Chapter 26
BLADE
“Son of a bitch.” I wipe the blood from my cheek, feeling the sting where Rhys scratched me. I was this close to reaching one of the entrances to the cheer locker room, anxious to explain everything after Amelia’s text. But then I saw Catalina running into the woods, with Rhys following behind her like the predator he is.
As much as I wanted to hurry and get to Amelia, I couldn’t leave Catalina without help.
I caught up to Rhys once, but he caught me off guard with a tree branch to my face, and a fucking thorn dug into my cheek. So now, I’m stalking through the woods, pushing through the underbrush, trying to stay quiet.
Finally, I see them.
He has her pinned to a tree, his grip tight on her arm as he hisses something in her ear. I close the distance between us before making my presence known, not giving him the chance to run off.
“Rhys!” I shout. “What the hell are you doing?”
His face is flushed, beads of sweat forming on his brow as he turns to me. “She’s going to get me sent to jail if she tells anyone! I have to get rid of her.”
“ You deserve to be in jail! What the fuck were you thinking, man?!”
Rhys sighs, his face twisting with frustration. “I saw you that day with her, your arm over her shoulder, and I just… saw red. I took it out on her because I couldn’t take it out on…”
My blood runs hot, fists clenching at my sides. He did this because he… was jealous? “I’m not in love with you, nor will I ever be in love with you! Get that through your fucking head!”
I lunge forward, kicking him hard in the side, and he loses his grip on Catalina. “You’re kicked out from the group, effective immediately.” I throw a punch, landing it squarely on his jaw. He crashes to the ground, allowing me to hover over him and continue raining punches. “You’re getting the hell away from me, and especially Amelia, and never coming back.”
After a final kick to the gut, I turn to Catalina, who’s watching with wide eyes and a hint of relief on her face. I nod towards the direction we came from, urging her to escape this fucking nightmare she’s been through.
She doesn’t hesitate, scrambling away from us. As I turn back to Rhys, my heart is still racing, pounding wildly like it’s in competition with my erratic breathing.
Why did I let it get this far?
Why did I let a predator in my vicinity for so long? And worse, in Amelia’s vicinity.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
I should have gotten rid of him at the first sign of trouble, when he practically forced himself on me— watching me sleep, touching my junk after I said no.
Those memories flood back, reigniting my anger. I kick him in the back of the head, hard enough to knock him out cold. He doesn’t get to walk away from this with just a few punches. That’s not enough.
Still panting from the adrenaline, I grab my phone and dial one of the guys from the house, Nate.
“Hey, what’s up?” he answers.
“Hey, uh, you have a big van, right?”
“Yeah… why?”
“I need you to come pick up Rhys from the woods behind the cheerleading locker room. Hurry up because he’ll be waking up in twenty minutes or so. Take him to the dungeon.”
“Be there in eight.”
It takes me five minutes to drag Rhys’s dead weight through the woods, straining as I hoist him over my shoulder and dump him by my car. Another three minutes to find rope in the trunk and tie his arms and legs. By the time I finish, I see the headlights of Nate’s clunky old white van cutting through the trees.
Nate hops out, looking confused. “What the hell happened?”
“He’s a sick pig. Just help me.” Together, we heave his unconscious body into the back of Nate’s van. “When you get there, tell the dungeon master three weeks. The code to drop somebody off is 21123.”
The dungeon is a place nobody wants to go, even the toughest of members break. The only food they offer is water and the dead bodies of other prisoners, if not, you starve. Screams play on repeat, the temperatures swing between extremes, the walls and floors are pure metal, and the unusual methods of torture…
When Nate’s van disappears into the distance, my mind immediately drifts back to the other problem at hand. I sink into the front seat of my car, pull out my phone, and check for a text. Still none.
Fuck.
It’s been nearly an hour since her cheerleading practice ended, and the coach said she left the building already. Amelia never ignores my texts. Never . I know she’s mad at me, but she’s been mad before and still answered.
My anxiety ratchets up with each passing second. Instead of texting, I decide to call Rhett. The second he picks up, I blurt out, “Are you guys on the way back to the house?” I can’t hide the urgency in my voice.
I get fidgety if I’m away from her for too long, and I haven’t seen her in the past couple of days, tied up doing something for John. This afternoon was supposed to be the first chance to see her before she went off later tonight to Frankie’s dorm.
“Um, no, she’s still at practice,” Rhett says, but there’s something off, he sounds… suspicious.
“No, she’s not. I pay the coach to text me every time practice ends. That text came over an hour ago. And even if she didn’t, your voice just went up a pitch, which means you’re lying. So, I’m going to give you one more chance to tell the truth. I’m already dealing with too fucking much.”
“Okay, okay. She asked me to cover for her. She seemed excited about going somewhere. I figured she and Frankie planned something, like a girl’s thing. I’ve been… looking for her.” He sighs.
“Jesus fucking Christ! Why do you never do your job correctly?! First you let Jacob corner her in a bar bathroom and now this!” Fuck this. I’m hanging up.
I take a deep breath, trying to steady my nerves and punch in Frankie’s number. Hoping and praying that Rhett was right about where she went. The phone rings endlessly. Do people not know how to answer their damn phones these days?!
I start tapping my finger on my pants leg.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
The synchronized tapping gives me something to focus on, coupled with the counting in my head, but it only works for a short while.
Finally, after it feels like multiple lifetimes have passed, Frankie answers, but her voice is weak and croaky. “Where’s Amelia?” I get right to the point, who the fuck cares about saying ‘hello’ right now?
“How would I know?”
“I swear to God, Frankie. If you’re covering for her…”
“I’ve been sick in my dorm room all day! I had to text her to reschedule our spa night for tomorrow. You don’t hear my nasally voice right now? Ask Asher. He’s coming by to bring me chicken noodle soup… and dick. Hehe.”
I let out a frustrated grunt and slam my fist against the steering wheel. “Fuck!”
“Calm down, tough guy. I’m sure your period isn’t on yet. If you’re so worried, why don’t you track her necklace? My dad tried giving me one of those to track me but I said no way, Jose. And some other choice words too.”
A surge of hope races through my chest, a sudden, almost dizzying sensation that cuts through the noise in my head. Fuck yes. “I forgot about that.” Somehow, in my crazy, distressed, angry fit, my brain decided to forget about the one thing that could help me. Stupid brain. I scramble to open the app linked to the necklace, and a red dot pops up instantly on the map. “Oh my god, I love you, Frankie.”
“Eh, you’re not so bad either. Sometimes.”
I drive for a tense fifteen minutes, moving away from the campus and most other bustling life. The GPS leads me to a two-story, dingy motel.
She’s at a motel?
The place is almost deserted, surrounded by trees, and eerily quiet. Her black sports car shines in the sunlight, parked right out front.
Worst-case scenarios hit me like a tidal wave, making it hard to think straight. Is some guy about to die today because he decided to touch what’s mine? Rhett said she was excited when she left.
She was excited .
To come to a motel .
That she’s been at for an hour now.
I should burn this whole fucking place down, with her and whoever is stupid enough to touch her still inside.
Using the tracker, I navigate through the hallways until I zero in on the exact room. I want the element of surprise, so instead of knocking, I head to the small room behind the front desk for the key. There’s a scrawny guy, probably in his late twenties, who looks like he smokes more weed than he eats food.
“Key to room 2B,” I demand.
“Name and ID?” He’s chewing on something as he talks, and it annoys the fuck out of me.
“You won’t have a name or an identification yourself if you don’t give me the fucking key now .”
His head snaps back in shock, eyebrows shooting up. “Uh, I’m gonna call—” he stammers, reaching for the phone in front of him. It’s a stupid mistake to put a limb in such a vulnerable position. I seize the opportunity to grab his hand, feeling the resistance as I apply pressure, bending his fingers back one by one. His high-pitched shriek fills the air, accompanied by the sickening crack of his ring finger.
“Are you going to give me the key now? Because this is just phase one. Phase two involves blood.”
“Yes, yes, o-okay,” he stutters, fumbling for the keys on the desk with his free hand. “T-that room doesn’t seem to have an extra key. I have to give you the master key. It’s up at the front desk.”
“Hurry up. And if you try anything, I’m breaking the rest of your fingers.”
When he comes back, I practically sprint to the room, my pulse racing in anticipation of what I might find. I slide the key into the lock, and the click that follows echoes in my ear. I kick the door open, ready for anything.
Except this.
Skye is sitting on the bed, her head buried in her hands, sobbing. For a split second, I freeze, caught off guard. Then my shock transforms into pure. fucking. rage.
“Where is she?!” I roar, crossing the room in two quick strides.
Her head jerks up. Her mouth falls open in shock, eyes widening as a stream of tears spill down her cheeks. “Please… Pl—”
I grab her by the hair and fling her to the floor. “I didn’t ask for your fucking tears. I asked, where is she?!” She lands with a yelp, her sobs growing louder, but still no answer. “Where. Is. She?” I step before her, pressing my boot into her back. “With the right angle, I can kill you right now with just my boot on your back.”
“Jacob! Jacob made me do it. Please, I didn’t want to.”
The mention of his name sends a wave of nausea ripping through my gut, twisting into a painful knot. The intensity of it nearly makes me topple over, but I grit my teeth and stay standing, fighting through the suffocating wave of dread that threatens to swallow me whole.
He’s a dead fucking man walking, and I mean that with every fiber of my being. The second I see him, he’ll have to meet the devil and tell him all about how he was stupid enough to touch my girl.
“Where did he take her?” I push harder on her back.
“I don’t know! I just did what he said. He told me to lure her here and stick her with a sedative so he could take her. Please, he said he would kill me if I didn’t.”
“You’re lucky you’re the only one with insider access to Jacob.” I remove my boot. “Get up and call him. Ask for any information you can. And where’s Amelia’s necklace?”
She sits up, pointing shakily towards the nightstand. When I glance over, I spot Amelia’s necklace sitting beside her cellphone, the silver chain tangled slightly, and next to them, a small pink hair bow.
I feel like I’ve been stabbed in my chest, the air ripped from my lungs, leaving nothing but raw, burning fury and… fear . Crippling, paralyzing fear.
She’s really gone.