Chapter Thirty-Two
Carrie
“Carrie!”
“Carrie, please wake up!”
I opened my eyes, seeing nothing for a moment, trying to register the voices.
“Oh, thank God,” Sarah whimpered from somewhere around me.
I was on the ground.
Why was I on the ground? Why did my head hurt?
Twisting my neck, I found Margo with her hands tied behind her back. Horror filled my entire being then as I looked down to her feet, finding rope tied around her ankles. The shirt she was wearing this morning in Rossy’s was ripped at the collar and covered in stains.
What the hell happened?
Sarah whispered hissed my name, and I looked in the opposite direction, finding her sitting by my tied feet, in the same position as Margo. Her face was splotchy, panic shining in her eyes as her chest heaved rapidly.
“Carrie, thank God! I thought you were dead,” Sarah blubbered.
“Shh,” Margo hissed. “Or he’s going to come back!”
“Who?” I asked softly, my voice shaking.
Was it Brandon?
Had the proof Hayes gotten been fake?
“Sit up,” Sarah ordered. “I don’t want him to come back and try to kick you again.”
A chill ran down my spine. “He tried to kick me?”
“In the face,” Margo whispered, her voice distant.
Grunting, I rolled to my back, noting I wasn’t sore, and sat up. I put my back against the wall, my fingers brushing against the freezing, moist stone as I looked around. There was a single wooden door that didn’t quite cover the entire doorway, giving us some light from the outside.
Outside—
We were outside.
Margo was shivering, staring straight ahead. “He’s going to come back soon.”
“Who is he? What does he look like?” I demanded. “Do either of you feel dizzy?”
If Brandon drugged my friends with Nightwalker , I was going to be the one to finally kill him.
“Tall, skinny, and young. He has bleached hair and his eyes are sunken in,” Sarah answered through her tears.
Well, shit. That wasn’t Brandon.
Who the hell was this guy?
“What happened?” I asked again, looking at Margo, then to Sarah.
“He came into the bookstore and ordered a coffee,” Margo whispered. “I made his coffee, handed it to him, and told him to have a good day.” She looked away from us, focusing on the door again, going completely still.
Sarah picked up the rest of the story. “I was at the counter and noticed him looking around. I didn’t think anything of it. It wasn’t until he happened to be the only one in the store…” My friend shook her head, her bottom lip wobbling. She inhaled a choppy breath as the memories came back to her. “He knocked you out first with the butt of his gun. I heard you drop. I should’ve called Michael. I don’t know why I didn’t…I just had to get to you. Margo tried to fight him, but he—he pushed her back into the wall, and she hit her head…Then, it was just me.”
My throat burned.
“He pointed the gun at me and made me help load you both into the car. He said if I didn’t, he’d kill both of you in front of me, and then he’d kill me.”
It came back to me then. Rossy had just stepped out to get us all lunch. I was in the back of the stacks, rearranging titles. I didn’t even see him come up from behind…
The door was kicked in then, revealing the man. Behind him was deep blue water, the Columbia River. I heard the usual noise of the docks outside, but it sounded far away. I wanted to scream, but the gun hanging from the man’s shoulder had me biting my tongue.
I didn’t know who this man was.
I’d never seen him before in my life.
That scared me. A lot.
Was this one of my father’s men? Someone from the past looking for more revenge?
Questions flew through my mind as he stared down at us. Margo was right. He was young—very young, no later than twenty at most. He was just a kid.
He didn’t give some snarky comment about me being awake like I expected him too. In fact, he didn’t say a fucking word, his eyes bouncing between the three of us as the cold air behind him seeped into the dirty room.
My eyes dropped to his free hand, noticing the slight tremor.
When he finally spoke, the unsteadiness in his voice gave me the confirmation I needed. This man wasn’t cold. He was nervous. “We have to wait until nightfall to leave. There’s too many fucking people out right now.”
“Please,” Sarah whispered. “Just let us go.”
The man’s head snapped towards her. “What did I tell you about talking?” he shot back.
“Leave her alone,” I growled.
When his eyes met mine, his head ticked to the side. “I can’t believe you’re the one everyone is making a fuss about,” he noted as he kicked the crappy door shut with his foot. “Honestly, I don’t get it.”
“Then let us go, asshole,” Margo hissed from my other side.
“We won’t tell anyone. Please let us go,” Sarah begged some more.
In a flash, that big gun was no longer hanging over his shoulder.
“All of you shut the fuck up!” he seethed, waving the AR-15 at them and keeping it on Sarah. “I don’t want to hear another fucking sound from any of you, or I’ll blow your fucking head off!” He turned from us, mumbling something about how Jack would be disappointed in him.
Jack.
Jack.
I knew that name.
It hit me, rocking me so much so that a small gasp left me. The man spun to me, the barrel of the gun right in front of my face. “I said shut up!”
I bit down on my tongue, nodding rapidly. There was no way in hell I would risk the lives of Margo and Sarah. So I kept quiet, obeying him.
Once he turned away from me, I looked over to Sarah, making sure she was somewhat okay and then to Margo. Sarah was quivering, pale as a ghost, and tears wouldn’t stop falling from her eyes. Margo, on the other hand, seemed to be in shock. She wasn’t looking at me or Sarah, only at our captor. Her eyes flashed with something I couldn’t make out, and even more guilt settled on my shoulders.
This would haunt them for the rest of their lives, and I was the reason.
The man mumbled some more to himself, complaining about this job and the weather, turning on his heel and leaving us. The thin door wobbled back and forth for a few seconds, and I waited until I could no longer hear his footsteps before speaking again. “Jack is the man Brandon got into trouble with,” I whisper-hissed to the girls.
“Wait—so that’s not Brandon?” Sarah breathed, her brows slamming together as she looked at the door.
I shook my head. “No. I’ve never seen that man in my life.”
“Are we going to die here?”
The question came from Margo as a quiet, cold whisper.
Sarah and I looked over to her. “Don’t talk like that,” Sarah said. “Everything is going to be okay. Michael and Grayson will find us. They have to know we’re missing by now.”
I nodded. “Grayson gave me a new phone with a new tracker. He—”
“—the man threw it in the river,” Margo said calmly. “All of our phones, actually.”
Sarah whimpered from behind me as Margo continued to stare straight ahead. “I didn’t do a single thing with my damn life. I have nothing to show for the twenty-eight years I’ve been on this planet.”
My eyes widened at her admission. She’d always been closed off, walls higher than the ones I’d built around myself years ago.
“Margo, don’t talk like that,” I said, repeating Sarah’s soft words. “We’re going to make it out of this, I promise.”
That triggered her. Her cold green eyes sliced to mine. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Cardinal. I can’t stand it when people break their promises,” she said, her voice unsteady, like a boat in a storm.
Seconds turned to minutes, and as they continued to pass us by, my doubt grew.
Where was Grayson?
Sarah and I had huddled closer to Margo, the three of us shivering by the time the man came back. His hair was wind-blown, his eyes wild, and the day light behind him was starting to fade.
We’d been missing for hours.
“Get up,” he ordered, out of breath. “Get the hell up! We have to go! Now!”
Sarah and I shared a look.
Help was close, and he was getting scared.
“Did you hear what I just fucking said?” he barked.
A loud boom outside had the walls around us shaking, and the man fumbled his gun. We watched silently as he scrambled to get it back in his hands, pointing it at us. “Get up!”
I sucked in a breath as a dark figure appeared behind him. “Going somewhere?” the rough voice asked.
My chest nearly caved in. Thank God.
The man whirled around, screaming coming from his throat as Hayes stepped into the room, his eyes on fire. He looked over at us, and a muscle jumped in his bruised cheek when he spotted Margo sitting beside me. Hayes looked like he’d just crawled his way out of hell.
“Your boss is a sneaky son of a bitch,” Hayes began, taking another step, not giving a shit about the AR-15 pointed at his chest. Hayes lifted a finger, pointing it to the bruise on his cheek. “He’s got one hell of a right hook—well, had one hell of a right hook. I crushed his fucking hands under a cement block before unloading a clip into his chest.”
My breath caught.
“S-stay away from me!” the young man yelled.
Hayes ignored him. “You have two options: drown in the river or leave peacefully. Don’t go back to Black Mist. Start a new life, kid. It’s not too late.”
“I-I never wanted to do this,” the man stammered, looking over to me. “That Brandon guy tried to strike a deal with Jack. H-he told us about your money, and Brandon still owed Jack.”
“Where is Brandon?” I found myself asking.
“Dead.” That was Hayes.
“You sure?”
“Carrie, I fucking watched it with my own eyes,” he assured gruffly. Him addressing me, saying my name, affected me in a way I never thought it would. My throat filled with glass then, and all I could do was nod.
Hayes looked back to our kidnapper. “Give me the gun and leave,” he ordered.
His bleached hair flapped as he nodded, handing over the weapon quickly. Hayes stepped to the side, letting him go. I watched as the young man made a mad dash out the door, running like his life depended on it, and it truly did.
Hayes ran a hand over his hair, and that was when I noticed the blood stains on his gray sleeves. Suddenly, I was wondering if those were from him or from someone else. His green eyes met mine. They were so much different than Leo’s, even Margo’s. Darker, yet somehow warm. “You girls alright?”
I nodded. “We’re okay, Hayes,” I whispered.
He moved then, getting to work freeing the three of us. Sarah shot up from the floor, and Hayes held his hand out to me, helping me up. “Thank you,” I croaked.
Grayson’s right hand said nothing, giving me a simple nod before lowering himself down in front of Margo, talking to her softly. I watched as he tried to get her out of the state she was in just as a scream curled through the air from outside.
I was running then, the beat of my heart drumming in my ears ain the winter air, finding myself at the end of the main dock, rounding the corner of the building. I stopped short, and then a scream came from me.
Our kidnapper was standing ten feet from me, his back against the water, holding Sarah with a knife to her throat. Michael was in front of him, his gun raised. I heard footsteps behind me, then a hissed curse followed by, “Margo, stay behind me.”
“Drop the knife!” Michael bellowed, his command slicing through the air like a whip.
“Fuck you!”
“Humbly,” Hayes clipped, coming to my side. The AR-15 was in his arms, pointed to the ground. “Think about this.”
Sarah was shaking, fear controlling her now. Slowly, she looked over to me and then back to her husband. “Please. Let me go,” she begged.
“Not until he drops his gun! The man in shed said I could fucking go, and that’s what I’m going to do!” the kidnapper shouted. He looked over to Hayes. “You said I could fucking go! Tell this cop to stand down, or the lady dies!”
“No!” I cried. “Please!”
Sarah carefully raised her hands from her sides, pressing on her captor’s arm, the other on her belly. “Please,” she rasped. “I’m pregnant.”
Shock slammed into me like a runaway train. “Michael, put down your gun,” I breathed out, raising my hands to him.
He didn’t look at me. “If I do that, he’ll kill her anyway.”
My eyes went to the street beyond, noticing the townspeople stopping and staring. Taking a chance, I looked back at the man. “What’s your name?”
His dead eyes sliced over to me. “W-why?”
I swallowed. “You know mine. Why can’t I know yours?”
“Carrie,” Hayes warned from behind me, but I didn’t listen.
Instead, I stepped forward. “How much do you want?”
“How much what?” he seethed.
“Money. I’ll give you all I fucking have if you let her go,” I offered, my voice cracking. “I’ll give you everything, sir, but please , let her go .”
The man looked away from us, to the road for a moment, as Sarah and Michael stared at each other. Hayes leaned in close to me. “I can take the shot.”
I looked over to him, my eyes welling with tears. “He’s just a kid.”
“And Sarah’s got a fucking baby inside her,” Hayes returned.
I opened my mouth to speak, but a gunshot rang out, and suddenly, I was pulled to the ground by Hayes, his body covering mine and Margo’s. I looked at my friend, seeing emotion in her eyes. “Are we going to die, Carrie?” she whimpered.
“Sarah!” Michael roared.
My eyes snapped up to them, seeing our kidnapper, the one who never had a chance, fall back into the river. The knife was air, floating over the man as he fell back, a bullet hole in his head. As his body crashed into the water, I looked over to the other end of the dock.
Grayson.
Grayson was here.
Grayson was—
“Grayson!” I screamed as Hayes got to his feet. I yelled out for my lover again, fear choking me.
My bounty hunter was covered in blood, his skin pale. He fell to his knees, his chest moving slowly. I scrambled to my feet, running to him as he fell forward, his eyes rolling back. His gun slid across the jagged dock. I was to him within seconds.
“No, no, no, no, no,” I chanted, tears falling from my eyes as the winter air whipped around me, waves crashing against the docks as I rolled him over. “Grayson! Grayson, stay with me!”
He’d been shot. Multiple times.
I pressed my hands to the bullet wound on his shoulder, his blood warm underneath my palms as my head shot up, finding Michael and Hayes running to me. “Help!” I cried out, sobbing. “Hayes, please , please! ” Both men went down on their knees around my lover then. Michael radioed for an ambulance as Hayes ripped Grayson’s shirt open.
“Carrie, sit back,” he ordered, checking Grayson’s pulse. I watched in horror as he began doing chest compressions. “Come on, Gray. Stay with us,” he pushed out through his counts.
“Hayes,” I whimpered, putting a bloody hand to my mouth.
“Quiet, Carrie,” he said, not looking at me.
I looked down to Grayson’s face, taking in the beauty of it. I put a hand to his cheek. “Don’t leave me,” I pleaded. “You weren’t supposed to leave me yet. You were supposed to hold me before you go.” I bowed my head, hearing sirens in the distance over Hayes’ grunted counts.
“Goddammit, Grayson,” Hayes bit off, worry lacing his voice. “Don’t you fucking leave.” He leaned back, his chest rising and falling, looking at me with panicked eyes.
I fell apart then, leaning down on Grayson’s chest, pressing my ear to it.
I couldn’t hear anything, and a sound left my mouth.
The rest of the world faded away as the memories came forward.
Couldn’t stay away even if I fucking wanted to.
I don’t know what you are, Sunshine, but you stopped being a job the second I walked out your door.
Yeah, Sunshine. I’ll always come back to you.
My name is Grayson.
But I hadn’t met you yet, hadn’t seen your fucking beauty or your gentle fucking soul hiding behind your gorgeous blue eyes.
You are a work of art, made to be admired by a man like me.
I know you’re worth it, Carrie Hale.
You told me to catch you when you fall, but Sunshine, I fell a long time ago.
I can’t lose you, Carrie.
But I was going to lose him…