Chapter 26
Hunter
Back then, I thought it was better to be hated than forgotten.
I’d kick and scream and bloody someone’s face before I’d ever let them forget me.
I’d see other kids’ mothers, picking them up from school, and wonder if my own mother even remembered I existed, most days.
The rules were easy.
Don’t rely on anyone.
Don’t expect anything from them. Then, they can’t hurt me.
They’ll never even be given a chance to forget me.
It was that simple.
Then a pretty boy went and fucked it all up.
When I realize Rayne isn’t going to show up, the feeling settles inside me like I was destined to feel this way all along.
I’m down at the end of the street, where Red Row dips into a forested path that leads down to a grass field that looks over the town below, just far enough away from the college campus.
I found the grass field the first night I was here.
When I couldn’t stomach the idea of being in Onyx House yet. I left my father’s house and came here instead. I slept in my car, parked along a little road that backs up to the grass.
But the new feeling settling in my chest isn’t hot, like when I crave violence.
It isn’t cold either, like when the world disappoints me, over and over.
It’s something more like certainty.
Fate, maybe, if that’s something to be believed.
Of course he isn’t going to come.
I have a picnic set up for us down in the field.
Basket, and all.
The kind of thing people with normal lives have, because they’re not worried about being stalked or turning into a violent stalker themselves.
There are strawberries in the little basket, of course.
His favorite.
Also caprese sandwiches, with the freshest mozzarella and the last of the good tomatoes and basil of the season. An avocado cucumber salad.
Little jars full of whiskey, and cans of Coke to mix with them.
I pace back and forth at the end of the street, looking down the forested path where I thought we’d walk together hand in hand.
Like some fucking movie.
Really let myself get carried away.
But now I’ve been waiting for thirty minutes, and I know damn well Rayne was only five minutes away, up the street.
From here, all I see is a curve in the road that leads up onto Red Row.
I can’t see the houses themselves, only the tops of their roofs that show through the patches in the canopy of leaves and branches. Every leaf is gold now, and many have fallen.
The ending of a season.
The start of a new one.
And there’s that ever-present voice in my head, reminding me.
I will always be alone.
I will always be alone.
Part of me doesn’t want to confront the truth. If I walk back up the road to Onyx House, will he be there to look me in the eye and tell me this was all a sick joke?
Like a girl stood up for prom in high school, with the popular jock driving by only to see the expression drop on her face?
For my entire life, until now, I would default to that thought.
But fucking Rayne Colson.
Rayne’s put another idea into my head.
One that never had any business belonging there.
Maybe Rayne’s missing, and not answering his phone, because something actually did come up.
And the moment that thought enters my head, a flash of something else fills my veins.
A desperate fear.
Fear like a smack to the face.
Something I truly never thought I’d feel this strongly again.
No.
I’ve left him alone.
In danger.
The way I’ve been trying to prevent.
Slipping up for the first time all semester, and forgetting the most important goddamned thing: I need to protect him.
I realize my mistake the moment the adrenaline hits my blood, and I take off up the steep hill that leads around the curve in the street.
My heart begins to pound.
My feet crunch on fallen leaves, and I watch as the last of the sunlight slants across the road, forming deep shadows until it disappears behind the horizon.
Ever since the notes appeared, targeting me and Weston, I’d made the mistake of getting comfortable, thinking that Rayne was in the clear, now.
But one thing is true about Rayne: he keeps good time.
He’s almost never late.
He keeps to his schedule, and when he can’t, he fucking calls.
“So fucking stupid,” I tell myself under my breath as I start to jog up the sidewalk, seeing the edge of the Double Daggers house first.
Maybe everything is fine.
But I should know better than to assume that, just because most people are gone from campus this week.
In London, the Thornwick crime family had a rule: their best business was always done either in a large crowd of people, or…
When nearly everyone was gone.
This week was the latter.
I start to smell campfire smoke in the air as I run past the Daggers house.
In my mind, I’m on my way to Onyx House.
But I never make it far enough.
I see a smear of blood in front of Luros House, along the sidewalk.
And then more little drips of blood, leading up the front walkway, inside.
Fresh blood.
Not dried up, not oxidized at all.
Something turns in my stomach.
No.
Luros girls are being attacked, too.
I can see the edge of a blazing fire in the backyard, contained neatly in the fire pit but with flames flying high.
Someone is here.
“Fuck. Fuck.”
I glance over at Onyx House, then back to the front of Luros. I make a snap decision and push open the heavy iron gate at the front of Luros, sprinting along their stone front walkway, past the rose gardens and up the front steps.
I don’t bother knocking.
Because I see a streak of blood on the front door, too. Like someone was struggling.
And in an instant, the fear and indecision leave my body.
A pin focus fills me, like a spotlight has suddenly been turned on.
And people are waiting for me to perform.
I have to fix this.
I can fix this, whatever the fuck is going on.
Just as I shove open one wooden front door of Luros House, I see a flash of movement past the side yard, from over at Onyx House.
I glance up and see a man there.
A man I don’t recognize at all, out on one of the second-floor balconies, looking around.
I freeze for a moment, watching him.
He doesn’t see me yet.
He’s wearing all black, and I can see that he’s holding a gun in his gloved hand. His hair is jet black and shiny, falling in a short swoop.
Hair that kind of looks like Briar’s.
What the fuck is going on?
As he looks around the balcony, he’s about to go back inside Onyx House, but then he sees me.
And the moment his eyes land on me, he positions his gun, pointing at me.
“No,” I say under my breath, ducking inside the front of Luros House right as the shot goes off, exploding through the calm of the street.
And then another shot.
Then a third.
I’m in the Luros entryway and I shove the wooden front door shut, locking it.
There’s more blood on the floor, leading up their curved staircase.
Even if I were capable of panicking, I don’t have time for it now. I need to know where this tiny trail of blood leads.
I may be moments away from my own death, but my life?
My life doesn’t matter.
All I need to know is that the person is safe.
Whether it’s the life of a girl who stayed here in Luros House, or…
Rayne.
And, fuck, my brother’s life, too.
I walk upstairs and find the only closed door in the upstairs hallway, and my heartbeat stills for a moment.
There’s something behind that door. I’m certain of it.
I take my steps lightly, because I may need the element of surprise. I reach for the knife in my pocket, flicking it open and gripping it in my palm.
My hands are steady.
And I’m fucking putting an end to this.
I push open the door and my heart drops when I see the inside of the room. And it’s like the wind is knocked out of me, when I realize the truth.
This is Briar’s room.
Along the windows, the little glass habitats she keeps for raising caterpillars into moths and butterflies.
And on the other end, two people tied up in chairs.
Two people who are very much still alive, and safe, other than being tied up.
I feel relief well up inside me like I’ve never felt before in my life.
They’re alive.
Weston and Rayne are here, alive, and right now they’re alone in the room.
“Rayne. Weston,” I say, the world going surreal.
They both have tape over their mouths. Some sadistic criminal needed them silent.
People I care about.
The two people who are most important to me in the world.
I run over and rip the tape from both of their mouths and in my peripheral vision, I can see that the blood is dripping from Rayne’s hand.
He’s crying the moment he can speak. “I heard gunshots outside. Hunter, I thought you were gone—”
“I’m here. I’m right here.”
“It’s her,” Rayne says, panicked. “Briar. She’s—she has a British accent, and she’s fucking trying to kill us, Hunter—”
“We need to get the fuck out of here. Now,” I tell them.
My knife is on the ropes that tie them up a moment later. I cut them both loose, and they stumble up, the wooden chairs clattering to the ground.
“She said she would be back when she found you. Her brother is here, too,” Weston says.
My brother is shaking, and his face is covered in tears, more afraid than I’ve ever seen him.
I head out into the hallway first, checking that no one is out there.
“Her brother,” I say. “That was him. Fuck. So they both went back over to Onyx House to find me? Is there anyone else at Onyx House right now?”
“Ollie and Noah,” Rayne says. “They’re the only ones.”
“Goddamnit.”
“No,” Weston says as we take the stairs down fast. “They left. Right before Briar’s brother found me in the backyard, Ollie and Noah decided to walk to get food before they played that video game.”
Hope floods me again.
“Then they’re safe. I saw Briar’s brother on a balcony at Onyx House a minute ago. He saw me. Shot at me. We need to leave right now. Out the back door.”
By the time we make it through to the back of Luros House, I can already hear their front door swinging open across the house.
I run with Rayne and Weston into the backyard, and we head through the grassy yard.