Chapter 23 #2
The impact jolts through me and will most likely bruise but I could care less.
My shivering hands find her shoulders.
Her skin feels far too cold.
I press two fingers against her neck.
For one horrible second, there’s nothing. Then, a pulse. It’s faint, but it’s there.
I bow my head and sag with relief.
“I got you.”
Tenderly, I slip one hand under her head.
Strands of hair hang around her face, tangled and matted. Her makeup has long since washed away, leaving dark streaks under sunken eyes. Her body is a patchwork of bruises and blood; worn down by everything she’s endured.
“Hey,” I whisper, my voice breaking.
“Hey, stay with me. You’re okay. Do you hear me? You’re okay now.”
Her eyelids flutter and a ragged breath leaves her.
Then her lips move.
“Ca…”
I inch closer.
“What did you say?”
Her eyes struggle open, clouded and unfocused. Then they find mine, recognition shines in her eyes.
“Ca…Cass?”
The world stops.
My heart stutters as a lump forms in my throat.
No. No. No.
My gaze searches her face. Past the bruises. Past the blood. Past the gaunt features and exhaustion. Past the alterations forced upon her. I look beyond everything they did to her until I finally see her. Really see her. And everything inside me shatters.
“Marie?”
The name tears out of me.
“Marie?!”
A sob rips through my chest.
“Oh my god.”
My hands cup her face.
“It’s really you.”
I choke on the words as my tears spill freely now.
“Marie.”
Two years. Two years of morgues. Two years of Jane Doe files. Two years of hoping and searching. And she’s here.
She’s alive.
A weak smile touches her lips, not the painted smile they’d forced onto her face.
A real one.
The same smile I’ve spent two years trying to find.
I cradle her against my chest and hold on with everything I have, my tears soaking into her hair.
She’s here. She’s here. She’s here.
For a few precious seconds, nothing else exists. Then I think of Sofie. I pull away slightly, my hands shaking uncontrollably.
“Where’s Sofie?”
The words scrape their way out of me.
“Marie.”
Her name comes out raw.
“Where’s Sofie?”
Her smile crumbles.
Silent tears slink down her face, one after another.
Her lower lip quivers.
And suddenly I know.
Before she says it.
Before she forces the word past her lips.
Before her eyes fill with fresh grief.
I know.
Marie swallows hard and the movement looks painful.
Her eyes drift away from mine when she speaks, her voice so faint I almost don’t hear it.
“Dead.”
The single word drives straight through me.
Everything stops.
My body locks.
The world tilts.
Everything inside me caves in.
No.
The realization barrels into me.
No.
Not Sofie.
Not her.
Images surge through my mind. Her laugh. Her smile. The way she would bounce into a room and somehow make it brighter. The future she was supposed to have. Gone.
Somewhere nearby, voices echo through the theater.
The rescue crew. Medics. Movement.
The girls from the locked room are being carried out.
A doctor kneels beside us and checks Marie’s vitals.
I hardly notice.
Someone grips my shoulder firmly.
Tyler.
He’s saying something, I know he is.
His mouth is moving.
I can feel his grip tighten as he processes the same loss.
But I can’t hear a word, it sounds muffled.
All I can feel is the woman in my arms. The tears on her face. The devastating weight of one word.
Dead.
And all I can do is hold Marie tighter while my heart breaks all over again.
I’m not sure how much time passes.
Minutes. Hours. It all blurs together.
At some point, a member of the rescue crew kneels beside us.
They’re gentle when they take Marie from me.
Considerate.
As if they understand she’s carrying what’s left of my heart with her.
I don’t fight it.
I don’t think I could if I wanted to.
The moment she’s gone, the emptiness overtakes me.
The sobs keep coming.
Violent.
Relentless.
Until there’s nothing left.
No tears.
No screams.
Nothing.
Eventually, I force myself to my feet.
My knees nearly buckle.
I look down.
Blood covers me.
Marie’s blood.
It’s smeared along my arms. My hands. My vest. My shirt. My pants.
Dark stains painted into the fabric.
Proof that she was real, that I found her, that I held her in my arms while she took her last breath.
The thought threatens to split me in half.
After two years of searching, I found Marie only to lose her anyway. And in the same cruel breath, I learned Sofie was already gone.
My chest constricts as I drag in a shaky breath that does absolutely nothing.
The theater has changed as rescue crew members move between survivors; medics push equipment across the stage and voices resonate through the building.
But they all sound distant.
Muted.
As though I’m underwater.
Then I feel him before I see him.
Tyler.
His presence settles against the edges of my awareness.
I lift my head.
He’s standing several feet away.
Watching me as his face is tight with grief, anger and helplessness.
But he doesn’t move toward me, not yet.
He knows me too well for that.
He knows if he touches me right now, whatever fragile control I’m clinging to will shatter completely.
So, he stays where he is.
Giving me space and a choice.
The kind only someone who loves me would know to give.
For a long moment, neither of us speaks.
My throat burns and my eyes sting.
I stare at the blood covering my hands.
At the evidence of everything we’ve lost.
Then I look back at him.
And the moment our eyes meet, something inside me comes undone.
The same grief I’m drowning in is written all over his face.
And somehow that hurts even more.
Because I know he’s grieving Marie and Sofie too.
For two years, Tyler has asked me the same question.
Every mission. Every lead. Every body. Every dead end.
Every time we stood over another monster and watched the life leave their eyes.
“Are you ready to go back to Florida?”
And every single time, my answer was the same.
No. Florida could wait.
Revenge could wait.
The men who hurt me could wait.
Marie and Sofie couldn’t.
Not while there was still a chance, hope, and while I was still waking up every morning wondering where they were.
Wondering if they were cold, hungry, scared or alive.
So, I kept searching.
Week after week.
Month after month.
Year after year.
I searched the morgue, missing persons reports, anywhere there was even the slightest chance of finding them.
I refused to stop or give up or to let them become people everyone else forgot.
But now they are dead.
The truth settles inside me like a blade driven straight through my heart.
The last piece of unfinished business is gone.
The last thing holding me here no longer exists.
I look down at my hands covered in blood.
All I see is Marie’s blood, Sofie’s blood, my blood and the blood of every girl who never made it home.
Something shifts inside me.
For years, I’ve carried my anger like a wildfire.
Chaotic.
Unpredictable.
Consuming everything in its path.
Now it condenses into something sharper, a weapon.
I slowly lift my head.
Tyler is still watching me, waiting.
He knows what’s coming.
I can see it in his eyes.
For the first time he doesn’t ask the question.
He doesn’t have to since we both already know the answer.
My feet carry me to him before I consciously decide to move.
The theater is still buzzing around us, but all of it fades into the background.
There is only me, Tyler and what comes next.
When I stop in front of him, my voice is calm, the kind before a hurricane.
“Call the pilot.”
Tyler goes completely still.
I watch as the realization and understanding hit him.
My gaze doesn’t waver.
“Book the flight.”
The words come out harsher this time.
The fury inside me no longer needs to scream.
It knows exactly where it’s going.
Florida.
Back to where this started.
Back to the men who stole pieces of me.
Back to the men who thought they got away with it.
I feel my jaw aching from the strain and my hands ball into fists.
The past replays behind my eyes.
The feeling of being trapped.
Powerless.
Broken.
A victim.
The girl they dragged into the dark died a long time ago.
What stands here now is something else entirely.
Something they created.
Something they’ll never see coming.
Tyler’s eyes never leave mine.
A slow smile pulls at the corner of his mouth.
Not because he’s happy but because he understands.
I glance to the stage one final time.
Toward the blood, the bodies, the ghosts we’ve finally laid to rest.
Then I walk away.
Florida is waiting.
And so are they.
For years, they’ve lived their lives believing the past was buried.
Believing they were safe.
They’re wrong.
There is a debt long overdue.
And I’m done waiting to collect.
This time, they won’t be paying in apologies.
They won’t be paying in prison sentences.
And they sure as hell won’t be paying in regret.
They’re going to pay in blood.
THE END.