23. Lexi
Chapter twenty-three
“Come on, lassie. Wake up. Please wake up. Don’t leave me here with these boring idiots to fend for me self.” Lochlan’s voice is low, yet still unbearably whiny as I finally come to. His Scottish accent sounds even more prominent in my haze of confusion.
My head pounds even worse than when I woke up after being gassed. I try to move and instead let out a pitiful moan before I dry-heave repeatedly.
“It’s okay, lassie. I’ve got you.”
I’m sagging against Lochlan. He rubs circles on my back with one arm and holds himself up with the other since all of my weight is on him. I try to move and apologize, but I throw up instead.
“You hit your head pretty hard, Lex.” Lee’s voice sounds muffled, like he’s in some sort of wind tunnel. “She probably has a concussion,” he says to someone else.
“We can’t stay out here in the open like this,” a woman says. Must be Kristi. “That masked guy might come back. I don’t know why he didn’t just kill us. Maybe he thought we all died from the fall? It was a pretty rough landing, but not high enough to kill us. Do you think you can move, Lexi?”
My head hurts so badly I can’t be bothered to answer for myself. Instead, I lean against Lochlan’s sturdy chest and let him take charge of me as I try to keep the rest of the contents in my stomach from spewing out all over the place.
“What’s that over there?” Kristi says, her voice rising.
I look up and wince at the bright rays shining down on me. How long was I asleep? How did I even get here? The last thing I remember is running…then…falling.
Why can’t I remember anything?
“Lee,” I croak out, my throat painfully parched.
He’s at my side in an instant, his face kind and comforting in this new land of confusion I seem to be stuck in.
“I think something is wrong. I can’t—I can’t remember how I got here.
It’s like my memories right before the fall are gone.
The last thing I remember was running from the Axeman. How did we get away?”
“You guys…” Kristi repeats.
“We aren’t sure how we got away. I just know that the lot of us woke up at the bottom of this rather nasty hillside,” Lochlan answers, rubbing at his shoulder and wincing.
We all look worse for wear. It’s almost like we just ran for our lives and collapsed at the bottom of a damn hillside.
Oh wait, that’s precisely what happened…I think.
I hate it here, but I don’t have time to allow the breakdown I know is looming just behind my vaulted feelings.
Pull it together, Lex.
Where are Teagan and Capri?
The Axeman is still out there, and he’s still after us.
I take a deep breath, staving off another rush of emotions.
A lone tear slides down my cheek. Lochlan reaches down and brushes it away.
“No crying allowed, lassie. You might scare me more than anyone else in my life, but seeing you cry is even more terrifying than seeing you sneer at my shoes. The L-Team has no space for tears.”
“The L-Team?” I ask.
Lee sighs, an amused smile painted on his dry lips, before explaining. “Lochy boy has decided to call our original trio, sorry Kristi, the L-Team. You know, Lexi, Lee, and Lochlan. He’s a weird dude, but I like him.”
I give a slight nod.
“Anyways,” Lee continues, “Some short-term memory loss is typically common with a concussion. It should come back sooner or later. But until then, Kristi is right. We need to find somewhere to hide and regroup while you rest.”
Kristi shrieks, making the rest of us jump up in panic. I’m instantly nauseated again, but ready to run the moment someone says run. I’m not letting some crazy ass author get the last word with me, and I’m certainly not going to let him decide my fate.
Only I have that power.
Kristi lets out a loud, unabashed laugh before limping back toward the tree-line, where a lanky guy in an oversized grey suit is smiling back at her. He’s another one of Pierce’s guests. At least I can remember that much.
“Sammy!” Kristi screams, throwing herself into his arms. “I thought that psycho killed you after we got separated! How’d you escape?”
The two of them talk a mile a minute while the rest of us slowly make our way over to them.
“When we got out of that house of horrors, he chased you instead of me,” Sammy explains, his hands gripping Kristi’s arms like he’s checking to make sure she’s real.
“I tried to taunt him into coming back for me, but by the time I followed him, you were nowhere to be found. I tried, Krissy-girl. I’m just glad you’re okay.
” His dark, ebony skin glistens in the sunlight.
He looks mostly unscathed. The grey suit he’s wearing is torn, and leaves and twigs are stuck in his hair.
He definitely looks worse for wear, but his smile lights up the world as he gazes down at Kristi.
I find myself jealous as I watch them. I wish someone had given me a cute nickname and looked at me that way while we navigated this nightmare together.
Instead, I’m stuck with my best friend’s husband and Lochlan.
Though, and I really hate to admit it, Lochlan might be growing on me a bit.
“How do you both know each other?” Lee asks, gesturing from Kristi to Sammy.
Sammy throws his arm over Kristi’s shoulder and grins. “We work together on a bookish blog back home. We were both invited by Mr. Pierce.”
“I really, really wish we had ignored that invite now,” Kristi adds in before they go back to talking amongst themselves.
Lee glances at me, then quickly looks away before clearing his throat loudly several times. I swear he’s blushing.
I’m startled when something warm and heavy covers my shoulders. I turn to see Lochlan fixing his dress shirt, which is filthy and torn. I reach up and pull his suit jacket tighter around me.
“Thanks,” I say, flashing him a grateful smile. I guess I didn’t realize how frigid it is with all this adrenaline coursing through my veins.
“Lee’s just too polite to tell you that your tits were hanging out,” Lochlan grunts out, grinning like a madman as Lee rolls his eyes. “You were one good stretch away from a nip-slip there, lassie.”
I look down and see that Lochlan is, in fact, right.
My dress must have torn during my fall because it’s in tatters hanging off my skin.
I flush red and throw my arms into the jacket before buttoning it as high as it’ll let me.
It’s huge on my small, yet curvy frame, but it helps me feel less exposed.
Still, at least I’m not stuck in a robe.
“I actually might have something that’ll help with all that,” Sammy chimes in.
We all turn our attention to him and wait for him to elaborate.
“I found this, like, underground bunker thing as I was running. Nearly missed the damn thing, honesty. I just happened to trip, you know I’m clumsy as all get out, Krissy.
” He smiles at her, and they both share a knowing laugh.
“Fell right on top of the handle and chipped my tooth!” he exclaims, lifting his lip to show us the large chip on his front tooth. “Come, I’ll show you. It’s not far.”
I stare in awe at the fully stocked supply room.
This is like winning the lotto. No. It’s better than winning the lotto.
What could money do for me in this situation?
It’s not like I can go ahead and Venmo the Axeman and bargain for our lives, now can I?
But food, clothing, running water, and a real pillow?
That’s something I can work with. It’s like finding a knife slipped under your pillow in a slasher novel.
It’s rejuvenating when all hope feels lost.
This might just be a real slice of heaven amidst all this chaos—or at least a very well-placed miracle.
Sammy led the way and brought us to an underground bunker as promised.
Only this bunker is more than just a place to hide.
It locks from the inside so that nobody can get in.
It’s a place of safety, but it’s also the perfect place to regroup, heal, and figure out what to do next so we can get out of this mess we’re in.
This is how we turn the tables on the Axeman. We can use Pierce’s annoyingly rich hobbies against him by using his secret bunker to get the upper hand.
But first, food and a shower take priority.
“I’ll get us a meal together,” Lee tells me. “You go shower before the hot water runs out.”
I lift my eyebrow at him.
“You forget, Lex. I’m married to a woman. I know how feral you ladies can get once the water runs cold.”
I grin and squeeze his shoulder as I pass him. “You’re the best. Literally. You’re my favorite of my best friends’ husbands.”
Lee snorts and gives me a sly smile. “I’m the only husband in the group, so it’s easy to be the favorite. But I suppose you can be my favorite of Capri’s friends, too. That is, until Teagan comes to save us all with her witchy magic and final girl power, or whatever it is you ladies say.”
“Lee!” I gasp, trying to hold back both tears and laughter. “Since you love me so much, you won’t mind if I use all the hot water.” I head for the bathroom and lock the door behind me before erasing the fake smile from my face.
What I didn’t tell him is that I’m not sure if I actually have any best friends left.
The water scalds my skin in the best way possible. Is there really anything better than a boiling shower after the most tiresome and adrenaline-rush-filled night of my life? No, there isn’t. Being cooked alive might not be the worst way to go out.
I let the water rinse away all the grime and hard truths of the day, and finally allow myself to have that breakdown that I’ve been holding off on.
It’s clearer than ever that I’ve been wrong about everything.
My tears mix with the scalding stream as I fall to my knees and cry harder than I think I’ve ever cried before.
What kind of friend am I?
I allowed myself to pursue a man I knew my best friend was falling in love with. I can try to rationalize all I want about how I was in the right to go after him, but at the end of the day, I’m the problem. If Josh had wanted me, he wouldn’t have gone after Teagan. He would have chosen me.
Josh let me become the worst version of myself, and at the end of the day, I justified my actions for what I mistook as love. I can’t speak for his actions in our affair, but I know what we had wasn’t love. It was obsession and jealousy on my part.
Both of which I regret more than anything. And now we might all be killed because of some psycho-thriller-writer, and I may never be able to tell Teagan how sorry I am.
I might never get to right all my wrongs.
A knock on the door pulls me out of my melancholy. I stave off another sob that threatens to escape.
“Hey lassie,” Lochlan says from beyond the closed door. “We’re going to have a group meeting here in a bit.”
Wiping my eyes and rinsing the last of the soap down the drain, along with all my emotions and regrets of my life, I shout back, “I’ll be right out!”
When I get out of the shower, I find a pair of black sweatpants along with an oversized purple hoodie waiting for me. The outfit is truly horrendous, but I can’t really be picky right now. At least it’s not flannel.
I head out to meet the rest of the group and find them all sitting around a large oval table.
There’s an empty seat with what looks like a microwaved meal and two bottles of water waiting for me.
I give a nod of thanks to Sammy and dig in.
The food is disgusting, but I’m so hungry it doesn’t even matter.
I wolf it down while listening to the others speak.
“We have the element of surprise now,” Lee explains. “What we should do is use one of us as bait and then take the Axeman down ourselves. It’s five to one, there’s no way he’s walking away from an ambush like that.”
Kristi crosses her arms across her chest and chews on her thumb as she stares up at Sammy. “What do you think?” she mumbles.
Sammy sighs and shrugs. “I don’t know. It could work. But it’s risky to whoever we use as bait. I won’t force anyone to volunteer for that, and I’m sure as shit not going to. I barely escaped him the last time.”
“Neither am I,” Kristi agrees. “Sorry, but I don’t know you guys enough to trust you.”
Lochlan scoffs and slams a hand on the table, making us all jump.
“We saved your life, Kristi! We risked ours to make sure you made it out alive. I don’t want to hear another thing about trust. If we don’t have trust, we have nothing.
And I, for one, will trust these two blokes with my life.
” He points to Lee and me and gives us a wink.
Something in my chest tugs at his admission. I look back and forth between Lochlan and Lee and realize that somewhere between the cabin and here, we became true allies. Friends, even. And I’ll go down swinging for them, too.
I get to my feet. “I’ll be the bait.” Lee and Lochlan immediately argue.
I hold up a hand to stop them. “Look, I’m no use with a weapon, but I’m faster than the rest of you.
He can’t kill me if he can’t catch me, right?
” I ask before continuing. “But that won’t happen because I’m trusting you idiots with my life.
So let’s kill this douchebag and get back to our people. ”
Lochlan gives me a salute and then hoists what I think is a crossbow over his shoulder, his green eyes shining with pride. “With these supplies, we are no longer the hunted. We are the hunters.”