Chapter 27 - Jackson
I told myself I was staying home from school because of the weather, which was partly true. I woke up this morning curled up in bed beneath the blankets, warm and toasty while staring out at the frost covered landscape outside the window. I didn’t want to get up and brave the cold.
It didn’t have anything to do with Isaac. I’m still nervous to face him after what happened yesterday, but I miss him so fucking much already.
No, the bigger truth is that I realized I’d more than likely have to see Professor Grant if I went to campus.
And I don’t think I’m ready for that.
So I went back to sleep.
The next time I wake up, it’s already late in the afternoon. The first thing I do is check my phone, frowning down at the screen when there’s not a text from Isaac, just the last one he sent last night.
Isaac: Thank you for letting me know and for being safe. Good night, sweetheart.
He sent it while I was taking my hour-long shower, so I didn’t respond when I got out, not wanting to risk waking him if he was already asleep.
I should probably text him now, but now I feel bad for making him wait all day.
He’ll be home from work in an hour or two, so I decide to just wait and meet him at his house.
I promised him I wasn’t going to disappear. I meant it.
By early evening, the sky outside is already dimming to dusk, frost still glittering over everything.
I’ve been working up the nerve it’s going to take to finally face Isaac.
To be honest with him about everything because I also meant it when I said I didn’t want to keep secrets.
I have to tell him what happened and what I realized—that Professor Grant was the one behind those emails.
That he’s possibly been circling the both of us like a vulture for months.
A little after five, I pull my coat on over my hoodie and grab my keys.
Before I can walk out the door, my phone goes off with a notification.
I pull it out of my pocket, already grinning, expecting it to be a text from Isaac.
It’s not.
My smile falls, and my hands shake as I read the email. For a few seconds, everything in me goes quiet. Not still. Quiet. Like the air before a tornado touches down and destroys everything in its path.
From: Elijah Kendall
To: Jackson Ellis
Subject: (no subject)
Jackson,
I know you don’t know me, but I know you care about my brother. Meet me at Harrow Bridge tonight. 10pm. Isaac deserves to know the truth about what happened there.
I know the truth immediately.
That’s not Elijah.
I’m not fucking stupid.
Or, at least…I’m not going to be this time.
Isaac’s brother hasn’t been back in this town since his parents and sister died at that bridge. He sure as hell isn’t emailing me out of nowhere. This is someone pretending to be him.
This is Professor Grant.
A sour taste creeps up my throat. The room tilts a little, like my body already knows this is a trap.
He’s luring me there because he’s desperate.
Because he lost.
I think about ignoring the email. Deleting it. Blocking the address like I did Dylan’s. I think about driving straight to Isaac and never looking back.
But Grant isn’t going to stop. He’s not done with me. He’s definitely not done with Isaac. My dad said he’d take care of it, but what could he possibly do without proof?
If I don’t show up, who will Grant go after next?
I close my eyes. Breathe.
I spend the next couple of hours pacing, trying to decide what to do, to come up with a plan.
I go inside the main house and into my dad’s study, glad that he’s working late today and isn’t here.
I find what I was looking for before going back out to the guesthouse to wait a little longer, unable to sit still the entire time.
Before I leave, I send Isaac a text, asking him to meet me at the bridge fifteen minutes after I’m supposed to meet Elijah, hoping that’ll be enough time to do what I need to do.
My pulse skitters as I leave the house, fear and resolve braided tight in my chest.
This time, I have a plan.
I only hope it’s a good one.
The snow from last night lies in thin sheets across the asphalt, the river below a hard, seamless stretch of frozen black. The water doesn’t rush and roar like it did last time I was here. It’s quiet, buried and hushed by the ice.
My breath escapes in white bursts as I slowly approach the bridge, every instinct begging me to turn around, to get back in my car and wait for Isaac.
But I can’t. The only way this will work is if I can be strong enough to face this alone.
Just long enough.
Like last time, I parked my car about a quarter mile back, and by the time I get close to the bridge, I’m already trembling from the cold air biting at me through the layers of my clothes.
A figure stands near the railing, the glow of a cigarette flaring just enough to illuminate the sharp cut of his jaw. Professor Grant turns toward me slowly as though he’s got all the time in the world, not surprised to see that I actually showed up.
“Mr. Ellis.” His voice is too smooth, too calm. “Right on time.”
“Where’s Elijah?” I ask, not attempting to hide my sarcasm.
That earns a low, pleased laugh, the kind that immediately makes my skin crawl. “You really are a smart boy, aren’t you? But you have to admit I had you curious.” He flicks his cigarette over the railing. “Unfortunately, curiosity can be fatal.”
When he steps closer and holds his hand out, I force myself not to back away.
“Give me your phone.”
My pulse stutters.
“Nah, I’m good.”
He cocks his head, smiling like he’s indulging a child. “If you don’t, I’ll take it from you. And I promise you won’t like how.”
My stomach twists in on itself, and I try to keep my hands from shaking too hard as I pull my phone from my coat pocket, glad I deleted the texts between me and Isaac. I grip it tight, briefly staring at the faint reflection of myself on the screen before handing it over.
Grant takes it and unlocks it. When he sees the voice recorder open, he looks back up at me with a smug smirk.
“Nice try. But you’ll learn I’m always one step ahead. Like when you made it all too easy to install remote access software on your laptop that day you left it in the study hall after getting into a fight with my son.”
My stomach drops.
How long had he been planning that? Nothing had even happened between me and Isaac by then. Had he been watching me just because I was outed?
He didn’t just take advantage of a careless mistake. He hunted for one.
And I walked straight into his trap.
He hurls my phone over the stone wall of the bridge. It lands on the frozen river with a sharp crack that echoes up the banks, then skitters across the brittle ice before it finally goes still.
Grant steps into my space, close enough that I can smell the smoke on him.
Again, I hold my ground.
I’ve been here before. On this bridge in the dark and the cold. Afraid. While I’m more scared of Professor Grant than I ever was of Isaac, I’m also not the same person I was the last time I was here.
“I got a very interesting visit from the dean at the end of the day. Apparently someone lodged a complaint about me.” His eyes darken, and his nostrils flare. “I’ve been suspended pending an investigation.”
I’m not surprised, but a cold rush of air still slams into me.
My dad acts quickly when it matters, and he made it clear this mattered.
“I didn’t—”
“Oh, don’t even try that with me. You were the match. Your father simply struck it.” He takes another step forward. “I warned you, Jackson. If you had just ended this with Isaac, we wouldn’t be here.”
“Leave Isaac out of this.” My throat is tight, causing the words to shake.
His expression softens in that mocking way that makes me want to punch him. “You think anyone cares what happens to a boy like you? To a disgraced professor like him? He’s failed so many people. He’ll fail you too just like he did Dylan. Elijah.”
I swear the air I exhale freezes, a cloud of ice crystals in front of my face.
“Elijah? What…what do you mean?”
Grant laughs, a low, menacing sound that turns frozen between us too.
“You think this all started with you? That you’re special?
” He leans in, voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper.
“I was Elijah’s teacher all those years ago.
He was…promising. Beautiful. And stupid enough to think rejecting me wouldn’t have consequences. ”
My heart stops.
“You…” Revulsion constricts around my throat, and I can barely force the words past it. “You did something to him too?”
Isaac said something happened to Elijah at a party the night their parents and sister died.
Was Richard Grant the thing that happened to him?
“I suppose I made him uncomfortable. The way ambitious young men sometimes do.” His eyes flash with something predatory. “He couldn’t handle it and became the reason most of his family is dead. Isaac never knew. Tragic, isn’t it?”
I feel sick.
Truly fucking sick.
My breath starts blooming in front of me again, and I’m pretty sure I’m close to hyperventilating.
Grant circles me like a wolf on the hunt, and his voice darkens.
“And then there was Dylan. Sweet, gentle Dylan. He made it all too easy for me to destroy Isaac, revenge for his brother’s rejection, for him running away from me.
Isaac’s never been able to save anyone.” He shakes his head with feigned sorrow as he stops to stand in front of me again.
“But some boys aren’t meant to be saved. ”
Something inside me breaks.
“You’ve been doing this for twenty years?” My voice is almost as small as I feel right now. “Running men out of town because you’re a disgusting fuck?”
He shrugs. “I’m willing to bet you’ll end up like the rest of them. Gone. Forgotten. A cautionary tale whispered in hallways. And I’ll still be here. Respected.”
Anger hits first.
Loathing hits harder.
Then there’s something sharper, colder, like instinct waking up too late.
Terror.
“Isaac knows I’m here,” I tell him, voice shaking, showing my hand because I’m not ready to face whatever it is he has planned, whatever it is he’s done to others before me.
But he doesn’t believe me.
His grin stretches, slow and satisfied like a predator smelling his prey’s fear. “No,” he says, too softly. “He doesn’t.”
His hand shoots out, shoving me so hard my back slams onto the icy road. Pain ricochets up my spine, and the shock steals the breath from my lungs. The world tilts—the sky, the bridge, his silhouette closing in.
“Stay down, Jackson. Don’t make this harder than it has to be.”
My palms slide uselessly against the frozen ground as I attempt to scramble back. Panic claws its way up behind my ribs, rising. Choking.
Grant crouches, his body bigger than mine, his large form blocking any light from the moon, throwing me into cold shadows and the strong scent of cigarette smoke. His fingers touch my knee first. A light, almost gentle touch.
Then they slide higher.
Waves of nausea flood through me. I try to twist away, but the ice offers no traction. His hand clamps around my thigh, squeezing hard enough to bruise.
“Don’t—” My voice breaks.
I try to kick, but it feels as though I’m struggling against a grizzly bear in quicksand.
He leans in until his breath ghosts across my neck. “You really are so pretty. I hate that Isaac got to have you first. Even if I did get off on watching you two.”
If I wasn’t so fucking terrified, I’d probably throw up.
My pulse thrashes against my throat, blood roaring in my ears. I can’t breathe. I can’t think. Terror buzzes through my bones like electricity.
He forces my legs apart, one hand pinning my hip. The other fumbles at my waistband, tugging fabric, cold fingers slipping just under the edge. I taste bile in the back of my throat when I feel his skin on mine.
“No!” My body lurches in a blind, useless attempt to get away. “Stop!”
I don’t even know if I’m actually screaming or if the sound is only in my head. It’s quickly drowned out by his low, triumphant laugh as his grip tightens when I try again to shove him off.
Isaac, please.
This time, I’m not begging him for mercy.
I’m begging him to save me.
Grant keeps touching me, working my jeans open. A part of me wants to just close my eyes and let my mind go somewhere else, but I don’t stop fighting. Even if all my energy and strength are gone. Even if there’s no hope.
“Get the fuck off him!”
The angry, desperate shout pierces through the cold and my fear, echoing off the trees.
Grant spins to face the voice.
Mercifully, his touch disappears as Isaac’s hands grab him by the back of his coat, ripping him backward with a force so sudden that everything else seems to snap into motion.
Grant stumbles. Isaac slams into him, tackling him to the ground. They both hit the asphalt so hard I swear the bridge quakes, fists and elbows and fury blurring into one violent tangle.
“Isaac!”
I push myself to my knees, dizzy, but I can’t get my body to move fast enough.
Grant, bigger and heavier, gets the upper hand first and swings. Isaac’s head snaps sideways from a punch to his jaw, and he collapses, his head slamming against the ground with a sickening thud.
Just like that, my own fear is eclipsed by something stronger, hotter.
Rage is the only thing that gets me to my feet.
Grant rises too, breathing hard, scowling down at Isaac who groans but remains still.
This fury is like something physical, already on the move. A surge of kinetic energy inside me, hurling me into motion until my entire body weight is barreling into the bigger man. He staggers, boots sliding on the crust of ice over the bridge.
We’re both at the edge.
He reaches for me. To grab or pull me over with him, I don’t know.
But I’m done being afraid.
I shove him.
Hard.
His eyes widen as he topples backward, arms flailing.
He vanishes over the stone wall.
A distant crack splits the night as his body slams into the frozen river, followed by a deep, echoing splash as the ice fractures and gives way.
The silence that comes next is filled with a new, growing kind of horror.
I want to check on Isaac. I need to make sure he’s okay.
But something outside of me is pulling the strings.
My breath comes in ragged gasps that burn my lungs. My legs shake so badly I can barely stay upright, but somehow, they manage to hold me up and carry me forward toward the guardrail.
One step.
Another.
The cold air stings my face as I peer over the edge.
Below, the river is a broken, slick sheet of darkness. A jagged hole gapes in the ice, its edges splintered and shattered like glass. The water below churns, swallowing the last traces of the sacrifice I just offered it. Then it settles into a black, eerie stillness.
There’s no sign of him.
He’s gone.
I think I killed him.