Chapter 14 Everly
EVERLY
“Grave, you know you don’t have to shield your number,” I said with a grin.
But the chuckle on the other end of the line shot the hairs on the back of my neck up.
It wasn’t Grave. I didn’t know who it was or what they wanted, but I knew that laugh wasn’t Grave’s.
I shot up from the porch swing and my glass went crashing to the floor.
It shattered into a million pieces as I scurried for the door.
My eyes darted around, looking through the woods to see if anyone was watching me.
Then I shoved my way into the cabin and locked the door behind me.
“That cabin is quaint,” the voice said.
“Who is this?” I asked.
I ripped the kitchen cabinets open until I found the toolbox. I pulled it out and took the crowbar from the top of the pile of instruments and made my way into the bathroom.
“Your brother trusted you.”
“My brother’s a murderer,” I said. “Just like the rest of you.”
“Your brother’s loyal. Which is something you’ll never be.”
I slammed myself into the bathroom at the end of the hallway and locked the door.
I looked around for something. Anything to help me barricade myself in.
There was heavy breathing on the other end of the line and I didn’t recognize the voice and my heart was slamming a thousand miles a second against my chest.
This wasn’t good.
Someone knew where this cabin was.
“Who is this?” I asked breathlessly.
“You should let Grave know that Diesel put you at risk,” the voice said.
“What? What are you talking about?”
“Leaving the woods was a very bad thing to do.”
I looked down at the phone and pulled up a text message. I pressed Grave’s name and pressed the letters on the screen as fast as I could. Tears were threatening to spill down my cheeks and my hands were shaking violently.
They know where we are. You left and they followed. I need you. Help.
“What do you want?” I asked.
The heavy breathing on the phone stopped and I thought the call had been disconnected. I pulled my phone out and saw the seconds still counting down. I peeked out of the bathroom and held the crowbar tightly in my hand, but a thunderous crack sounded against the door.
I screamed until tears ran down my cheeks.
“Do you hear that?” the voice asked.
Another rumble rocked the house and I crouched down into the bathtub.
“Do you see how easy it is to touch you?”
“Please. Please stop,” I said, sobbing into the phone.
“Rex trusted you,” the voice said. “You’re his sister. His only family. And you betrayed him.”
Something was thrown through the window and the crashing glass made me shriek.
The phone dropped to the tub and the speakerphone button was pressed and the voice suddenly filled the room around me.
Echoing off the corners of the tiled shower as resounding thumps and fists fell against the front door.
The side of the house.
Windows that were crashed and broken and mutilated for the sake of scaring the shit out of me.
This was it.
I was going to die.
“You get one chance,” the voice said. “One chance to go home, pick up your life, and move on. You have a job you enjoy, right? At the grocery store in town?”
“Stop it,” I said with a whimper. “Please.”
“You can stop all of this. Your silence is all that’s required.”
“You won’t get away with this,” I said.
The front door crashed open and I leapt from the bathtub.
I reached for the crowbar and poised it over my head.
I stood there, with my knees bent and one foot in front of the other.
Ready to beat the shit out of anyone that came crashing through that bedroom door.
The heavy breathing on the other end of the line could be heard coming down the hallway.
Whoever was on the phone with me was in the cabin.
Walking down the hallway.
Cornering me with no chance of escaping.
Silent tears rushed down my cheeks and my hands began to tremble. The bones from my body were evaporating from the heat of my fear and it felt like my entire body was about to collapse. I leaned against the wall, trying to catch my breath through my tears.
I saw a shadow approach the bathroom door underneath the crack before the boot-falls stopped.
“I know you’re in there,” the voice said.
The call hung up and there was nothing but me and the faceless voice behind the bathroom door.
“Everly,” he said in a sing-song voice. “You really should answer.”
I was scared speechless. My heart felt like it was about to explode.
Bile was rising up the back of my throat and the crowbar was slowly slipping from my grasp.
I’d always prided myself in my strength.
In my ability to be able to do what was right despite the challenges facing me.
I’d weathered through so much. Taken on so much at such a young age.
But none of that was anything compared to the blind, senseless, muted fear and panic I felt flooding my veins.
Nothing compared to being on the brink of death.
“Silence,” the voice said with a whisper. “Silence in exchange for your safety.”
My lips were quivering as tears washed down my neck.
“Do we have a deal?” the man asked.
I opened my mouth to speak but nothing came out.
“I said do we have a deal!?”
The door shook as the man’s fists came down upon it and I fell to my knees.
I ducked my head down and covered myself with my arms as I sobbed into my knees.
Over and over, I chanted ‘yes’. Gave him my word I wouldn’t talk.
Wouldn't speak. Wouldn’t say anything else.
He was laughing at me. Chuckling as the sound of fingernails against the wooden door filtered through from the other side.
He was toying with me.
Playing with his food before he ate it.
“I hope you keep your word this time. Because not even Grave can stop a bullet,” the man said.
I sobbed. Audibly sobbed. I no longer cared who was listening or what kind of image I was portraying.
The chuckling torturer started moving again, only this time his footfalls fell away from the bathroom.
Down the hallway. Towards the living room and out the front door.
I could hear glass breaking underneath his feet as my head slowly rose from my knees.
I held my breath until I heard the sound of a motorcycle starting up in the distance, then I threw myself over to the toilet.
I heaved. Vomited. Spewed bile as my entire body rebelled.
The burning of my throat and the aching pain in my eyes were the only two things keeping me rooted to reality.
My hands grasped the edges of the toilet and my stomach flared out of control.
Contracting and releasing. Pushing its contents into the water until there was nothing left but my tears rippling the murky tides.
I didn’t know what to do.
I didn’t know where to go.
I had nowhere else. I couldn't go home, but I’d given him my word that I would.
But it wasn’t possible. The bullet holes and the memories.
The broken windows from lead flying through them.
Everything I touched seemed to be crumbling away and I couldn't take it any longer.
I slid to the floor and grabbed a towel from behind me, wiping my mouth off and blotting at my eyes.
My cheek pressed into the cold linoleum floor before I draped the rough fabric over my body.
Part of me wanted to run. To get my things and head into the woods until I was away from Grave and my brother and everything else.
I could start again. I wouldn’t have much money to my name, but I would have some.
Enough to get a cheap place for a few months and live off ramen noodles until I could find a job that would support me somehow.
I wouldn’t be able to use my time at the grocery store as a reference.
I’d be starting completely from scratch.
Maybe I’d make a good waitress in a diner somewhere.
Or a customer service representative working from home.
Home.
Did I have a home anymore?
I cried until there were no more tears to cry.
I was scared, but I was also exhausted. Grave couldn't protect me. And his crew or whatever was obviously not concerned about me. If they were, they wouldn't have made Grave go back into town. They wouldn’t have put me as risk like that. At the very least, they would’ve let me go with Grave so I wasn’t unattended.
They didn’t give a shit about me.
Just like my brother.
I had to get out of there. I had to get away from them.
But not because of some idiotic promise I made.
But because it was for my own good. I’d gotten tangled up into something I was never going to get out of.
My written testimony was already submitted, I’d be killed before the trial.
If I ran, I would be hunted. If my written testimony didn’t work, lawyers or someone would probably find a way to throw me in jail to try and smoke me out.
I was just another pawn in some stupid game people were playing, and I didn’t like it.
I was many things, but a pawn wasn’t one of them.
I knew I needed to run, but I was too tired.
So, I closed my eyes and fell asleep on the floor of the bathroom.
I didn’t know where Grave was, or if he was even coming back.
For all I knew, he left me out here to fend for myself.
I let the darkness all around me engulf me in its cold grasp, and I curled tighter into my body as flashes of images came to mind.
Rex and I playing in the backyard. Me curled up in his bed during a thunderstorm that crashed a tree in our yard.
Him and I hiking the red cliffs and exploring the desert.
The first time Rex needed stitches.
It was like my mind was reminding me of all the things my brother and I used to be.
And I didn’t know why. It was my own personal ring of Hell.
My own personal torture to be reminded of how close my brother and I used to be.
How much love there used to be between us.
We were all each other had, and now we had nothing.
I had nothing.
My eyes fluttered open and my throat was sore.
My lips were chapped and I knew my eyes were swollen.
I was having a hard time opening them. I sat up from the floor and reached for the crowbar, readying myself in case someone was back.
I was completely vulnerable to any attack at this point.
All of the windows sounded like they’d been smashed and I knew the front door was splintered and useless.
I was a sitting duck and my brother’s disgusting club knew where I was.
It was only a matter of time before they came for me.
The longer I sat there, the number I became to the idea.
The anything, really. The fear in my veins finally dissipated and all that was left was the numbness in my fingers.
My toes. My mind. Was this what it felt like?
To accept fate? Or death? It was an odd sort of peace.
Not the kind people talk about, but the kind that still provides relief.
Nothing mattered any longer. Not Grave. Not my brother.
Not my job or the home I couldn’t go back to.
There were no more images or memories to torture me and no more boots falling heavily against the floor.
There was only me, the dusty bathroom, and the warm metal of the crowbar as I twirled it in my fingers.
This was it.
This was what acceptance of a certain dangerous fate felt like.
I heard a motorcycle off in the distance.
I heard the engine revving and the tires skidding.
I heard branches breaking and rocks spitting as it pulled up to the side of the cabin.
It was here. My fate. And oddly enough, I wasn’t scared.
I watched my fist grip the crowbar until my knuckles turned white, then I stood to my feet.
I was stronger than I remembered. My legs were alive and tingling with the blood rushing through them.
They were here to take me out. To silence me after psychologically torturing me.
But they weren’t going to take me easily.
I was going to beat the living shit out of as many of them as I could before they loaded my body with bullets.
Maybe my death would shock some sense into Rex.
I turned towards the bathroom door and eyed it heavily. I heard the motorcycle shut off as I pair of boots ran around the house. I circled the crowbar at my side and jumped up and down, readying myself for a fight. Maybe if I was lucky, I could fight my way out and steal one of their motorcycles.
But even if I couldn’t, that was okay.
I heard the boots slam against the porch steps before someone stepped through into the house. The glass crunched underneath their feet and I could hear a franticness to their movements. Cabinets were being thrown open and I heard the sound of a grunt.
And my ears perked up when the word ‘fuck’ wafted down the hallway.
“Everly!”
It took my mind a second to process that voice.
“Everly! Where the fuck are you!?”
The crowbar slipped from my fingers and my hand reached for the door. Tears of happiness welled in my eyes. I practically ripped the door off its hinges trying to get it open fast enough, and when I did my eyes laid themselves onto the most incredible sight.
Grave.
Grave was standing at the end of the hallway.