by W Winters
Or the girl dies.
“What happened?” Carter questions in a hushed demand as he comes up behind me. My heart’s racing, my palms are sweaty. He knew. Marcus knew and let us come.
“You have to go,” I answer him as I take in a deep inhale, feeling my pulse pump harder. I can’t lift my eyes from the sign. “Or the girl dies.”
She can’t die. Bethany needs her.
“He knew we were coming,” I speak loud enough for all of them to hear as they make their way into the space. “Get them out,” I tell Sebastian. “Get everyone out!” I have to raise my voice so Sebastian can hear.
“He wants us to know he knows and to admit it,” Seth speaks out loud, referring to the deal with Walsh.
“Admit it in front of our men,” Carter adds, looking behind him at the men lined up and ready to fight beside us. Ready to die for us.
“I couldn’t give two shits who knows.” My hiss of a mutter grabs his attention and I look him in the eyes and tell my brother, “I promised Bethany I’d bring her sister back.” The thumping in my chest rages. “Even if I have to go in alone.”
“I’m here, Jase,” Seth speaks up, reminding me I’m not alone.
Carter speaks before I can answer, “Then do it.” He doesn’t let go of me, he grips my arm and forces me to stand there a second longer. “Don’t get yourself killed.” He says it like it’s a demand, but it’s drenched with emotion.
“And to think, I was expecting you to tell me you love me,” I joke back in a deadpan voice even though dread consumes me. It’s just to ease the tension and hurt that riddle every muscle inside of me at the thought of Jenny being dead already and Marcus being one step ahead as usual. Merely toying with us.
“That too,” Carter adds.
With a farewell grip on his shoulder, I look him in the eyes and tell him, “I’ll try not to be stupid.”
“Go,” he tells me and shares a glance with Sebastian. With a nod of his head, Sebastian starts to lead the men back.
“I’ll see you when it’s through,” I answer Carter as he walks off without looking back.
“You should go too,” I tell Seth as the place empties. “Go with them.”
“What are you talking about?” His voice is low with disbelief.
“You stay back. In case it’s a setup.” I can feel chills flowing down my skin at the thought of Marcus being more prepared than we are. He’s the one who made the rules to this game. He knows it better than anyone. He sets himself up to win.
“I’m the one who needs to go in. I’m the one who brought us all here.” A cold sweat breaks out across my shoulders and down my back before taking over my entire body as I stare down the barren hall. It feels like my death sentence. I’m a fool to think otherwise, but I have to go in. I can’t leave her here. I can’t and I won’t.
“It says ‘all,’” Seth says as he looks me in the eyes, defying me and referring to the sign that blocks the path. “I’m not letting you go in there alone.” Disregarding my orders he takes a step forward, pushing the sign to the side, into the dimly lit hall and I yank him back, fisting the thin white cotton of his shirt.
Time passes with both of us waiting for the other, knowing what we’re walking into and looking it in the eyes anyway.
“Are you sure?” I ask him.
“We’re in this together. I have to admit, I didn’t really care for Marcus before, but now I hate the fucker.” He offers me a hint of a smirk and a huff of humor leaves me. Patting his back, I grip my gun with both hands. He readies his and I nod.
“We get her and we get out.”
“Got it,” he says then nods and we go in together.
The thumping in my chest gets harder listening to Seth’s pace picking up to match mine as we move down the dark hall, the smell of soil and rust filling my lungs as we move.
“You have a strong family,” Seth comments with something that sounds like longing.
“We’re close,” I answer him and he glances at me, but doesn’t say another word.
“Let’s not die today. I’d like to go back to them.”
Bethany
I can’t get this feeling out of the pit of my stomach.
Sitting and waiting. Sitting and waiting. I don’t like sitting and fucking waiting around.
Everyone you love will die before you. My mother’s voice has kept me company for more hours than I can count. Warning me. I let myself fall and it feels like I’ve been delivered a death sentence. Why did I let myself fall? Why did he have to keep me from running?
The thump of the book falling from my hand down to the floor scares the shit out of me. My nerves are messier than ever; they’re worse than a necklace tangled at the bottom of a luggage case on a bumpy road trip.
I force myself to read The Coverless Book. I read every page in it. I read about Emmy feeling better and the two of them getting married in secret. I read about them falling in love and sharing their first time together.
Then a new sentence started as he watched her lie down, but I don’t know how it ends. I stared at the last page for the longest time, not understanding. It’s half a sentence, mid-thought from Jacob about how he’d do anything for her. Someone cut the pages out. Lots of them. It looks like there’s at least twenty missing that I can spot. So much for reading to distract me.
I know there’s more to the story. It can’t be cut short like that. The moment the thought hits me, I’m drenched in the nightmare of my sister crying on the floor. Telling me she just wanted them to have a happy ending.
“Jenny,” I breathe her name, staring at the clock and wanting Jase to come back with her.
I can’t sit here and do nothing.
With nothing to distract me, my mind goes to the worst of places. Pacing and staring into the fire as the smell of leather envelops me.
Dropping my hands to my knees, I feel the flames as my hair hits my face. It’s the waiting that kills me. I can’t sleep without seeing my mother remind me that everyone I love will die before me. I can’t think without wondering if Jase has found Jenny and all the things she may have had to endure. I don’t know who she’ll be when he finds her. If he finds her.
This isn’t a way to live, waiting and in fear.
Are you there? I text Laura and wait. I’m exhausted from barely sleeping, but there’s no way I can sleep now.
I’m scared, I message her again, needing to tell someone. She doesn’t text me back though. She could be working; she could be sleeping. I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore.
“Fuck this,” I say then toss the book down on the table and make my way out of the room. The hall seems longer than it has before as I head for the grand staircase and the hidden door beneath it.
My pulse pounds in my temples as I place my hand on the scanner to open it. It takes a long moment. “Please open,” I whisper as the jitters flow through me.
It does, the large door slides aside seamlessly, presenting me with a dark kitchen until I turn the lights on.
It’s empty and quiet. The whole world is sleeping while mine crumbles around me. A sudden chill overwhelms me and a split second later the click of the heater makes me jump.
“Carter,” I call out as I walk deeper into the kitchen. My feet pad on the floor and that’s the only sound other than my racing heart. Something’s wrong. I can feel it in my bones.
Wrapping my arms around myself I make my way to the other hall that the kitchen leads to. It’s quiet and dark.
“Anyone,” I call out and my voice strays from me, receiving no answer. “I don’t want to be alone right now.” It’s a hard feeling to accept, when you open yourself up to love and then feel fate toying with taking them from you. “I don’t want to be alone anymore.”
“Bethany?” a voice calls out just as I turn on my heel to walk away.
“Daniel?” I question, fairly sure it’s him and not Jase’s other brother. Someone’s here at least. “Were you sleeping? I’m sorry, I hope I didn’t wake yo
u up.” The sentences tumble from my mouth as he makes his way into the kitchen, also in bare feet and gray pajama bottoms with a white t-shirt tight over his chest. He has to pull it the rest of the way down as he stops at the counter.
“No, you’re fine, I was just lying down with Addison but not sleeping.” There are bags under his eyes, so I know he’s tired. “You okay?”
“Are you?” I ask him, feeling the anxiousness grip my throat.
His expression softens to a knowing look. “It’s hard. Moments like this can be difficult,” he admits and just to hear someone else say what I feel is a slight relief.
“I don’t know how to be okay right now.” Gripping the tips of my fingers to have something to hold, I watch as he pulls out a wine glass and then heads to the cellar.
“Do you like white or red?” he asks and I swallow a small laugh at the implication that the answer is to drink. “Red.”
It’s quiet as he opens the bottle, the dim light from outside glinting off the torn metal wrapper.
“I don’t know what I can do to help.” I emphasize the last word as he gently pushes the glass toward me and then pours one for himself.
He doesn’t answer me; instead he takes a drink and so I do the same, sipping on the decadent wine and feeling guilty that I can.
“I just have a bad feeling,” I finally confess. “It won’t leave me alone and I’m afraid.”
Daniel’s still quiet, but he nods in understanding. I start to wonder if he’ll speak at all until he says, “Let him do what he knows how to do, what he’s good at.”
“That doesn’t--”
“Yes it does. You want to be involved,” he says then looks me in the eyes and that’s when I see the remorse in his. “You want to be there in case something happens.” His voice drops as he tells me, “I know that feeling.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I get to be here with Addison. Don’t be sorry for me. There’s nothing in this situation to be guilty or sorry or resentful over.” He leans forward on the bar before looking over his shoulder down the empty hall. “We do what we’re needed to do,” he says with resolve.
“I don’t know what I’m needed to do,” I admit to him, feeling the weight lift, knowing that’s the core of my problem in so many ways.
“When he brings your sister back, you take care of her. You’re good at that, aren’t you?”
The thought of Jenny being here soon forces me to brace myself on the counter.
“I heard that’s what you do,” Daniel prods, waiting for me to look back at him and I nod.
“Take care of her when she comes back, because that’s something no one else can do. Let Jase do what he does and you do what you do.”
“Even if I’m scared?” I question him in a whisper.
“Can I tell you a secret?” he asks and again I nod.
“We all are. Anyone who tells you they’re not is lying. We live in a world where there’s plenty to be afraid of. It’s okay to be scared sometimes, but have hope. Have faith. Jase knows what he’s doing.”
Jase
With single bulbs swinging slightly and creaking as they do from the high ceilings, the hall is dim. The rocking of the water can be felt in the aged corridors.
“How old is this place?” Seth murmurs his question as he gently kicks the first steel door open. Without a light in the small ten-by-ten room, it’s hard to look in every corner. The rustling of Seth’s shirt as he pulls out a small flashlight and clicks it on gets my attention. The heat of worry, of restlessness, is dulled by my conditioned response to chaos, stay calm. Always calm and alert. Or else death is sure to come for you.
He brings the light to his gun, both hands holding the pair steady and revealing an empty room inside. There’s only a mattress on the floor and nothing else.
The same with the next room and the next.
Rows of doors, mostly open, line each side of the hall and we go through each one. Every door we open that reveals nothing but rumpled blankets and makeshift beds leaves me with the dreadful thought that we’re too late… that when we push the next door open wider, it’ll reveal a girl on the floor, no longer breathing.
“We can’t be too late.” The fear disguises itself as a hushed request.
“She’s here,” Seth reassures me beneath his breath as he turns the knob of the next door, and lets it creak open, revealing another barren room. “Why else would he do this?”
My gaze moves instinctively to him. “Why does Marcus do anything?”
“If you want to beat him, you have to think like him. Why this place? Why the boy? Why the sign?” He pauses to make sure I’ve heard.
“Why her in the first place?” I add to the pile of questions.
I count the remaining rooms, four of them, two on each side. Three open, one closed.
My mind travels to deceit. Wondering if he already took her away. Wondering if Marcus locked the two of us in here in her place. “If his intention was so easily known, he wouldn’t be who he is.”
With the slow creak of the next steel door, rusted on the bottom edge, I hear Marcus’s rough laugh in my memory and an icy sensation flows over my skin. Unforgiving, cruel.
We betrayed him first. I can already hear his excuse. We came onto his territory; we stole from him. The only question is: what are the consequences?
“Empty too,” Seth whispers. The next room and the next prove the same.
Prepared to be left with nothing but more questions and curses hissed beneath our breath, I place my hand on the final closed door and turn the knob, but it doesn’t move.
Seth and I share a glance in the silence as I try again and then quietly shake my head. Locked.
Hope thrums in my chest as my pulse races and I take one step back and then another.
“On the count of three?” Seth asks, backing up with me. Nodding, I tell him, “Kick it in.”
One.
Two.
Three.
My muscles scream as I slam my boot against the door as hard as I can along with Seth, the two of us putting everything we have against the steel lock with the last hope of seeing Jennifer behind it.
The door slams open to reveal darkness and then a shriek. My eyes can’t adjust fast enough, although I think I see her small form just before I hear the bang!
The heat of a gun going off, the metal against my skin, singeing my shirt and filling the air with the smell of metallic powder is disorienting but familiar. Adrenaline surges in my veins and I’m quick to push forward, not knowing if the bullet hit me, grazed me, or if I was spared from the shot. Anger, fear, and the need to survive all war inside of me to come out on top as I shove myself forward, closer to the gun and whoever’s holding it.
Bang! It goes off again, the shot hitting the ceiling with a pop of steel breaking that joins the crackling of the plaster that falls from above my head.
My body hurtles forward, landing on top of the small woman who’s desperate to cling to the gun. She fires it again as I grip the barrel, forcing it away from me just in time to send the shot wide and feeling the burning hot metal as I rip it from her hands and toss it away. It thuds on the floor as she turns under me, desperate to get it back.
“Jennifer!” I scream out her name and hear Seth cuss behind me.
She screams and kicks wildly, fighting like her life depends on it.
“Stop!” The command is torn from me with equal parts demand and desperation. Seth moves to the side, kicking the gun farther out of reach. “Stop fighting,” I grit out as her heel hits my ribs and she scrambles on the dirt floor.
The impact to my ribs leaves me seething, the pain rocketing through me as I clench my teeth and hold on to her.
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Calm down,” Seth demands lowly, and it comes with the faint sound of a gun being cocked. That gives her pause. “I don’t want to hurt you either,” he says calmly.
Jenny stops moving, stops fighting and her gaze mov
es to Seth in the darkness. I can barely see him, but I can see the glint of the gun.
Time moves slowly as I back away from her to stand and while I do, Seth lifts his gun the second she looks at him. He uncocks it. “I didn’t want to do that,” he admits to her, swallowing thickly. “Just calm down. We’re here to help you.”
It’s only then that I can take a good look at her.
What’s most alarming is how disoriented Jennifer is. She’s not skin and bones like I thought she’d be. Even through the grime that covers her skin, she has weight to her that lets me know she’s been eating. Her eyes though are dark with lack of sleep and fear drives every half step she takes as she backs away, trying to get away from us, but knowing the wall is behind her.
With her gaze darting from me, to the gun, to Seth, she crouches down and stares up at us, ready to scream and fight.
“We’re here to help you.” I keep my voice low as I speak. The ringing in my ears from the gun she just fired has dulled. All I can hear now is her ragged breathing.
Seth tells her calmly, lowering himself down with both hands in the air, “We’re here to save you.”
I do the same, raising my hands and letting her know, “We’re not here to hurt you.”
With wild eyes full of disbelief, she shakes her head, letting us know she doesn’t believe us.
“I’m not leaving without you,” I tell her and the thin girl shoves her weight against me and her ragged nails scratch down my neck. Seething in the slight pain and more pissed than anything, I snatch her wrists and hold her close. “Calm down.”
“You’re not taking me,” she screams out. Even held close, she doesn’t stop fighting. It’s useless though. She has to know it, but she doesn’t stop. Kicking out and wriggling to get away, she never lets up. Pressing her against the wall, I’m careful not to hurt her, just to keep her as still as I can until she can calm down.
“We’re taking you to your sister.” Seth has the common sense to bring up Bethany.
“Bethany asked us to save you,” I tell her and add, “I told her I’d bring you back.”
