Chapter 39
Alice
My chin drops, brushing against my chest, jolting me back to reality. The urgency in the air is palpable.
Keep your eyes open. Sutton’s coming.
Desperate, I cling to hope like a lifeline. My tongue, dry and cracked, sweeps over my parched lips as I watch Ernest pace in front of me. I’m so thirsty. My thoughts are muddled, as if I’m trying to solve a problem that makes no sense.
As if coming to a decision, he trains his gun on me and crosses to where I sit slumped in the metal chair. His fingers wrap tightly around my bicep, his thumb brushing over my sensor. He wrenches my arm behind my back, making my shoulder scream.
“What is this? Are they tracking this?”
Ernest rips the sensor off without waiting for my answer.
“What else do you have on you? Goddamn that useless fucker, too scared to touch a woman that he can’t even give you a proper pat down.”
Ernest yanks me out of the metal chair and folds me face down onto the wooden table. Panic swells inside me, the position too vulnerable for rational thought. My toes brush against the concrete floor. He finds the pod on my abdomen and yanks that off too, crushing my lifelines beneath his boot.
He jerks me upright. “You need those to live, don’t you?”
The edges of my vision blur as my eyes flit between his, finding them devoid of humanity and hollow.
He laughs, the sound satisfied like he can’t believe his luck. “I can read it on your face. Good. Maybe I can keep my hands clean after all.”
“Please let me go. I won’t say anything. I’ll say it was all Jake.”
Ernest barks out a laugh at my plea, shoving me back into the chair. “That’s what they all say.”
“You’ve done this before?”
He scratches beneath his chin with the barrel of the gun as I wish it would accidentally discharge.
“Nope. First time, actually.” He grins, venom in his voice. “Never had to shut up a conceited bitch before.”
I blink slowly, exhaustion weighing down my eyelids. “I didn’t do anything to you.”
His expression shifts, anger twisting his features. He swings the gun at me. “There. There it is again. That fuckin’ tone. You think you’re so innocent, but you’re exactly like your brother.”
“So you’re going to kill me?”
He shakes his head. “I won’t have to kill anybody. You’re going to do what I tell you, and let’s just say that natural order will take over.”
Ernest fumbles with the microphone on the table, carefully arranging one in front of me and the other in front of himself. He checks the red LED indicators on both, ensuring they’re properly set up. With one hand gripping the microphone, he trains the gun on me with the other.
“State your name,” he demands.
My voice comes out in a raspy whisper. “Alice Jane Thompson.”
“Age.”
“Thirty-two.”
“Location.”
My heart constricts as I name the only place that’s ever felt like home. “Fairview Valley, Minnesota.”
“Now tell the listeners, law enforcement, judges, and jury. Have we met?”
“No.”
“You’ve never seen me before?”
“No.” My voice grows harsher, almost a growl.
“Do you have any knowledge of my relationship with your brother?” he asks as if he’s a prosecutor, and I’m back on the witness stand at trial.
“No.”
“Interesting.” He leans back in his chair, palm pressed flat on the wooden table. “Very interesting. I was hoping you’d say—”
Metal screeches across the concrete as Jake launches up from the floor and tackles Ernest to the ground.
The men become a blur of tangling limbs, of flesh hitting flesh, their bodies colliding with force.
Grunts and the sounds of struggle fill the abandoned space.
I shove to my feet, stumbling into the table, my legs weak.
Turning away from the chaos, I move toward the back of the room, feeling as if I’m moving through molasses, every step heavy and slow.
Keep going. Don’t stop. Find Nellie and run.
A gun goes off, followed by the sound of one man’s heavy breathing.
“Stop, or the next bullet is in your skull,” Ernest warns.
I squeeze my eyes shut.
“Is he dead?” I ask, not daring to speak louder than a whisper.
“Fuck. I didn’t want to kill him. This is your fault, you bitch.”
In the split second before I can decide what to do, his hand wraps around my bicep, and he tows me across the room. I trip over rotting cardboard and damp packaging, slipping on spilled screws.
“I’m not going back to prison, and I sure as fuck am not going back underground. I’ve got to get out of here,” he says with finality.
The hair stands up on the back of my neck, and bile rises in my throat.
Pain explodes across my temple, and I crumple to the ground like a puppet with its strings clipped. A cry echoes around the space. My skin scrapes against the concrete, and blood pools in my mouth from my teeth slicing my tongue.
Metal hinges creak, the only warning of something new before I’m shoved forward into a red metal box. My consciousness swims, and I fight to hold on to it with everything left.
“You’ll finally know what it’s like to have everything taken from you.
Stripped away like you’re nothing, and left to rot in a confined space.
The difference between you and me, sweetheart?
” Ernest yanks the hair at the back of my head, tipping my chin to his face.
“You’ll die in here. Slowly. And it won’t be me who kills you. Your body will.”
The metal doors slap shut, a lock clicking into place.
My breath becomes thin, anxiety creeping in like an invisible force. Followed immediately by the sobs.
I wipe my palms over my eyes, finding them dry.
Those aren’t my sobs.
I feel around the metal box and bang against the back. The sound of crying drowns out everything else except my rapid breaths and knocking fists.
“Nellie? Are you there?” I cough, choking over my own panic. “It’s Alice.”
My vision blurs.
I lean my throbbing head against the cold metal corner, eyes drifting closed.
“I love you, kiddo.” Inhale. “Love you like my own.” Exhale.
“I’m here.”
Stay awake.
“I’m here.”
Sutton’s coming.
“I’m sorry.”
My lashes flutter against my cheeks, my breath rapid and shallow.
Outside the box, there’s a crash.
A familiar voice rises above the commotion, harsh and furious. “Fairview Valley Police. Drop the weapon.”
My heart jolts before tripping over itself. Sutton’s here. Sutton found us.
Voices shout. A single pop of a bullet. More in rapid succession.
Three, four, five.
I lose count. I try to call out, but my voice produces no sound. The saliva in my mouth has long since dried. The skin of my lips sticks together and cracks as I move them.
“Alice!” My name wrapped in Sutton’s deep voice has never sounded so good.
The hum of voices calling for me starts to drown out the sobs.
Picking up my fist, I weakly hit the side of the metal box. A small thud rings out. I pull it into my chest, throwing more force behind it, slamming it against the side.
Again.
Again.
And again.
“Quiet,” Sutton demands from nearby.
My fist keeps beating like a steady drum, even as my energy wanes.
“Over here!” he calls to the men I know he brought with him.
I keep hitting the side with my fist.
“That’s it, Alice. I can hear you, baby.”
The lock rattles on the metal storage unit.
“I need bolt cutters!”
The hinges groan, and light filters through my closed eyelids. Sutton’s familiar masculine scent floods into the enclosed space.
“Alice.” His voice is filled with both relief and agony.
“Sunny,” I croak. “Save Nellie.”
“Nellie’s safe. You did good, Firecracker.”
Relief floods my veins, followed by the weight of peaceful surrender.
“I need a blanket,” Sutton shouts, as he tucks me against his chest, hand sliding into my hair to hold me steady.
My head lolls into the junction where his shoulder meets his neck, my forehead pressing close.
“Need to tell you that I love you, Sunny,” I rasp, before I lose consciousness in his arms.