Chapter 9 Wren
Rory and I share a similar talent. She can identify any bird by its call.
Me, I can identify any emotion by a scream.
Within a millisecond, I recognize all the screams around me as ones of collective terror. The guttural and blood-curdling kind, a chorus so loud the ground grumbles beneath my feet.
Gabriel lunges toward me with such speed I don’t even have time to flinch, and now my feet aren’t touching the ground at all. His forearm pins me to his torso as he drives me backward through a blur of chaos. Sequins glint, glasses smash. The band is no longer singing to The Nolans.
The dance floor grows smaller behind Gabriel’s shoulder.
Branches scratch at my own. When the wedding disappears behind a veil of trees, I realize we’re in the forest. I crane my neck to look up to the canopy; tendrils of smoke swirl between the leaves, and the smell of things that shouldn’t be burned thickens the air.
What is going on?
And more importantly, where are Rory and Tayce?
My labored breaths thrum in my ears as I twist in Gabriel’s grip to scan the crowd running past. I pick apart stumbling silhouettes, looking for the pale pink of Tayce’s bridesmaid dress and the white of Rory’s.
When I can’t see them anywhere, my body stiffens, and finally, the shock gives way to dread.
“Where are they?” I yell. He doesn’t reply. “What’s happening?”
His expression is thunderous, pulled so taut that his cheekbones bulge from beneath his skin.
He’s laser-focused on the view behind me.
Though his mouth is set in a hard line, his lips are twitching.
For a moment, I think he’s muttering to himself, but then I notice his fist beneath his beard at an odd angle.
He’s talking into his watch, like he’s Inspector Gadget or something.
I block out the mayhem around us and zone in on his voice.
His hot breath grazes the side of my neck, and his chest vibrates against my own, but I can’t pick out any buzzwords that explain why the night has descended into madness.
In fact, I can’t pick out any words at all, then I realize he’s not even speaking in Italian, let alone in English.
It’s all too surreal, and I can do nothing but stare at him with misplaced fascination.
The cold composure, the smooth stride. The determination behind his eyes.
He’s otherworldly. An unmovable mountain in the storm, and the irony is not lost on me: less than twenty-four hours ago, the arm holding me was the same arm preventing me from leaving my home, and yet I somehow know that clinging to his body is the safest place to be.
I grip him tighter.
Seconds drag out into minutes; he doesn’t glance at me once. Christ, if Angelo could pick me up without grunting, well, Gabriel seems to have picked me up and forgotten he’s done so.
When we reach the main road, I don’t have time to take in my surroundings before my back slams against something hard, new arms wrap around my waist, and distance stretches between Gabriel and me.
He flicks a casual look over my head. “Take this one.”
Then he stalks back toward the trees without so much as a glance back.
“Take this one.” As if he’s a port worker and I’m cargo, some inanimate object that needs hauling from one place to the other before he’s allowed to clock out for the night.
Christ, Wren. Rory’s wedding is ruined, and I’m over here with these self-absorbed thoughts. Now I feel guilty for being insulted. I’m unable to dwell on it because these new arms are carrying me across the road. I look out to sea over a car roof, and my gut twists.
The port beneath the cliffs is ablaze. Destruction in its rawest form ravishes through buildings, lorries, crates.
Fires spit out debris into the raging sea, and the angry waves drag it under.
The screams rising from the smoke and ash are chilling.
They’re deeper, louder, more desperate than they are up here.
Devastation rips a hole through my core. Those screams don’t belong to nameless faces on the news, they belong to people I know. Men who prop up the bar at The Rusty Anchor nightly, whose daughters and sons I count as friends. Innocent lives ruined, maybe even lost.
How?
My only guess is some sort of freak accident.
A hand leaves my waist, and I glance down in time to see it yank on a door handle. I was so consumed by the scene below I hadn’t noticed that the random man Gabriel passed me on to was carrying me toward a waiting car.
The back door swings open.
A car he’s trying to put me in to.
No.
No, no, no.
The hole in my stomach grows wider. Here come those self-absorbed thoughts again, and my hands fly out to grip onto the frame.
A gruff voice scrapes my nape. “Get in the car.”
I balk at the hard shove on my lower back.
Absolutely not. I drive my weight through my palms and lock my elbows, kicking my feet to find the ground. I find a shin instead, and the man holding me lets out a sharp hiss. When he drops me, I twist around and duck under his arm to escape.
“Get in the car!” he roars, lunging toward me.
I can barely see him, with the huge black void behind him opening wider and wider, threatening to swallow me whole. I can’t get in the car. I can’t. Every bone in my body trembles, every thought in my brain screams in protest.
The man grips my arm and tugs me forward.
I dig my heels into the asphalt, not a thought for my brand-new peep-toes nor for the manicure I definitely couldn’t afford, as my nails claw at any flesh they can find.
I’ll do anything—kick, bite, scream. Cry, plea, beg.
I’ll walk a thousand miles and back if it means not getting in a car ever again.
As the open door grows closer, my desperation burns hotter. I swing a fist; none of my punches land. A familiar voice is yelling my name from somewhere—it’s Rory, I know it, but I can’t see her through my tears.
“Let her go.” The command slices through my conscience like a hot butter knife. It’s calm, almost bored, but the voice holds weight. It belongs to someone who’s never had to raise his voice in his life, because he’s yet to meet someone who’s stupid enough to disobey him.
He drops me in an instant, and I stagger backward, finding my footing as he mutters under his breath in a foreign language. The car door slams shut behind him. Tires screech and kick up dust, covering the hem of my dress.
“Wren!”
It’s Rory’s voice again. I spin to find her through all the screaming and spot her hanging out the passenger-side window of a slow-moving black sedan. Her curls are ruffled, and her face is flushed red. My gaze shifts to the back seat, where Tayce is hammering against the glass, mouthing my name.
“Go with Gabe!” Rory yells, desperation warping her tone. Her big brown eyes are pleading with me. She shouts it again and again, until the car speeds up and carries her out of earshot.
Standing in the road, I watch the car disappear around the bend. The chaos has left too, and an eerie silence settles among the discarded purses, heels, and handkerchiefs littered on the ground.
It’s like a scene from a zombie apocalypse. Everyone’s gone. There’s only one threat to life now, and its shadow bleeds into the glow of a nearby streetlamp.
My chest fills with despair as I strain my eyes sideways and stare down at the shadow. It isn’t moving, and maybe, if I walk real slow and keep real quiet, he’ll let me leave without a fuss.
My house is less than a ten-minute walk away. Eight, if I kick off these heels once I’m out of his line of sight. Gravel crunches underfoot as I take a tentative step. Then another. Before my third footstep finds purchase, a deep command paralyzes my spine.
“Get in the car.”
I let out a sigh—a silent one, obviously. Mostly because I’m scared he’ll hear me, but also because I’m exhausted. I’m running on fumes, and now this terrifying turn of events has taken the last bit of fight from me.
Resigned, I turn around. A few feet away, Gabriel cuts a haunting figure.
I don’t know what makes me more uneasy, being alone with him on an empty road again or how comfortable he looks among the destruction behind him.
It’s as though he’s woven into its fabric—his black suit an extension of the black smoke, his molten glare the brightest of the embers dancing under the night’s sky.
Even if he wasn’t the Boogeyman, he could fool the world with his eyes alone.
He jerks his chin to the left. I follow it to a lone black car parked on the verge, half illuminated by a streetlamp.
“Get in the car,” he repeats, with ice-cold restraint.
I roll my shoulders back and meet his eye with restraint of my own. “Thank you for the offer, but I don’t need a ride. I’m more than happy to walk home.”
Irritation tightens his gaze. “You get in the front or you go in the trunk.”
Holy crap.
Ice threads through my veins. I know little about this man, but I know his threats are never empty.
Without waiting for a response, he doubles down by sliding his fist into his pocket.
A quiet beep sounds, followed by a double blink of headlights.
The hood of the trunk rises open with a chilling hiss.
My heart pounds in my chest, a cocktail of frustration and indignation stretching it tight. I don’t know how I’m getting out of this mess, but I sure as hell know it won’t be on four wheels.
I glance over my shoulder toward my house, scrambling for a plan. Despite my yearly fun runs for charity, I don’t have the speed nor stamina to make a break for it. I wouldn’t be able to outrun him based on the width of his stride alone, even if I had my sneakers on.
And any attempt to fight him off would be laughable. A man half his size just dragged me around like a rag doll—Gabriel would rip me open like one, and the only thing left of me would be buttons and stuffing.
Well, then. I suppose I’ll try a good old-fashioned refusal.
“No.”