Chapter 37 Monroe
MONROE
Astrange sound filtered into my consciousness and then the smell. It was pungent. Like fish. The noise continued pushing me toward the surface, and I groaned.
“Looks like your bitch is waking up in time for the show,” a voice said nearby.
Fear shuddered through me, and I didn’t know why.
Uneasy, I forced open my eyes like I would if I’d been having a bad dream.
My blurry vision cleared, and I became cognizant of the freezing cold, the damp.
The smell of wet wood filtered through the fishy odor, and I realized why as the tiny cabin came into focus.
On the walls before me hung fishing tackle.
A fishing cabin.
What?
A throbbing pain shot through my head, and I reached to touch it, hissing at the lump I found.
It all came flooding back.
The car.
The masked man.
I flew upward, head spinning, nausea rising, and a cry of terror caught in my throat at the sight of Brodan tied to a chair, his face bruised and bloody. My fear was mirrored in his eyes as he stared back at me in mute horror.
My gaze flew to the man standing over him.
A man I didn’t recognize.
“Who are you?” I choked out. “What do you want?”
“You don’t know him?” Brodan’s voice sounded hoarse. “This isn’t Shaw?”
I shook my head as Brodan’s eyes flew to the stranger. He was tall with dark hair and blue eyes and looked to be around our age. He might even have been considered good-looking if he hadn’t beaten the shit out of Brodan and wasn’t brandishing a handgun.
Noting the ropes wrapped tightly around each of Brodan’s ankles, that his hands were restrained behind the chair, I knew I was our only hope.
I needed to get that handgun if we had any chance of escaping alive.
Any thought of why we were here, what the fuck was going on, was pushed to the back of my mind as it raced to find a solution.
The stranger sneered at Brodan. “I don’t know who Shaw is, but he’s not the reason I’m going to kill you and make your girlfriend watch.”
I stifled my whimper as Brodan glared at him. “If you’re going to kill me, I think I deserve to know who you are first. Because I’ve never seen you before in my life.”
“No, you haven’t.” He pulled a photograph out of his back pocket and held it up to Brodan’s face. Whoever was on it made Brodan’s face go slack with shock. “Aye, you remember her, though, eh?”
“Vanessa,” he whispered.
Vanessa? His ex-girlfriend from uni Vanessa? The one who killed herself?
“About a year ago, I found drafts of letters she’d written before she killed herself. Five letters to the people she believed had ruined her. You were one of them.”
Brodan stared stonily at the photo. “I’m not responsible for Vanessa’s demons.”
The stranger punched Brodan so hard, I screamed. He raised the handgun to me. “Shut the fuck up, bitch.”
I bared my teeth, wanting to kill him.
Brodan shook his head as blood trickled down his eyebrow.
Brodan.
“I tried to pick up the pieces,” the stranger said, his voice cracking with emotion.
“Because I loved her so much. I tried to make her want to stay, but what her dad did to her … it broke her in ways I couldn’t fix.
And I barely knew half of it. I read the rest in her letter to him.
And what he did to her … Well, I made him pay for it two nights ago. ”
“What?” Brodan asked, seeming as confused as I was.
“I killed him. First, I tortured him, and then I killed him.”
Renewed terror gripped me, but I fought through it, searching the tiny fishing cabin, looking for a weapon, as the man continued to talk.
“They’ll find his body soon enough, but not before I’m done.
You’re shit out of luck because I don’t care what happens to me after I deal with every single one of you.
And you’re next for abandoning her when she needed you.
I didn’t know how the hell I’d get someone like you alone, but then you decided to play house back at home with the redhead.
It was all over the papers. And I knew it was time to make my move.
You were the first man she ever loved.” I heard the hatred in his voice as my eyes snagged on an ice pick near a bucket of tackle.
“You’re the reason she couldn’t fully trust me.
But now, I’m going to show her I would do anything for her. ”
“You’ve lost your fucking mind,” Brodan observed calmly.
“Huh … you know … now that I have you here … now that I can see how scared you are for her …”
My eyes flew back to them to find the stranger smirking at me.
“I might make you watch while I kill her first.”
A tortured roar erupted from Brodan, and I watched as he used his impressive strength to throw himself and the chair at the stranger.
I didn’t wait around.
Through my dizziness and nausea, I shoved myself up and lunged across the small space for the ice pick. Turning, I saw the stranger push Brodan off him. He shoved the chair onto its back, causing Brodan to cry out as his hands smashed against the floor.
The man was so consumed with Brodan, he wasn’t paying attention to me.
And something primal came over me.
I rushed him with a cry of fury, and he straightened in shock at the sight. He’d dropped the handgun in the tussle. He had nothing to protect himself.
Adrenaline filled me with a strength I could never have imagined as I plunged the ice pick into his chest.
His face slackened with shock, and he stumbled. My attention moved to the handgun he’d dropped, and I rushed to grab it before he could remember its existence.
I pointed the gun at him as he fell to his knees and pulled out the ice pick. Blood poured from the wound, too fast, too much. He turned deathly pale before he collapsed onto his back.
Eyes open but vacant.
Nausea rose, but a sound from Brodan reminded me there was no time to think about the fact that I’d probably just killed a man. I pulled Brodan’s chair up with gritted teeth and then dropped behind it to untie his bruised hands.
“Sunset,” he said gruffly, his anguish so noticeable, it was like a scream through the croaky quiet of his nickname for me. “Sunset.”
The cabin door blasted open, swinging so hard against the inside wall it cracked off its hinge. I cried out, raising the handgun at whoever was coming inside.
My sob burst free at the sight of an armed Walker Ironside.
“Sunset,” Brodan whispered, and I rounded the chair to clasp his face in my hands.
Sorrow and relief mingled in his gaze.
“Sunset, I’m so sorry …” His voice broke on the last syllable.
I shook my head. No. This wasn’t his fault.
“Fuck.” Walker bit out gruffly as he strode inside, followed by two other armed men. One of them was Mac, I realized. “Are you two all right?”
“Roe might have a concussion,” Brodan replied quietly.
I huffed. “He needs an ambulance.”
“You both do,” Mac said, gaze furious. “There’s already one on the way. We need to get you back to the car park.”
“Who is this?” Walker lowered himself to his haunches and checked the stranger’s pulse. “Dead.”
I remembered the feel of the ice pick plunging through his chest and felt my nausea rise. “I … I …”
“It was self-defense,” Brodan offered. “I did it in self-defense.”
My eyes flew to his. “Brodan, no—”
“With your hands tied behind your back?” Walker asked dryly. “Don’t worry. Monroe won’t be charged for self-defense.” He pushed open the stranger’s jacket and patted his inside pockets. Finding something, he pulled out a wallet and flipped it open. “Ian Moffat.” He looked at us. “You know him?”
Brodan shook his head as one of the other men freed his hands and legs. “From what he was saying, he dated Vanessa Woodridge. He found her letters to me and others on her computer. He admitted to killing her father.”
Walker nodded and stood up. “The police are on their way. We can tell them all this, but first, let’s get you to the hospital.”
I didn’t want to leave Brodan’s side. So I didn’t. We held on to each other as Mac, Walker, and the others guided us through the woods to the car park.
“What time is it?” I asked over our footsteps crunching through the undergrowth.
Walk answered.
Huh.
“Two hours,” I whispered.
“Sunset?” Brodan squeezed my hand.
“It’s been less than two hours.” Though those moments in the cabin had felt like an eternity.
And I knew when I closed my eyes tonight, I’d see Ian Moffat’s face slacken into death.
“I’ve got you,” Brodan promised as if he could hear my thoughts. “I’m not letting go, Sunset. I’m never letting go.”