Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“Who the fuck went in my room?” someone shouted.
My eyes shot open, a small gasp slipping between my teeth as if I’d just woken from a nightmare. I raised my head and locked eyes with Lena in the darkened room, a room I needed a few seconds to remember why we were in.
A dim light filtered through a small shuttered window above my head, just enough to see her sitting upright on the couch. My first thought was how difficult it must have been for her to pull herself up without using her legs. Her chair sat in the corner of the room, and I remembered waking up a few hours ago to find her lying beside me. We stared at each other for a long moment as we listened to some woman shouting up and down the hall beyond the room. I could see the fear in Lena’s eyes as she glanced at the door.
I went to her, sitting close beside her. She took my hand in response, squeezing gently.
“You okay?” she asked.
I nodded. “You?”
She shook her head. “Didn’t sleep.”
We listened again as other voices argued. One I recognized was close to the door.
Emery’s.
Hearing his voice jolted me. And the memories of last night flooded in.
He was here. A part of me still couldn’t be sure it wasn’t a trick, that it wasn’t my ghost playing games, making me see him now as I remembered him, not a corpse out of the water but real and so painfully beautiful before me.
I remembered how I woke sometime in the night to my name being called, how dark everything was, how I followed Emery’s shadow over to the kitchen, then back down the hall to another room.
It will end , he had said, a hiss of breath in my ear as I stood watching him in the mirror. If you don’t become what you need to, Evee. This dream will end. Come with me, baby.
I felt a searing pain across my cheek. The next thing I knew the knife was being wrenched away and the Emery I knew was standing before me. His hands were holding my face, my blood trailing along his fingers.
I would never ask you to hurt yourself for me . Never .
That’s what he said.
My Emery.
I released Lena’s hand to trail my fingers across my cheek, sucking in a breath when I felt a bandage there.
Wasn’t a dream.
Not a dream.
“He’s real,” I said aloud. “Isn’t he?”
Lena shifted beside me. “Looks it to me.”
I rose off the couch, ready to turn for the door when Lena grabbed my hand again to stop me.
“Wait, Eve,” she whispered.
I glanced at her. “It’s all right.”
Her eyes said otherwise. “I don’t know what you're thinking or what you could possibly be going through right now. Getting taken by that guy again…”
“Emery,” I said, gasping. Living, breathing Emery. Not the phantom.
Lena tried to hide her scowl. “Eve, whatever went down between you two, I don’t know. But he’s messed up. They all are. They are holding us hostage and we don’t know what they want.”
I turned my eyes down to our locked hands. “Me,” I murmured, feeling sorry to say it, guilty that she was now a part of all this.
“Okay. But do we know why?” She squeezed my hand. “Eve, I’m scared. Please tell me, whatever went down in your family home, is he looking to finish the job?”
My eyes drifted back up to hers. “I…don’t know,” I said honestly, remembering everything we’d planned out before Liam came. “But he isn’t going to hurt me.”
She frowned. “Are you sure of that?” She shook her head in disbelief when I didn’t answer. “And who the hell are the others? He’s got a fucking posse now? Did he ever mention others?”
“I think I know who they are.”
“Who?”
I squeezed her hand. “Survivors.”
As I gently pulled my hand away, she let me go. “Eve.”
“There’s only one way to know.”
She let out a long breath. “Fuck,” she whispered. “Eve, no one knows where we are and these people aren’t going to let us go. I don’t say this lightly, I’ve got a family who’ll absolutely freak out. And think about Jamie and Liam. Your aunt and uncle.”
“I’m sorry, Lena,” I said. “I’m sorry you're involved in this. I wish you weren’t.” And I meant it. She didn’t deserve this. I didn’t like seeing her scared. Like how I had been. “No matter what, I won’t let them hurt you.”
She bit her lip as her mouth trembled. “Help me with my chair, will you?”
I brought the chair over and kept it in place as she pulled herself up into it. The metal braces allowed her to move her legs if only a little. I helped her wheel around but stopped her at the door.
“You don’t have to—”
“Where you go, I go,” she said firmly. “I might not be able to walk yet but I’m staying near you if I can. I’ll crawl like a demented mermaid if I have to and scratch anyone’s eyes out if they mess with you.” She gripped her wheels firmly. “Or I’ll run them over. That creep with the clown mask is begging for my metal brace up his ass,” she mumbled.
I laughed. The voices beyond the door had grown duller now as if they had moved into a different room.
“As long as we don’t try to leave,” I assured, “we’ll be okay.”
“I wished I believed that.”
“I’ll get you out of here, Lena,” I said. “Somehow.”
Before she responded by repeating that she wasn’t going anywhere without me, I opened the door and poked my head out.
Down the hall, toward the entrance, I heard them talking or rather arguing as their voices were clipped and not so quiet. I crept out of the room, opening the door wider for Lena to follow behind. Slowly, I made my way down, listening as their words became clearer.
“I cannot believe this,” came the woman’s voice. “I didn’t think you’d actually bring her here. And with her friend? What the fuck were you thinking?”
“Ask him,” said a familiar voice. Clown-face, or Lez, as Emery had called him. “He’s been adamant about grabbing her.”
“I told you,” Emery said, low and threatening. “I wanted Eve with me. That was the deal.”
The woman laughed. “Deal? We never agreed upon a deal. Micheal said he’d consider getting her out when the time came.”
“Yeah, well, she got out,” Lez answered. “And Dom kept an eye on her for us.”
“And that was it! We were going to watch her and discuss with Micheal the next move. You idiots couldn’t wait, huh?”
There was a tapping sound and a brief pause of silence.
“Dom says this was the best move,” said Lez a moment later. “Cops and Severfalls security were out for her. She’s got information we could use. If she got nabbed again and locked up, we wouldn’t have this edge. Plus, Emmy over here was starting to get on my nerves with all the stalking and pacing. Dom tracked them to some party, and we made a split decision.”
“Without me or Micheal,” the woman snapped.
“I was going whether anyone wanted to or not and no one was stopping me,” Emery snapped back. “Dom agreed to help, and Leslie wasn’t letting Dom go without him.”
“Doesn’t mean I agreed with what we were doing,” Lez remarked.
Another tapping sound and short pause.
“Dom says—”
“I don’t care!” the woman yelled. “You all did this without talking with the rest of us.”
“Cassidy, we’ll figure this out,” Andrea chimed in calmly. “For now, they’re here.”
“They aren’t one of us. You brought a Martel into our den, of all fucking people.”
“She’s not responsible for what happened to us,” Emery growled.
“Oh, yeah? Guess you’d know, wouldn’t you?”
I peered around into the main room just in time to see Cassidy in a police uniform, and Emery, in the black long-sleeve shirt and combat pants from the night before, almost nose to nose, glaring at each other. The others hung around them with their backs turned to me. I stopped just within the shadows. Lena stayed behind me.
“As hard as this is, inside information could be vital,” Andrea argued as Emery and Cassidy looked like they wanted to rip each other's throats out. “Eve knows things and that will help when we make our move.”
Cassidy’s eyes narrowed. “Right, can’t make them go now since that would compromise us. No thanks to you,” she hissed at Emery. “Had to have your little toy, didn’t you? Had to have your little revenge first. Too obsessed to give a fuck about the rest of us and what we’ve been fighting for. But we will get something out of her, mark my words.” Emery glared at her as she jabbed his chest with one finger. “I say we get what info we can while we can. Then they stay locked up till we’re done with Severfalls.”
“I’m not opposed to this,” said Leslie, crossing his arms.
Emery smirked, leaning down, getting close so they were eye to eye. “You honestly think I’d let you lock her up like she’s a prisoner?” He tilted his head. “Eve stays with me. If she wants to talk, she will, but she isn’t your hostage, she isn’t getting locked in a room. And if you want to fight me on this, I gladly will.”
They glared at each other again; Cassidy not giving in despite how terrifying Emery looked, yellow eyes filled with fire.
“We wait for Micheal,” Andrea said, trying to keep the peace. “We’ll talk things over then.”
I must have moved in some small way because Emery’s eyes left Cassidy and met mine. He straightened, the fire in his gaze still burning, but now he looked less angry.
The others grew silent as they turned and looked at me and Lena.
“Great,” Cassidy said under her breath. “Well, I’m tired.” She broke past Andrea and Lez, coming toward me. “I’ll be in my room. I’ll shoot anyone who comes in unannounced. Wake me when Micheal is here.”
She slipped past me and Lena without another word as if we were a piece of furniture.
I stood there, unable to speak. Cassidy, whose photo I remembered seeing with the dozens of others in the files in Dad’s safe. The videos of her as a child as they made her do puzzles down in the basement of the warehouse. She was alive. And she hated me.
As she slammed her door behind us, Emery slipped past the others. I titled my head at him, still so shocked to see his face and not a skull.
“You’re alright, no one’s going to hurt you,” he said gently. He glanced at Lena, then offered his hand to me. “Either of you.”
I believed him. He was different. Not like my ghost.
Was he really here in front of me? How was it possible?
My throat tightened as I slid my hand into his, and his large hand closed firmly around mine. He felt solid—so real. He had to be real. And yet, it was so hard for me to accept it, when I saw him fall, saw him go under. I was so afraid this was a trick that my mind was playing, so afraid any moment I’d wake up back in Severfalls, strapped to a bed, my ghost laughing over me.
His touch grounded me. As long as I felt him, I wouldn’t slip away.
I clung to his hand like an anchor as he gently guided me into the main room, which I assumed was some kind of community space. It had a few tables and chairs, along with a small window looking into the kitchen. A couple of overhead lights illuminated the tiled ceiling, casting a muted glow. The walls were mostly grey and bare, save for a few old decorations—a Christmas tree and some snowflakes—that looked like they’d been made by children long ago. I doubted anyone here had put them up recently.
On one side of the room, a row of narrow, shuttered windows overlooked a computer station. It was an impressive setup, spanning a long table with a widescreen TV mounted above it. The tables scattered throughout the room each told their own story—one held a game of cards, another was covered in paperwork, and a third displayed knives alongside the masks they had worn the night before. The rest were empty.
The checkerboard floor was cold beneath my feet as Emery led me toward the center of the room, where a deep red rug lay near the computer station. Opposite it, in a shadowed corner, sat an old piano, untouched and forgotten.
I hadn’t taken any time the night before to look around, too shocked by what was happening. Now, I saw how simple it was, a place where people used to gather, maybe even where children used to play. It was being used as a safe haven, a hideaway for a group of damaged individuals, with violent pasts.
Emery wasn’t the only one. Leslie turned his head, and I saw his damaged ear which contradicted his sharp features and dark complexion, with green eyes. Dominic, who looked almost exactly like Leslie except for the eyes, had scars along his throat and jaw. Dom had tattoos to cover up the scars.
I remembered them from the files I had. There hadn’t been as many videos of the twins but I had seen their pictures—Leslie’s arms around Dom’s shoulders, neither smiling. Dom stared at the camera while Leslie glanced at the person taking the photo, looking scared but ready to protect his brother at all costs.
Never would I have believed I’d see any of the victims again, not like this. It was surreal.
Leslie glared at me for a moment, sharp eyes assessing me, then he quickly glanced behind me to Lena who had also broken out of the dark hallway and wheeled into the room. She stared at him, studying him now that his face was no longer hidden by a mask, and I thought for a brief second, I caught her turn slightly red. She quickly looked away as she moved closer to me.
“I’m sorry about Cassidy,” Andrea said. “But Emery is right, you’re safe here.”
“Are we?” Lena chimed in. “I don’t exactly feel safe knowing—one, that you seriously kidnapped us, and two, Eve and I can’t leave, at least without the possibility of creepy knife guy over here stabbing me.”
Leslie laughed. “Oh, don’t worry, sweetheart, I won’t need to stab you. We all know you won’t get far enough for it to matter.”
Lena gritted her teeth. “Okay, jackass. So I can’t walk, but I can crawl and I can find your room easily. And when you're asleep, maybe it will be you who should be worried.” She pretended to grip something tight in her fist while making an up and down motion.
Lez arched his brow. An undeniable smirk crept over his face. “Or what? You’ll jack me off?”
She gaped at him as she stilled her hand. Her face turned red again. “I’ll STAB YOU, FUCKER.”
I had to look away to stifle my sudden laughter. Emery didn’t try to hide his smile at all, and I wanted to jab him in the stomach.
“Leslie,” Andrea warned, covering her eyes in embarrassment. “Can you not be an ass for two seconds?”
“For two? Maybe.” He went over to the table with the cards and took a seat. Dom went to his computer station, rummaged around and grabbed a pen. He offered it to Lena. She took it, giving him a confused look. Dom pointed at it and made the same up and down motion as Lena.
“He’s saying you can use that to stab me with. Not like we don’t have a fuck-ton of knives lying around,” Lez said.
Dom smiled at her, then went to join his brother at the table. Lena held the pen tight with a baffled expression.
“This is the kind of shit I’ve had to deal with for the last few weeks,” Emery remarked, still looking more amused than annoyed.
“I’m astounded you haven’t stabbed him yet yourself,” I teased.
His expression brightened at my casual teasing. I felt his thumb tracing along my wrist in response. “Trust me, I’ve considered it. Many times.”
“All right, enough child’s play,” Andrea said. “Micheal should be coming soon and we’ll have a lot to discuss. Do you girls need anything? Are you hungry?”
“I’d like to know what the hell is going on, personally,” Lena said, dropping the pen in her lap.
“We’ll get to that. Trust me.”
Emery glanced at my face, then to my arm which was still in a sling. “If It’s good for Eve, I’d like you to check her, make sure her injuries are healing okay.”
“How about I do both of you? I should redress yours too. I wouldn’t doubt you’ve stifled the healing process by now after leaving and exerting yourself.”
She was talking about Emery’s gunshot wounds. So she had helped him in some way.
I don’t know why that made my heart sink. Maybe because I wish it had been me. I should have been there.
Andrea slipped over to a room beside the hallway and unlocked it. As she flipped on the lights, I saw a bed with a hospital monitor in one corner.
Emery’s heavy hand slid across my back, making me shiver. “She’s just going to examine you, nothing more.” I tilted my head to him, and his eyes darkened. “I want to know what happened to your arm.” My breath hitched a little when his hand came to the back of my neck and settled there. “Will you talk to me and tell me?”
“I think I can do that.”
Smiling, he led me into the room, and I didn’t hesitate. Andrea was about to shut the door behind us when I heard Lena call out.
“W-wait, Eve.” She looked around nervously at the two at the table.
“Lena, is it?” Andrea said. “We shouldn’t be long. Leslie will behave, won’t you, Leslie?”
He shrugged as he placed a little metal box on the table and opened it, taking out some thin paper and what I assumed was weed. “I’ll be as sweet as a puppy.”
Lena didn’t look convinced.
“Lez knows if he touches her, I’ll lobotomize him with one of his knives,” Emery said, tilting his head at him. “Right, Lez?”
Lez didn’t look up at him as he rolled his joint. “No doubt. Hey, I’ll show her around…how about that? Give her a little tour.” He smirked at Lena.
“I don’t like that idea,” Lena said.
Dom tapped on the table and signed something. Lez glanced over, then sighed. “Fine. Whatever.” Dom got up and headed for the kitchen as Leslie finished rolling. Then he rose and walked over to Lena who flinched as he took a hold of her chair.
“What are you—”
“Chill, sweetheart, just bringing you over here. Dommy is being nice and making you something.”
“Don’t call me sweetheart,” Lena hissed as he turned her toward the table.
I took a step toward her as she glanced nervously at me. “Lena…” I started to say, not liking the idea of her alone with them.
“It’s okay,” Andrea said. I backed into Emery as she shut the door before we could argue some more. I didn’t feel right about being separated from her, but I wanted to trust them. Emery led me into another room connected to the one with the bed. What had likely been a large storage closet was now an exam room, complete with an exam chair, cabinets, and a small sink. Bright overhead lights illuminated the space, along with a movable light positioned above the chair.
A small table for tools sat beside the chair, thankfully empty.
Still, my heart fluttered as I was led to the chair. Emery found a stool in the corner and waited there as Andrea came in front of me.
She checked my heart rate and flashed a light in my eyes, looking down my throat and in my ears. She asked me several questions, like if I was feeling sick lately or fatigued, to which I answered yes to being tired. Always tired.
“Any other symptoms?”
I shifted in the seat. “Just an ache in my side sometimes. I fell from a tree when I was…leaving the facility.”
“Severfalls,” Andrea said.
Who didn’t know about me being there at this point? Then again, they had been watching me.
“Is that why you have this sling too? Did you fall on your arm?” she asked.
I glanced at Emery. “Not exactly. There was a security guard…”
Emery’s eyes narrowed, a shadow casting over his features. “What did he do?”
I bit my lip. “He tried to pull me from the tree and twisted my arm.” He grew still, a murderous look now in his gaze and I knew what he was thinking.
I remembered, not long ago, the box with a pair of eyes from someone who had pissed him off—or the kid who got glass in his face just for getting in his way—because Emery had lost it. I could fully imagine what he wanted to do to that guard for hurting me.
I felt the heat of his gaze even as I turned back to Andrea. “One of Lena’s friends in nursing school said it’s just a minor sprain.”
“Well, I’ll be the judge of that,” she said. Andrea took off the sling, slowly placing my arm at my side. She pressed her fingers along my shoulder, then moved my arm gently one way and another to gauge the pain. I felt the sharp ache as she bent it a little back but the pain had noticeably gone down.
“Lucky for you, the student was right,” Andrea said, keeping a steady hand on my arm. “Still, I’d use the sling for at least another few days. I’ll give you a cold compress and some ibuprofen to help.”
I thanked her as she helped me put back on the sling. She checked my side to make sure I hadn’t cracked a rib or hip bone in my fall and deemed everything intact, just bruised. She turned to the cuts on my face next, carefully peeling away the bandages.
“No stitches needed,” she said after pressing her fingers along my skin, “That’s good. Most of the bleeding has stopped. Still, you’ll likely have a scar, shouldn’t be too noticeable.”
I felt cold. I looked over at Emery and met his gaze, unable to read his face. I thought of his skull-face smiling at me in the mirror and shuddered.
Andrea moved over to one cabinet and started taking out various medical supplies, soap, and cleaning cloth. “No sign of infection but best to clean it just in case.” When she washed her hands and set some of the supplies down on the little table next to the chair, preparing to clean and rebandage my face, Emery rose from his seat.
“Let me,” he said.
She stilled as she picked up a wet cloth then set it back down on the table. “All right,” she said softly. She moved toward Emery, getting close enough to whisper something I couldn’t hear. I watched Emery nod and, for some reason, I got that sinking feeling again.
She’s just a motherly figure. Something he’s never had , I told myself even if it didn't make the sinking feeling disappear.
“I’ll go check on the others,” she said, stepping away. “I’ll bring a cold compress for you in a bit, Eve.”
She left us alone, shutting the door behind her. Emery didn’t say a word as he brought the stool over, setting it beside me. He took the wet cloth and scrubbed it with soap before sitting close enough that his knee touched my thigh.
My pulse quickened, my hand gripping the fabric of my dress. Being alone with him still affected me, made me feel a range of emotions that contradicted each other. What someone might feel when caught up in loving a murderous devil. A deep, awful longing mixed with undeniable fear.
I’d thought I’d stopped fearing him, but maybe I hadn’t. Maybe my fear had only evolved, morphed into something strange and confusing but completely unique all on its own.
Fear and love together was one fucked up mixture.
Emery reached out, taking my chin with careful fingers and leaning my head toward him. He pressed the cloth to the cut on my cheek first, dabbing away the blood.
Unable to help myself, I let my gaze drift back to his face, watching him focus on cleaning the cut. He was being so gentle. It made the sinking feeling start to lighten.
I knew I feared my ghost, afraid he’d hurt me, scare me like I’d once been scared of Emery’s demons. But as I watched him now, felt his heavy but careful hand on me, I knew I couldn’t stop wanting him either, wanting his touch to keep me sane, keep me here with him. This Emery, the one I knew who could be sweet, who would protect me.
It was like two sides of a mask. And I never knew which one I would see.
For now, I just wanted to let myself soak up this Emery, the one I lost in the water, the one I’d started to fall for when I shouldn’t.
His gaze locked to mine when he noticed me staring, and I could see there was some unspoken emotion raging behind his eyes.
I swallowed. “I’m still not sure,” I said. “If you're really here or it’s my mind playing games.”
Emery’s hand froze. “I’m really here, baby,” he answered softly.
I closed my eyes, focusing on his touch. God, how I wanted to believe it. But there was that small part I couldn’t shake that it would all slip away.
He continued to clean my face, washing away the dry blood. Afterward, he applied some kind of gel to help with the scarring. His thumb slid across the cut over my cheek, and I could just feel the lightest sting. Once he finished, he carefully covered it with a clean bandage, then moved to the cut over my eye.
“It started in Severfalls,” I continued after the long pause… “Seeing you. Right after you dropped into the river.”
His hand slowed a little, but he didn’t stop. I watched his mouth turn down slightly. Full lips I wanted to crush against mine.
“They took you there right after it happened?” he asked.
“Yeah. They didn’t let me look for you, even when I begged. Didn’t let me stay. Just took me there without warning. I had no time to think, to contemplate what had happened. I just kept seeing you dropping in the water and disappearing.” This time, it was painful to swallow as a knot grew in my throat. “Everything we created washed away with you...everything, our plans, all gone. I feel like…in a way I did too.”
He clenched his jaw as if the memory pained him too. He dropped the cloth he’d used to clean my cut and snaked his hand around the back of my neck, leaning in so his head touched mine. “This isn’t over, Evee. Not a fucking chance. A bad break, yes, but I’m still here and so are you. And our time isn’t over. Once everything here is finished, and those fuckers at Severfalls pay, it will be just us again, you’ll see.” He fisted some of my hair. “Just us. And we’ll have the ocean. Our dream, baby, I swear it.”
Unable to stop myself, I cupped his throat, feeling it bob. Feeling his breath against my lips, I took in some of his air before I pressed my mouth to his.
He didn’t hesitate. He pulled me in closer, greedy, and desperate for more. I let him in without a fight, his lips crushing mine, tongue tangling with mine. I grazed his bottom lip with my teeth and he moaned softly, his other hand clutching my hip, pulling me off the seat.
As much as I wanted him to haul me over to the bed in the room behind us and fuck me till I saw stars, I tensed. I let him in a little longer before pulling away, still keeping my forehead against his.
“I saw you almost every night in Severfalls, you know,” I said against his lips. “You were decaying before my eyes. Your face just a skull. I couldn’t look at you, couldn’t sleep. I’m still afraid I’ll see that face even now. And then you’ll…”
A shadow passed over his eyes. “I won’t ever hurt you.”
I looked him dead in the eyes and said, “You have.”
He stiffened, unable to hide how much that truth must hurt. “I know,” he said. “But never again.”
“There was a therapist at Severfalls who told me if you were alive, that wouldn’t have changed. But I told him he was wrong.”
“He is,” he breathed. “He’s wrong, Evee.”
I saw the sincerity in his eyes. “You’ve changed,” I whispered. “You seem different. You seem more…here.”
“I am,” he said. “And it’s because of you.”