Chapter Twenty-Eight
HE DIDN’T COME.
Not that I was expecting him to, but still.
He didn’t show up for lunch. Which was okay because he did say he had some things to do, and if what he said was true and not just an excuse to get me out of there after what happened this morning, then his absence was almost expected.
I’m just not sure how to explain his absence from dinner once again when Haven lets it slip that she specifically told him she wanted him there after she slaved over the pot roast all day. Even Marsden showed up for it.
So basically, I haven’t seen him or heard from him all day, not after that parole officer incident, and it’s the middle of the night now.
I think it’s safe to say it’s over and I should stop overthinking and overanalyzing things.
It’s only going to hurt me more. Besides, I have a lifetime to drown in my sorrows, so I should probably focus on what’s happening right now.
Seeing as how my best friend is dragging me through the woods in the middle of the night with a map and a flashlight.
We’ve been walking for what seems like hours, but I’m sure it’s only been about thirty minutes.
I’m hot and sweaty and extremely anxious, cursing that I ended up here when I promised myself I’d never set foot in the woods again.
Actually, no, I promised myself I’d never set foot in the woods without him to keep me safe.
Something I’m only realizing now as I jump over yet another fallen branch.
Woods are scary, but he’s scarier. I need that and…
Don’t think about him.
I crash into Peyton when she stops, her nose buried in the map with her flashlight shining down on it. I mutter my apology, but she doesn’t care because a second later, she looks up and goes, “This is it.”
I look at what she’s looking at. “This doesn’t look like a barn.”
No, it looks like a cabin. The kind that he brought me to in the beginning.
Although this one’s more unkempt and dilapidated than his hunting cabin, with a broken railing and rickety stairs.
There’s also a couple of slats missing from the very small front porch.
Not to mention, this one seems to be deeper in the woods than the other one was.
Or maybe it just looks that way, with thick trees surrounding it in the middle of a half-moon night.
Peyton lowers the map, folds it, and puts it in a small pack she’s carrying on her back.
I still can’t believe she came this prepared.
When she shared her plan while we were cleaning up after dinner, I once again reminded her that she’s reaching.
That maybe we should find another angle because I don’t think there’s anything here.
But she wouldn’t listen.
And honestly, after that crazy hunch about the safe that I got myself, I couldn’t blame her.
Which was probably why I didn’t really sound as convincing as I could have.
But I never thought she’d sneak out to my room when it was time to get me.
She even brought a bottle of water—two bottles—with her in a backpack, as if we were really just going camping or hiking in the dead of night.
“I know,” she says, almost skipping on her feet in excitement. “The only reason I picked it to check out first was because it was so deep in the woods. I thought if they were trying to hide something, they’d probably go for a spot like this.”
“If they were trying to hide something, why would they put it on a map?” I retort, glancing at her out the corner of my eye, trying to sound all bold when my heart is racing in my chest.
“Maybe because they thought hiding in plain sight is better than actually hiding something,” she retorts back, glancing at me the same way.
I let out an anxious breath. “So what do we do now?”
“We do what we came here to do,” she says, walking forward as calm as you please like we’re not doing anything remotely dangerous and troubling. “We check it out.”
By that she means going around the front porch, spying a dirt-streaked window on the side, and going on our tiptoes to look inside.
Well, she’s at least being a little cautious about things.
Even though I don’t think there’s anything here worth finding, I still don’t want us to walk into something dangerous.
Besides, spying or not, neither of us is supposed to be here at all.
Except as soon as we look through the window, I discover I was wrong and there is something to find. And for the first few seconds, all I can do is stare at it.
At a head.
I almost get a sense of déjà vu from Arsen’s cabin, but it’s not an animal head. It’s the head of a human. A human man. That seems to be tilted to the side. Then I stare at the body it’s attached to. Or whatever I can see of it, since it’s sitting in a chair.
No, the body is tied to the chair, and it looks… dead.
“Holy shit,” Peyton breathes out from beside me.
“I don’t…”
I let my words hang in the air because I have absolutely no idea what I was going to say or what all of this means.
I can’t even believe that what I’m seeing is real.
Before I can gather my thoughts, Peyton moves.
She goes around me, heading to the front door, and my heart drops down to my stomach.
I already know what she’s going to do. She’s going to try to get in.
And I don’t think that’s a very good idea.
“Peyton,” I call out, going after her, keeping my voice low but urgent.
“We have to go in,” she says in the same tone and without looking back.
“No, we don’t.”
She’s already climbing the stairs, her steps careful. “We have to.”
“No, we do not.” I catch up to her at the landing and snatch her arm, halting her in her tracks. “You need to stop and think about this for a second. We don’t even know who this man is and—”
“Do you really care who this man is when it looks like”—she drops her voice to a whisper—“he’s dead.”
“But—”
“And what if he’s not and we still have time to save him?”
“Peyton, I don’t—”
She straightens her shoulders. “Can you really live with yourself knowing that you could’ve helped him but you didn’t?”
No, of course not. But I was thinking more along the lines of getting help.
Which basically means getting him help instead of barging into a situation we know absolutely nothing about.
But of course I can’t say that to Peyton when she already thinks the Graysons are trying to hide something.
Plus, I mean… there is a man tied up in here.
Even if there might be a good explanation for that, I can’t think of a possible one right now.
I can’t think of anything except that I want Arsen, and I want him to tell me what the hell is going on.
Since none of these things can happen and everything is over between us anyway, we have to take matters into our own hands.
I stare at her for a few seconds. “Fine, okay, damn it. But I think”—I look around—“we need a weapon. Or something. Something to protect us.”
I’m not sure how helpful it will be, but we do need something, some semblance of protection, and after a few seconds of looking, we each find a broken wooden slat.
She then uses hers to break the door open, the sound of which seems to echo in the quiet night, but we didn’t have a choice because the door was locked.
And then we’re in.
The only light is streaming through the dirty window so we can’t really see all that much, but now that we’re inside, we notice all the blood that’s streaked and pooled on the wooden floor. Not to mention that the man’s clothes, a torn shirt and a pair of pants, are stained with it too.
God, this is not good at all. Why would he be in here like this, all beaten up and bloody? Who is he?
We both rush over to him, and while Peyton tries to ascertain whether he’s alive or not—he is, she says—I tackle his tied hands.
It’s a tight and intricate knot, one that Arsen would use to bind me, and my heart jumps in my throat.
That doesn’t mean anything, right? Lots of people can tie a rope the same way.
I mean, there are only so many knots in the world that you can do.
Oh God.
Okay, I need to focus. While I’m tugging and pulling at the knot, Peyton is shaking him and tapping his cheek to wake him up. Just as I’m successful in untying the rope, he grunts. His shoulders move and his tilted head straightens up.
“Oh my God,” Peyton exclaims, still bent over him. “Are you okay?”
He groans again, and just as I’m rounding to the front, his eyes blink open and I ask, “Can you hear us?”
Now that I’m not distracted by other things, I notice that his face is all banged up.
One of his eyes is swollen shut, and there are bruises and cuts all over his face.
What happened to him? His one good eye slowly finds focus and he stares at us, one by one, as Peyton says, “You’re fine, all right.
You’re gonna be okay. We’re going to help you. ”
He frowns, and his gaze moves over to me.
Something about it gives me a bad feeling.
I can’t say why because his eye is all bloodshot and still foggy, but alarm bells are going off in my head as he takes us both in, all silently.
Still, I swallow and assure him, “Yeah, it’s going to be okay. Do you… Do you know where you are?”
“Yeah, do you know what happened?” Peyton adds.
He swallows, rolling his shoulders. At which point he realizes that he’s free, and his good eye goes alert and my internal alarm starts blaring for some reason.
Slowly, he brings his arms forward and looks at them.
The ropes are still tied around his wrists in a loop, but he can use his hands just fine.