Chapter 5 Kreed
KREED
Kenny scooted to the edge of her bed. Carson sat beside her, shoulders squared and spine rigid like her self-appointed guard dog. His mouth was set in a deep frown, disapproval in his features.
I refocused my energy back on Kenny. “Start from the beginning,” I said, dropping into a crouch in front of her. “From the second they took you.”
Her eyes flicked to mine, fingers twisting restlessly together. “I don’t remember everything,” she whispered.
“That’s okay. Just start with what you do remember. We’ll put a timeline together.”
Carson muttered a curse under his breath.
Kenny’s gaze darted to him, and she took his hand, squeezing it, offering him comfort when he should be the one giving her support.
“I was taken right after second period,” she began after a deep breath.
“Someone grabbed me on the back stairs by the gym.” Her eyes closed briefly as if she were watching a movie projected against her eyelids.
“There’s a service entrance there, staff parking, mostly.
Teachers don’t really use that area. I remember the smell of grease,” she continued, her nose wrinkling slightly as if the scent still lingered in the air.
I nodded, filing away each detail. “Good. What happened next?”
“They put something over my head. It smelled like cigarettes and body odor, and I couldn’t see anything.” Her voice wavered, but she pressed on. “I think the fabric might have had a symbol on it. I started to get so tired. It was hard to keep my eyes open.”
“Did you notice how long the drive was?” I asked, rising from my crouch to pace the small space between her bed and the desk, my thoughts racing.
She chewed on the corner of her lip. “I’m not sure. Maybe an hour? It could have been more. I blacked out for part of it.”
I stopped pacing and turned to face her fully. This wasn’t enough. I needed more details, more specifics. I needed her to stop remembering and start experiencing it again. “Can you show me?” I asked.
Carson’s head snapped toward me, eyes blazing. “What?”
“I need her to show me.” I moved toward the door. “Walking through it might shake loose details she isn’t remembering.”
“Are you kidding? What, you’re suddenly a psychiatrist? She’s been through enough. She’s not going anywhere.” Carson shot to his feet, positioning himself between Kenny and me. “Least of all with fucking you.”
But Kenny stood too, her legs unsteady but her voice growing stronger. “Yes, I am.”
Carson whirled toward her, his face a mask of protective fury. “You’re not strong enough for this. Look at you…you’re barely keeping it together.”
“I don’t care, Car.” She touched Carson’s arm, drawing his gaze to her. “She saved me. I wouldn’t be here if Kaylor hadn’t come. She’s our best friend. We can’t abandon her.”
“You know I would never, but that doesn’t mean I’m not worried about you, too,” Carson said, putting his hand over hers.
“I’m okay,” she assured.
“If you don’t want to come, you should stay here,” I offered, knowing he would see it as a challenge. “I don’t need you getting in my way.”
“If she’s going, then so am I,” Carson stated.
So predictable. “Is that what you said to Kaylor when you let her get out of your car last night?” I couldn’t stop the judgment. He rubbed me the wrong way. I didn’t trust him, and I’d bet my life there was more to his story than he was telling.
“You don’t think I tried to stop her,” Carson hissed.
“Well, you didn’t try hard enough. I never would have let her out of the fucking car. Let alone allow her to go by herself.”
Carson’s laugh was humorless. “No, because you’re a controlling, possessive asshole. That’s the difference between us. I allow my best friend to make her own choices.”
My jaw flexed. I didn’t shove him though it took effort. “And look how well that turned out.”
“Guys,” Kenny cut in, her voice raising a tad too loud. I didn’t want to risk waking her parents. “For real. This is not helping. Fighting isn’t going to get us anywhere.”
Carson’s nostrils flared, but he dropped his gaze to the floorboards, guilt flashing across his face. Good.
She was right. I dragged a hand through my hair, forcing air into my lungs. “Come on,” I muttered. “We need to get past the cop outside. I can’t have him getting in our way.”
“And how do you propose we do that?” Carson asked.
“The same way I got in. Through the window,” I replied.
Carson scoffed. “Or we could have you arrested for breaking and entering.”
“And how,” I asked quietly, “would that help Kaylor?”
He shut the fuck up after that, and we moved through the house, heading downstairs and out the window I’d snuck through.
I held my finger up to my lips, signaling for them to keep quiet as I peeked around the corner.
The officer still had his hands full with my brother.
If I wasn’t mistaken, Raine was about to be detained.
Waving my hand for them to follow, I retraced my steps back to my SUV, opening the passenger door for Kenny to climb in.
Carson took the seat behind her. “What are we waiting for?” he asked when I didn’t immediately drive off.
“My brother,” I muttered, glancing in the rearview mirror for any signs Raine had ditched the cop.
“This is such a bad fucking idea,” Carson grumbled, rubbing his hands together to fight off the cold.
Raine materialized seconds later, scaring Kenny. She jumped in the front seat, her hand flying to her heart. Raine’s eyebrows shot up when he saw Kenny in his spot and slipped into the backseat beside Carson.
“Long story,” I muttered as he settled in, pulling the door shut with a solid thud.
Five minutes later, we pulled up to Elmwood Academy. I steered the car toward the teacher’s parking lot and stopped in front of the side doors. “Is this where they took you out of school?” I asked as gently as I could.
Her stare went to the door and locked on. Every feature on her pixie-like face froze.
“Kenny?” I prompted, drawing her out of the memory that I assumed captured her.
She drew in a deep breath and nodded.
“Okay,” I said, rolling down her window. “Close your eyes.”
She blinked at me, confusion shimmering across her features. “What?”
“Close them. Breathe deep.” I leaned forward slightly. “Don’t think about what you saw. Don’t try to remember the visual details. Think about what you felt. What you heard. What you smelled.”
She obeyed, her eyelids fluttering shut, lashes casting small shadows on her cheeks in the dim light.
For a moment, she was completely still. The entire car paused, poised as we waited to see what would happen next.
Then her nostrils flared slightly. “It was snowing,” she whispered, her fingers fidgeting in her lap. “Light snow, more like mist.”
“Good,” I said, opening my door and stepping out into the brisk evening air. “Walk me through it.”
She followed, her movements shaky but determined.
I’d been to the academy often enough to know my way around.
Kenny walked toward the stairs near the gymnasium, her steps growing smaller as she approached the building.
“They grabbed me here. Right on this step.” She pointed to the third one up and knelt down, her palm pressing against the rough surface.
“Someone shoved me into the back of a truck. I remember the engine...” She paused, head tilted as if listening to sounds only she could hear. “It made this knocking noise.”
Her breathing quickened as Carson and Raine got out of the car.
“We moved fast. Really fast. Took sharp turns that threw me around. My shoulder hit the side of the car so hard I thought it was broken.”
“Was the road going uphill?” I asked.
She hesitated, her face scrunched in concentration. “No. Down. Definitely downhill for a while, like we were leaving the hills around the school. Then it flattened out. Long straightaways where the truck sped up.”
Carson reached out to steady her as she swayed slightly, his hand gentle on her elbow. “That’s enough, Kenny. You don’t have to—”
“No.” She shook off his touch with renewed determination. “We’re finishing this. I need to finish this.”
I helped her back into the car, and we began to drive, letting her fractured memories guide us through the darkening streets.
We traced every dip in the road she remembered, every curve that had pressed her against the truck’s walls.
The route took us through parts of town I knew all too well, warehouse districts and shipping corridors where legitimate business blended seamlessly with less savory enterprises.
“Wait,” Carson said from the backseat, leaning forward in his seat. “Aren’t we close to the abandoned train yard?”
I glanced sideways over my shoulder. “Yeah, what of it?”
He squirmed in the backseat, looking suddenly uncomfortable. “It was where I dropped off Kay.”
Kenny’s breathing changed the moment I pulled the car off on the side of the road. “It is?”
I glanced over at her as she stared out the window, her brows drawing together in confusion.
“I swore this was the way, but it can’t be.” She pressed her face to the window, her breath fogging the glass. “I only remember being at the train yard the night I saw Kaylor.”
“And how long did it take you to get to the train yard from where you were being held?” Raine asked from the back.
Her fingers knotted together. “I-I don’t know. Time is different when you’re being held against your will. There were no clocks. We never knew what time it was. Everything was all jumbled up.”
“She tried. Are you happy? Now take us home,” Carson demanded as if he had any right to demand anything of me. Not that it mattered because he was easily ignored.
“What do you mean, we?” Raine asked, catching a detail I’d missed.
Kenny glanced over her shoulder at my brother. “There were two other girls with me. They didn’t keep us in the same room, but sometimes they put us together. We had what they called dress rehearsals.”
I swore under my breath.
Raine was more vocal in his outrage. “Sick fucks.”