you two. I’m going to strategically shoot both of you in the legs, arms, and back, and then I’m going to leave you as tasty, bloody meals for the wildlife. Scream all you want. No one will hear you. Nick tells me you two have already seen a bear. I expect they’re fattening up for winter this time of the year, and are very hungry.” He slides his tongue over his lips and laughs.
Seth pauses to speak with Nick, and I blurt out to Ellis behind me. “I don’t want to die.”
“You won’t. Just act like you think you’re going to. I’ll take care of the rest.”
“How can I believe you?” But from the resolve in his voice, I don’t doubt him.
“I love you. And even if you don’t believe that, then you have to believe that I don’t want to die either.”
We both grow quiet as Seth returns to tying us up, a vein pulsating in his forehead as he works, sweat dripping down his face.
Ellis peers at Nick over his large shoulder. “You’re sick to let your kid brother do this.”
