Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
He needed the bride and the bridesmaid to get the hell out of his way. “Ladies, move.”
They did not. Well, Makayla did not. Jennifer squeaked and sidestepped before catching herself.
“You aren’t going to break her heart,” Makayla told him.
He blinked. “Is that what you’re worried about? Wren’s heart?”
“She’s our friend!” Jennifer declared. “As maid of honor, I?—”
“Of course, I’m worried about her heart,” Makayla fired back. “Not like yours is involved. Last night, I watched you. You were stunned when Wren kissed you. And you saw an opportunity. What was it? A chance to one-up your brother? Everyone always liked Eb better—something that had to piss you off—so you thought maybe you’d take something away from him?”
“Thanks for telling me I’m the popular one.” He didn’t see Wren. She’d made it into the house, and he didn’t like that. He should have searched the place before she went inside. “And what is happening between me and Wren has zero to do with Eb.”
“So you had sex with her because you’re hopelessly in love with her?” A careful question from Makayla.
His eyes were on the beach house.
“I don’t hear a yes,” Jennifer pointed out. “Say it with me. ‘Yes, I passionately love Wren.’”
“Wren wanted me. I wanted her. And nothing else is your business.” Politeness had never been his strong suit. I should have checked the house first. “Honestly, nothing is your business. I have Wren.”
But…he didn’t have Wren. She’d gone into the beach house. “Excuse me.” He stalked around the women.
“Obsessive much,” Jennifer groused behind him. “Jeez, let her change clothes. She’ll be right back. Seriously. This is why smart women should avoid Scary Hot guys. Like, it should be a life lesson.”
“Didn’t know if you’d show up here or at your uncle’s bar.” His breath blew against her ear. “I came here, and my partner is staking out the bar. Guess it was my lucky day, huh?”
If she screamed, Jake wouldn’t hear her. He was outside with her friends. The ocean pounded too loudly, too close. No way could he hear her.
“He’s not going to save you this time,” the man said, as if reading her thoughts. “I am going to slice you into pieces. He’ll find you bloody and broken.”
Bloody and broken.
Slice you into pieces.
Bloody and broken…
“No.” She shook her head.
“You’ll be begging soon.” Sick enjoyment and anticipation filled his voice. “I am gonna love it when you beg.”
She rammed her elbow back into his stomach. She grabbed for his wrist at the same moment and shoved the blade to the side, so it didn’t slice over her skin.
Uncle Milo had drilled self-defense into her. Over and over.
She kicked back with her heel.
He cursed and fought, and so did she. With every ounce of her strength and will. Wren spun, and she shoved that knife right at him. The blade pierced his stomach, and he howled even as his blood flew out and soaked her fingers.
“Maybe you’ll beg,” she told him.
His eyes widened. Fear flashed for a moment. Too brief of a moment. Then rage overshadowed the fear. A killing rage.
She yanked the knife back.
“You—” he began.
She shoved the blade in him again. Harder. Deeper.
He screamed and surged away from her. He fell backward. Hit the floor. She rushed for the door. She hadn’t locked it, and she threw it open. Wren darted onto the wooden deck. She could see Jake below, standing near the Jeep with Makayla and Jennifer. He still had on his sunglasses. Could he hear her? See her? Her hands waved frantically. “Jake!”
Arms locked around her stomach and hauled her back. “ Fucking bitch.”
“ Wren!”
“Yeah, that’s exactly who we are talking about.” The women had scurried into his path again. A decisive nod bobbed Jennifer’s blonde hair. “We are talking about you and your obsession with Wren. You’re freaking out right now, and the woman has barely been out of your sight for a few?—”
He flew past the women. “ Wren!”
She was out of his sight again. But she’d been on the wooden balcony a moment before. Waving desperately at him until someone had snatched her back.
He hauled out his gun.
“ OhmyGod!” Jennifer’s terrified scream. “He’s lost his mind! He’s going to kill her!”
The fuck he was. But he was going to kill whoever was attacking Wren.
He rushed up the stairs, taking them two, three at a time. He flew onto the wooden deck. Bounded toward the door. It was shut, but he didn’t even stop. Just kicked it open. “Wren!”
She was on the floor. Fighting an attacker who straddled her. Blood covered her dress. Her arms. And there was a knife plunging down toward her. The bastard shoved his bloody knife toward Wren.
“Stop! Get the hell away from her! Drop the knife !”
Growling, the bastard ignored Jake. He never looked away from his prey. The blade thrust down at Wren. My Wren.
With zero hesitation, Jake fired. The bullet hit the bastard in the back. He jerked. Twisted, with the knife still in his hand. His head finally wrenched toward Jake.
Jake fired a second time. A hit in the chest.
The man collapsed near Wren. A bloody and silent Wren.
Jake rushed to her. “Baby?” He dropped to his knees beside her.
Wren leapt at him. Her arms wrapped around his neck. She trembled and her breath heaved, and he looked over her shoulder at the man on the floor.
Blood pooled all around the bastard.
“Where I go, you go,” Wren gasped. “From now on. The most wonderful plan ever. The best. Where I go, you go.”
Footsteps pounded up the stairs outside the beach house. He surged to his feet, dragging Wren with him. He took aim at the door with his gun.
Makayla flew over the threshold. She was followed immediately by Jennifer. Their eyes widened when they took in Jake’s gun. Then the man on the floor. And, finally, Wren’s blood-covered form.
Their screams pierced the air.
“Wren…” Honey Jackson slowly approached the back of the ambulance.
Wren perched on the gurney. “It’s not my blood.” The blade hadn’t sliced her. It had been coming at her, plunging right toward her chest in the first of many promised stabs, but Jake had stopped the attacker.
She looked down at her hands. Bloody hands. Blood also covered her arms. Her dress.
Everywhere. She’d been told to sit. To wait.
Evidence, right? She was the evidence.
Sticky. Hardening. Blood. The coppery scent was all she could smell. All she could feel.
Don’t move. Don’t make a sound.
Her lips pressed together. She couldn’t let the scream erupt.
“Wren.”
Her gaze lifted.
Honey frowned at her. “Are you hurt?”
“It’s not my blood.” Hadn’t she said that already?
“Maybe it’s not, but you still have to tell me, are you hurt? Being hurt isn’t just about blood.”
Physically, she wasn’t hurt. Maybe a few bruises, but those hardly mattered. “I stabbed him.” A confession she’d given to the first responders on the scene. “Twice. He had the knife, but I got it away from him, and I stabbed him twice. He was bleeding like crazy, and that’s where all the blood came from.” Should there be more emotion in her voice? It sounded too flat. Maybe that was good. Or bad? Her gaze jerked to the left. “Jake?”
“Still right here, sunshine.”
She flinched. “Don’t call me that.” Not sunshine. I’m not an angel. No wings. I’m just like him…
“He’s dead,” Honey said.
Wren sucked in a breath.
“The man who attacked you died on the scene. I’m thinking that was due to the bullet in the heart, but we’ll let the ME rule on all that.”
“A bullet to the heart does tend to be fatal,” Jake murmured.
Honey glanced over at Jake. “Guessing you took the shots? The one to the back, then the one to the heart?”
“He was driving his knife at Wren. I told him to stop. To get away from her. Instead, he drove that knife toward her chest.”
Jake stood just beyond the open ambulance doors. He’d been there the entire time she’d been inside the emergency vehicle. Wherever she went, he was a few steps behind her.
“That what happened?” Honey asked as she turned her focus back on Wren. “Jake told him to stop, and the guy refused?”
“Y-yes. Jake saved me.” Without him, she would have been the one loaded into the black body bag.
“I should have been with you the whole damn time,” he suddenly snapped. “ My mistake. It won’t happen again.” A pause. His shoulders rolled back. “Sheriff, did your team get the other bastard?”
Because Wren had told the first responders about the man who was supposed to be waiting at her Uncle Milo’s bar. The dead man’s partner.
Honey shook her head.
Fear twisted in Wren’s stomach. Still on the loose.
“We will, though. We will find him,” Honey promised.
The EMT hunched in the corner. Everyone just kind of lingered there, and the blood was dry, and it felt horrible, and Wren was pretty sure she was about to jump straight out of her blood-covered skin.
But at least I haven’t fainted. That’s something, isn’t it? This time, instead of blood making her sick, she’d…
Been the one to use the knife.
Her stomach twisted. For a sickening moment, the familiar light-headedness returned. Pinpricks seemed to shoot across the skin of her face. “I want the blood off,” Wren said. “I need the blood off. ”
“Surprised she hasn’t fainted yet,” Jake noted.
“Me, too,” Honey admitted, voice more guarded.
Wren glowered at Jake. She also tried to breathe. Don’t faint. Don’t faint.
He winced. “Honestly, baby, you’re doing great.”
She was not. A scream threatened to break free from her at any moment. The past and present were colliding, and as far as fainting was concerned? Hell, maybe fainting would have been good. It would have stopped her from slipping into the memories that haunted her. It would have stopped her from breaking when and where others could see her. Where she might say or do the wrong thing and give everything away.
Tremors shook her body. The cold pinpricks turned to heat on her face.
“I think she’s in shock.” From the EMT. Not Hayden this time. A stranger. “Pupils are dilated. Rapid heart rate. Shallow breathing…”
“Get her to the hospital,” Honey directed. Her lips tightened.
Wren shook her head. She hated hospitals. Woke up in one once, tied down. Screaming. My whole life gone.
“ Hospital,” Honey snapped. “That wasn’t an option, Wren. It was an order. I want you away from this scene before it turns into a circus. And—what in the hell are you doing, Jake?”
Jake had just climbed into the ambulance. “Going with her. The other bastard is on the loose, per your words. You think I’m letting her ride off without me?”
Wren didn’t want to go anywhere without him. She had been one hundred percent serious about the whole “where I go, you go” business earlier. He could be her shadow. Her fake boyfriend. Her real lover. Anything. Everything. She just wanted him close.
“Before this ride goes rolling away, I need to talk with Wren. Alone.” Honey jerked a hand toward the EMT. “Get out of the ambulance.”
“But—”
The keys on Honey’s belt jingled. Light hit her badge and made it gleam even brighter. “Out.”
He got out.
Jake didn’t.
“You, too, hero,” she demanded with a wave of her still lifted hand. “Give us three minutes alone. I need to talk with Wren without eyes and ears on us.”
Jake settled beside Wren. “Talk freely. I’m not going anywhere.”
Honey leaned inside the ambulance. “Wren is safe. I will be right here with her. Go. ”
He didn’t.
Wren knew she should say something. Do something. But all she could feel was the blood and the past. “I stabbed him.”
“You did what you had to do,” Jake assured her. “You stabbed him, and you got away long enough to call for help. Dammit, I should have been there. ”
“I stabbed him twice. I would have kept stabbing him, if it meant I survived, and he didn’t.” Her head turned toward Jake. A new emotion had joined her fear and rage. Sadness. “I didn’t want to be like him.”
Jake’s brow furrowed. “The guy who attacked you? Trust me, you’re nothing like him. You were fighting to survive.”
He didn’t understand. “I don’t have angel wings. I’m meant for the dark, not the light. Didn’t you see that? Can’t you see that?” Of all people, he should have seen the truth the most clearly.
“Wren?” The furrow deepened.
“I didn’t want to be like him,” she said again, “but I am my father’s?—”
“ Wren.” Honey bounded into the ambulance. The fastest Wren had seen her move in years. “You’re in shock. You’re saying things you shouldn’t. I want you to look at me. Look at me. ”
Reluctantly, her stare pulled from Jake to land on Honey. “I’m not in shock.” At least, she didn’t think she was. “I’m just not in denial anymore, either.” You could learn a lot about yourself when you stabbed a man. Twice.
“Jake, go. ” A sharp, barking demand from Honey. “Wren, watch yourself.”
“Why does Wren need to watch herself? What is happening?” Jake still didn’t move. “Someone explain to me, now.”
Honey shook her head. “Some things can’t be taken back, Wren. I talked to your uncle this morning. He told me the news. I’m sorry, and I know it’s hitting you hard on top of everything else that’s happening?—”
Why would Honey be sorry? She’d wanted Wren’s father dead, too. For years, she’d hunted him. “I’m not sorry he’s dead. You’re not, either. Don’t pretend otherwise to be polite.”
Honey didn’t have a comeback for that.
“I’m glad he’s dead. But…him dying didn’t change much about me, did it?” The blood was all over her hands. “What’s inside can’t be changed. He always told me that. I wanted him to be wrong, but, here I am.”
“Here you are surviving. ” Honey was adamant. “You fought to live today. You’re a good person, Wren.”
No, she pretended to be good. She’d mastered the art of deception. She could play the good-girl role in her sleep.
“Class president,” Jake rasped. “You led every volunteer effort in high school. Still do that same shit today. Most likely to succeed, that was you.”
Most likely to kill. That should have been her. If they’d known the truth, it would have been.
Why did she feel so cold? Clammy?
“Someone wants me to die,” Wren announced, and, yes, her voice broke a bit around the edges. “It has to be about the past.”
Jake stiffened. “I told you?—”
“My past, Jake, not yours or your brother’s.” It has to be. Her father died and this happened, all so close together? “It has to be about what he did. He’s dead, and I’m targeted, and it has to be because someone wants payback.”
“Fuck.” From Jake. “Baby, this is about?—”
“It’s about me and it’s about my dad.”
Honey’s eyes fell closed.
“My dad,” Wren repeated. “A serial killer. A man who murdered seven different couples. A man who covered me in blood and made me into a monster.” The big, twisted secret was out. There was no pulling the words back. No stopping them. “That’s who you saved today, Jake.” That’s the woman you fucked last night. Shame swept through her, and she couldn’t look at him again. She simply stared down at her fisted, bloody hands. “That’s who the man in the house wanted to die. He wanted me to suffer, and it has to be because my father made so many people suffer. Someone learned the truth about me, and now I’m targeted for death.”