by S. Massery
Another guy steps into the room behind him, slapping Zach’s back. He could be a freaking model: blond hair, sharp blue eyes, a jawline that could cut glass…
He whistles and says, “Wyatt always did keep this place—” He stops short as his eyes fall to the blood on the floor. There’s no point in telling them that I was going to clean it up as soon as I worked up the energy. “Is that your blood?”
“Who are you? What happened to—” My eyebrows scrunch down. “Never mind, I don’t think I want to know.”
Zach shakes his head. “She’s trouble,” he mutters to the second man. “Hadley, this is Dalton. Dalton, meet Hadley.”
“I don’t know why you’re making introductions, man, you just met her yourself.”
“She’s freaked out.”
“Yeah, because you just—”
“True.”
“So it’s settled—”
“Well, I wouldn’t—”
“We need to—”
“Agreed.”
My eyes ping-pong between them. “Who are you?”
“Griffin’s our best friend. And he drew those assholes away in order to save you, even though you were perfectly safe in this room.” Dalton rolls his eyes.
I cross my arms and feign a confidence I don’t feel. “You still haven’t proven that you’re his friends.”
Dalton sighs. “The code was your birthday. October thirtieth. Right?”
“Anyone—”
“Nope,” Zach says. He shuffles forward and goes to grab my arm—a gut reaction for these guys, I guess—but he freezes at the bruises on my skin. “What happened?”
I shake my head. “Run in with one of those guys. Griffin shot him.”
Zach’s eyes go to Dalton. “Guys out front,” Dalton supplies. “The thigh wound.”
Their eyes go to the blood splatter on the hip of my pants, and Zach’s lips press together. “Assholes,” he murmurs. “Okay, Hadley, we’re going to get you out of here and meet up with Griffin in the city.”
I press back further into the wall. “You just want—”
“No,” Dalton growls, “We don’t want anything. The way to make sure Griffin’s head stays in the game is to get you out of here. Those were his wishes.” His eyes go to the dried blood on the floor, then back up to me. “Are you up for this?”
“I—”
How do I blurt out my cancer to random strangers? I can barely think it. I definitely haven’t accepted it, although being helpless in this room, with nothing but my symptoms, has helped.
So, in the end, I don’t say anything. I just take a deep breath, send a prayer into the universe, and say, “I can handle it.”
We leave the safe room, and I gasp when I see the three men in black on the floor. Dead. I can’t stop staring. Griffin tried to hide the other two from my view, and I didn’t want to see them, either. But now, my eyes are stuck on them, and there’s a lot of blood. Horror works its way up my throat. My stomach turns. Zach steps between me and the men and says, “Keep moving, Hadley.”
My feet decide to work, and I can’t get out of the basement fast enough. Dalton goes ahead of me and Zach takes up the rear, and I resist the urge to shove Dalton up the stairs. On his way up, Dalton lifts up a huge gun that was leaning against the wall. “Didn’t want to freak you out,” he mutters, eyeing the gun and then the bodies.
“Too late,” I whisper.
I follow them into the house, down the short hallway to the garage. Their Jeep is parked outside, and it looks like it underwent a serious transformation to make it stronger. There’s a brush guard on the front of it, the tires are huge, with thick treads for off-roading, and all of the windows are tinted.
I’m also surprised that it looks like early morning. The air is cool and damp, and the sky, what I can see of it, is periwinkle. Rays of sunlight break through the trees. How long was I out?
Dalton holds up his fist.
Zach grabs the waistband of my pants, pulling me against the wall without touching me. “That means stop,” he says. “We speak a mixture of sign language and the hand signals that police use.”
Dalton lowers himself onto one knee and looks through the scope. He scouts the area for a minute. “One,” he says. He becomes so still, like a statue. He might even have stopped breathing.
“Plug your ears,” Zach says.
I hastily follow his direction and jam my fingers in my ears just as Dalton shoots. It’s so loud, it rattles my brain. I push aside the fact that he just murdered someone.
Someone trying to kill us, but still. Greater good and all?
Stop trying to rationalize this, Hadley. Everything that’s happened in the past two days is mental.
“Okay,” Dalton says. “Where’s Griffin?”
They both look at me.
“I don’t know this place,” I say, raising my hands in surrender. “I’ve only ever been to Niagara Falls and Florida, but we drove the whole way there. How’s that for a vacation? Stuck in a car with a math teacher dad and a social worker mom for twenty hours.”
Dalton shrugs. “I like Florida. The party scene, specifically.”
Zach rolls his eyes. “Yeah, okay, asshole. You probably sulk and watch from the balcony while people have fun.”
“I was twelve. It wasn’t fun. Anyway…” I kick at the concrete. “Aren’t we on a time crunch? How many guys were there?”
Dalton and Zach exchange glances again, but it’s Dalton who answers me. “I was talking to him when it was starting. There were at least a dozen, I'd say. I was counting shots.” Dalton rubs his neck. “That was about ten hours ago.”
The blood drains from my face. “I was unconscious for that long?”
They look at each other again, then Dalton coughs. “You should’ve mentioned that,” he tells me. “That changes things.”
“How?”
Dalton puts his hands on my shoulders, pivoting me until I look at him straight-on. His grip is feather-light against my skin. “Are you sick?”
I look away, and he releases me.
“Get in the Jeep. We’re sitting ducks here,” Dalton says.
Zach moved to the doorway during that exchange, and he motions us forward now. “We’re clear as far as I can tell.” He puts his arm across my shoulder blades, pushing down until I’m bent over, and we jog to the Jeep. Being out in the open, even for a split second, turns my stomach.
There are people out there trying to kill us, and Griffin is in the woods alone.
Zach guides me to the front passenger seat, and he takes the driver’s side while Dalton slides into the back. I twist around in my seat, but he’s hunched over his rifle. “This one jams,” he murmurs. “If Griffin loses my good one, I’m gonna kill him.”
Zach rolls his eyes, gunning the Jeep down the driveway. “Your good one is at home, I’m sure. The one here was—”
“A gift,” Dalton interrupts.
I have to spin back around in my seat and buckle my seatbelt, or else I’m going to puke. Zach’s driving is halfway between insane and suicidal.
“So, Hadley,” Zach starts, “how long have you been sick?”
I eye him. He turns onto another dirt road, kicking up dust behind us.
“What kind of sick?” Dalton asks. “We should know.”
“It’s none of your business,” I snap. I grab my seatbelt as the Jeep swerves. “You are an awful driver,” I mutter. “Who gave you a license?”
“Afghanistan,” he answers, grinning.
That explains it—war driving.
This road dumps us at a new cabin. It’s on the verge of falling down. Rickety old wood, the whole thing tilts to one side. It isn’t the kind of thing I’d expect to find here. None of this is the kind of thing I’d expect to find here.
“Check it out,” Dalton says. His arm comes up between Zach and I, pointing to the side of the house. “Someone was shooting at this place.”
Zach slides his phone out of his pocket and makes a call. He puts i
t on speaker.
“Go,” a familiar voice answers.
The relief that floods me is incomparable. He’s alive.
“Where are you?” Zach asks.
Gunshots echo through the phone, and I stare at Zach, eyes wide.
Griffin answers, “About ten miles southwest of the cabin. Not gonna lie, they’re fucking good. Where are you?”
“We’re staring at your neighbor’s cabin,” Zach says. “You get in a gun fight here, too?”
“Fuck,” Griffin mutters. “Where’s Hadley? Is she okay?”
I clear my throat. “I’m okay,” I answer.
His voice is low when he responds, “I’m glad. I’ll see you soon.”
“We’ll probably see you first. I’m pinging your coordinates,” Dalton interrupts.
“Great. Gotta go.” Someone yells in the background before the call cuts out.
I cover my mouth with my hand.
“Are you okay to hike?” Dalton asks me.
My strength hasn’t returned a hundred percent, and the car ride—not to mention the worry—has made me nauseous. This isn’t quite the adventure I wanted, but I can’t deny that it’s a good distraction.
A new fear has unfurled in my chest, but it isn’t for me. It’s for Griffin. So I say, “I can try.”
“Good enough.”
We get out and Dalton leads the way into the woods. We pick around brush and boulders that must’ve fell from the sky to land in such random spots, winding through trees. The ground slants upwards, and Zach just starts whistling.
My breathing comes faster, harder, and I have to pause against trees more frequently than not. But I push on, until white spots dance in my vision, and I land on my knees.
Zach comes and kneels before me. He puts a finger under my chin, so gentle, until I meet his eyes. “Your nose is bleeding again,” he murmurs. He opens a backpack I hadn’t noticed he was wearing and pulls out a gauze pad. “Can I help you?”
I take the gauze and nod. Loathing sweeps through me. I could’ve easily done this hike three months ago. Still, I press it to my nose and close my eyes as Zach helps me to my feet, then holds out his arm.
“Your pace,” he says.
I put my hand on his arm, feeling a bit awkward, and we start forward again.
“You good?” Dalton asks from higher on the hill.
“Yep,” Zach answers. There’s a forced cheer in his voice, and he pats my hand with his free one. “I’m gonna kill Griffin.”
“You guys threaten to kill each other a lot,” I mumble through the gauze.
“It’s a sign of endearment,” Zach laughs. His whole chest vibrates with it. “Who do you care about enough to kill?”
I look up at the treetops. They sway in the morning sunlight, almost glowing with the sun’s attention.
He glances down at me, and my cheeks heat up.
“If you asked me five years ago, I would’ve had a different answer.”
“Do you and Griffin have a sordid history?”
I would snort if my nose wasn’t still clogged with blood. This nosebleed isn’t bad. It’s a trickle compared to the one in the panic room. “Our history is innocent.”
“I always wondered why he made the password to that room your birthday,” he says. “Even before he saw you in New York City—”
My body locks up, and his mouth snaps shut. “When?” I say, my words strangled.
“Um—”
“Ah, hell, Zach,” Dalton laughs. “You’re giving away Griffin’s secrets like they’re candy. And hurry up, would you?”
Zach shakes his head, but he picks up the pace. I try to imagine where Griffin would’ve seen me. I worked at a florist shop three blocks from my apartment between classes and hospital visits. I lived in a tiny apartment with four other girls. Sometimes we went out drinking or dancing and staggered home in the middle of the night.
Back then, the cancer was known but manageable. Contained. It’s only recently that it’s started to spread like wildfire.
“We’re here,” Dalton finally says. We get up to where he’s standing, and I gasp.
We made it to the top of a ridge, which overlooks another house. This one, however, is surrounded by at least seven men. One of the windows in the cabin is open, and a hand briefly flashes through it. Two of the men yell and leap away as a grenade explodes.
I cringe at the noise and destruction, and dust fills the air.
“That’s my boy,” Zach cheers in a soft voice. He motions me to get down. Dalton lays flat on the ground, setting up his gun, and Zach lays next to him. Zach pats the earth on his other side, so I sink down and then lower myself to my stomach.
Zach produces a scope and a pair of binoculars from the bag. He hands me the binoculars and winks, then puts the scope to his eye.
I stare at them for a second, then look through the binoculars down the slope to the house. “Hey,” Zach says, nudging my shoulder. “This is going to get loud.”
He gives me a pair of earmuffs. I slide them on and am shocked at the way the world immediately quiets around me. There are good earmuffs, and then there are great earmuffs. These are the latter.
Zach mutters a stream of directions—wind and distance and whatever else—and there’s the occasional shot from Dalton. The image of falling bodies embeds itself behind my eyes. Some turn and spray bullets up the hillside, and Zach’s arm presses against my back, his hand covering my head.
I flinch when dirt kicks up just below us and over our heads.
“Is he going to be okay?” My voice bounces in my ears, like I’m talking underwater.
Zach glances at me, and Dalton just presses his lips together. “We’re working on it, Had.”
“Work faster,” I snap, my eyes on the house. The men have taken cover, but Dalton seems to find them without issue. He sees things I never would.
And finally, silence settles over the forest.
Zach stands up slowly and hops over the ridge. He works his way down the steep hillside quickly, half-sliding, until he gets to the bottom. I sidle closer to Dalton and watch through the scope Zach left behind. I pull off the earmuffs. “Why’s he moving like that?”
Dalton chuckles. “I sent him out to see if anyone else is lurking.”
“As bait?”
“You got it.”
I snort. “That’s nice of you.”
He doesn’t glance over at me, but his lips turn up in a smirk. “What can I say? I’m good at my job.”
Zach makes it to the house and calls to Griffin. The door swings open, and Zach enters. I hold my breath for a few seconds, and then Griffin walks out of the house. He looks straight up the hillside to where Dalton and I lay, and I almost sit up. I have half a mind to scramble down—a much clumsier version of Zach’s descent, to be sure—when Dalton reaches over and grabs the back of my shirt.
The ground explodes in front of us, and Dalton yanks us lower.
I stare at him, chest heaving, and he shrugs. “I’m not infallible.”
“Someone almost shot us—”
“I’m sure Griff took care of it,” he mutters. He army-crawls back up the hill, looks through the scope of his rifle, then slides back toward me. “All clear.”
“Oh my god,” I mutter. “Are you sure?”
“You don’t seem very afraid.”
I shoot him a look. “I figure my days are numbered. And... I think I’m in shock.”
“Could be,” he says. He pulls me to my feet, and I watch Griffin climb the hill toward us.
His dark eyes seem to see right through me. The worry, the adrenaline, it rises back to the surface. When he gets on even ground, I throw my arms around his neck, knocking him flat on his back with me on top of him.
“I thought you were going to die,” I mumble into his neck. His spiced scent buries itself in my nose. He wraps his arms around me and sits us up. I’m not ready for the audience, for whatever state Griffin may be in—hurt, completely fine, nonchalant—so I keep my face h
idden. My fingers slide across the fabric of his shirt on his back, trying to get more purchase.
“It’s okay,” he says in my ear. “Hadley, we’re okay.”
We. Not I. I’m about to throw myself into death’s embrace and he’s worried about both of us.
His hands move across my back, up and down, until I sniffle and lean back. He brushes away tears on my cheeks that I didn’t realize were falling. He pulls me to my feet.
“We’re okay,” he repeats.
My eyes skate over him, taking inventory. He has a cut on his temple, a split lip, a black eye. But he’s smiling at me, and he doesn’t look too much in pain. More than the terror, immeasurable relief that he’s standing in front of me washes over me.
I smile back at him, just as he touches a drop of blood on my shirt.
His smile fades.
8
GRIFFIN
Her skin is pale; the dark circles under her eyes are more pronounced than they were.
Guilt is a razor, slicing me open. I brought her into this mess. She lunges into my arms, and bit by bit, that darkness inside of me crawls away.
“I thought you were going to die,” she whispers. Her words stab into me.
“We’re okay,” I tell her, and I wish she would believe me. “We’re okay.”
It takes her a minute to pull herself together, and I take that time to just breathe. The past twelve hours put me right back into a warzone, except there was no backup. Any spare moment, my mind flashed back to her. Alone in that freaking room.
At least she was safe.
But when she pulls back, and I swipe the tears from her cheeks, my eyes fall to a drop of blood on the collar of her shirt. Pieces of the darkness start to creep back. I press my thumb against it, unable to fathom how it got there.
“Hadley?” I ask. My voice ends on a high note.
She just closes her eyes again, while I run through symptoms in my head.
I hate this part of me. How many times have I had to diagnose someone on the fly, in the field? A few soldiers have gone into diabetic shock. Another couple have had seizures. Those moments were terrifying, blurred with confusion, but it’s nothing compared to this.
I didn’t care about them like Hadley.
