31. Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-one
Remington James
“ C h-Charlie?” He’s silent standing next to me looking out over the water. He’s not acting right. His whole demeanor is cold and off. In my heart, I’m still hoping I’m wrong. That all the arrows pointing towards him were a mistake. But even as he takes my hand to hold, I sense how fucked I am.
“It never had to be this way,” he says tenderly. Like the Charlie I thought he was, but the words are damning.
I tremble as tears start to pour out of my eyes. He tightens his grip slightly on my hand. He looks at me thoughtfully, wiping away the tears on my cheeks. “You could’ve let it drop. But you even managed to find the WPL logbook.” He shakes his head grimacing. “You had so many opportunities to leave it all alone.”
The twisted thing is, he told me about the drownings. He pulled me into this to begin with. I was in trouble the minute I met him. “I don’t understand. Why? Why, Charlie?” My voice is pleading, choked with tears.
I try to pull away, but his firm grip on my hand doesn’t loosen. He wraps his other hand around my waist. I’m a fighter. Everyone says that, but I am. A scrapper that managed to fend for myself in rough neighborhoods without a parent around most of the time. I’ve kneed a junkie that tried to rob me, I’ve run from a group of older boys that were giving me the creeps, and I shot a flare gun at a scary guy that followed me home one night. But in the face of a man I’ve fallen in love with, I can’t scream for help, I can’t kick and fight. I’m dissolving in tears.
I want him to stop this. To tell me he didn’t mean any of it. Because I’m going into shock.
He leans down to kiss my head. “Remi, I never wanted it to end this way.” Having felt the necklace in my pocket, he pulls it out. “Just one more sign.”
No. No. No. Nooooo!
The necklace wraps around my neck, as he squeezes the wheezy shriek from me amounts to nothing. He deftly lowers me into the lake with one arm around my waist, like he’s just helping me into the water. He follows me in. The water level up to his armpits, he stands close, dragging me down in the water by pulling back on the necklace, his face is blank.
He leans near me, I hear his muffled, “Remember you are water. Cry. Cleanse. Flow. Let Go.” One of his hands smooths my hair back lovingly, the other tightens the chain of the necklace.
My vision is blackening around the edges when a pounding sound on the dock reaches my ears. I hear splashes in the water around me. I’m freed from Charlie’s grip, pulled out of the water into Grady’s arms. I look up to see Cal holding Charlie’s head under the water.
My voice is scratchy, “Don’t… Cal, don’t.”
Wilder flies into the water. He pulls Cal back, Charlie coughs profusely as his head comes up. Wilder puts an arm around his neck. “I could snap his neck. No one would know but us.” His voice is fierce.
Clutching to Grady’s forearms, my legs weak, I try to sound sure, “No, Wilder. You’re not a murderer, he is. If you do that, he never has to answer any questions or get punished for what he’s done.”
Cal pulls me into his arms, his chest heaving. “Fuck, are you okay? Are you okay, sweetheart?”
As sirens come closer, I walk out of the lake supported by Cal and Grady. When I look back, Wilder still has Charlie around the neck. A vial of medication has worked free of his pocket and is bobbing in the water next to him. I came close to death. If he hadn’t found the necklace, I would be gone right now.