Chapter 52
Trapped
The road was deserted except for one black sedan trailing behind.
On one side of the road, trees, thick and thriving, reached up to the sky like an assembly of majestic crowns.
On the other charred limbs randomly burst with shoots of green, standing like staunch battle-scarred survivors of a diabolical event, slowly and defiantly reclaiming life.
Above, the sky was dimmed by a bank of opaque clouds that had drifted across the sun.
Ethan drove fast, but competently.
Exhausted, I closed my eyes and rested my head back against the seat. My phone vibrated against my hip, I pulled it from my jacket pocket and read a text from a number I didn’t recognise.
The trees had given way to the outskirts of town. I clicked on the text.
‘Shh. We can hear you and we can see you. A life depends on how quiet you are.’
It had to be some kind of joke, I thought, stretching my aching shoulders back, rolling my neck from side to side until it gave a satisfying crack. I read on.
‘We have BJ, and if you want him back unharmed, you have to meet us, ALONE. Don’t tell Ethan. If you say anything to him or anyone else BJ will be killed. Come alone.’
Gravity stole the color from my face, I stared at the screen, hardly believing what I was seeing. It wasn’t be real, this couldn’t be happening. Please let it be a sick joke.
‘We can hear you, we can see you.’
Was the car bugged? It seemed implausible—and yet technology was advanced these days, anyone could access all kinds of devices on the web. We had left the car unlocked at the diner . . .
Ethan must have caught the look on my face. “Who’s it from?” he asked.
I didn’t look at him. I couldn’t. The despair in my eyes would give me away. It was just a joke, I told myself. I kept my head twisted toward the window.
I tried to keep my voice monotone, “Just the girls.” My fingers shook as I typed:
‘Who is this?’
I received an image of BJ tied to a chair, mouth gagged, eyes wide with fear.
I gulped, fear sent my heart spiralling, everything felt out of my control.
Oh god.
“Find a way. You have twenty minutes. You are being watched, as are the rest of them, so don’t try any tricks. If Ethan follows, or if any of them move, BJ dies.”
I was overcome with a sickening panic. I scanned the streets, I couldn’t see anyone obviously looking our way.
I checked my side mirror the large black sedan still trailed behind.
The windows were tinted so dark I couldn’t see in.
Was that them? I thought about telling Ethan to stop the car and grab whoever it was, but there would be more of them with BJ and they would kill him.
I knew it would be a trap. A death trap. Even if I managed to show Ethan the text, without it being obvious, he wouldn’t let me go.
My chest felt tight and it was hard to draw breath.
If you don’t go, they will kill him.
I typed back:
‘Where are you?’
“Get away from Ethan first and then we will let you know.”
“Everything okay?” I could feel his gaze on the side of my face.
“Fine, Georgie’s having boy problems,” I said weakly, clutching my phone by my side to hide my trembling hands. “I need to use the restroom, could you pull into the café please.”
He studied my face and frowned. We had just left a café. He would wonder why I hadn’t used the one there.
He knows I’m lying. He can hear my heart. Breathe. One. Two. Three. Four. Breathe.
My heart rate steadied. I waited for him to ask to see my phone, to question me some more. I scrambled for a way to pull myself out should he ask.
When he spoke, his words were quiet and pained, “I have made mistakes, Amy. It’s hard to control the urges. I keep having to constantly remind myself who I am, who I want to be.” He paused, his throat clicking as he swallowed.
His words cracked my heart. He thought my change in mood was because of his admission. Every part of me wanted to deny it was the cause, to tell him it was okay. But BJ needed me. I couldn’t fail him, no matter the cost.
I nodded.
Ethan pulled up outside the café in town. The toilets were located down the laneway. If he stayed in the car he wouldn’t see me go out the back to the parking lot behind. What I’d do after I got out there, I didn’t know. The car that was following pulled in a few parks ahead.
“I won’t be long, wait here,” I said, avoiding eye contact.
I clicked the door shut and walked toward the café.
It took all my willpower to maintain a normal pace and not run.
I kept my head low, not wanting to look at anyone, fighting the urge to cry.
My limbs felt numb and each step seemed almost robotic.
I moved up the narrow, bricked laneway. Past tables of diners drinking coffee, eating, and chatting.
I stopped at the restroom doors, I held my hand against it as if I were about to go in. I glanced back to make sure Ethan wasn’t out of his car watching. He wasn’t. I would have five minutes, I judged, before he came looking. I looked at my watch; it was 2:16 p.m.
I turned heel and ran as fast as I could to the parking lot behind.
I stopped and scanned the carpark. Under a sprawling tree at the back of the parking lot, veiled by shadow, were a man and a woman.
They were too far away and their faces too cloaked in darkness to make out any details.
Both were dressed in black. He wore a cap, she wore a hoodie.
They were watching me. Shudders crept across my skin. A cab dropped someone off about twenty metres away to my left. It started pulling away.
I couldn’t yell out, Ethan might hear me.
I ran as fast as I could, waved my arms madly behind him, prayed he caught sight of me in the rear-view mirror.
The brake lights came on. I leapt in the front seat, out of breath.
The cab driver was older, with short gray hair.
I began to wonder was he one of them, it was too easy, too convenient to get away. I stared suspiciously at him.
“Where to love?” he asked, kindly enough. He looked like he could be someone’s grandad. He wore a silver wedding ring on his finger; he was someone’s husband at least.
“Just drive, please. I have directions coming through,” I squeaked out. I couldn’t stop shaking. I glanced at the man and woman. They tilted their faces away as we drove past. She was on the phone.
I stared at my phone clutched tightly between my thighs to stop my hands shaking. It was 2:18 p.m. I’d have three minutes, give or take, before Ethan came looking.
“Left or right, love?” He stopped at the edge of the parking lot.
“Right.”
He pulled right. I’d take the back streets, out of sight, before getting back to the main road.
The phone vibrated:
“Cable Lane. Stop on the highway, walk in.”
“Cable Lane, could you drive as quickly as you can please.”
The cab driver glanced at my arms. They were covered in red marks and early signs of bruising. He frowned, large indents traversed across his forehead, mini versions settled in the corners of his eyes. “You okay, love?”
“Fine,” I said weakly.
He sped up. I guessed he thought I was running from danger. Little did he know he was driving me toward it.
It was a trap. They’d kill me, and maybe BJ too, and I’d just left the only person who could save us.
The buildings blurred by, but I hardly noticed them.
My mind desperately searched for a way to get us both out alive.
The buildings dropped off and we moved into a sea of thick green trees, away from the population toward the wilderness, where no one would see us. No one would hear our screams.
They would kill me. They would kill BJ.
An old lopsided sign announced we’d arrived at Cable Lane, at the end of what was once a gravel driveway. It was overgrown with dry grass. The grass was squashed flat where a car had rolled through.
“Just pull up here, please,” I said. He pulled over.
I glanced at my watch, it was 2:26 p.m. Ethan would be looking by now, he’d probably already burst into the toilets or was searching around the back.
Furious and upset. They’d be watching him, but he wouldn’t be in the car.
I did the only thing that might give us a chance; I sent a text.
‘Cable Lane. Don’t let them see you coming, you are ALL being watched and they can hear everything. Hurry.’
“Thank you.” I reached into my jean pocket and pulled out some money.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said, concern in his warm brown eyes. “Are you going to be okay, love?”
“Yes, fine, thank you.” The words felt like splinters coming out of my lips as I threw the twenty dollars at him regardless. I didn’t wait for his response. I closed the door.
Spurred on by adrenaline, I ran up the heavily wooded track, knowing I could be running to my death, but not knowing what else to do.
I ran fast, powered by the fear that someone or something might leap out and grab me.
Although I knew my thoughts were illogical.
Vampires, if it was vampires who had BJ, would grab me with ease, no matter how fast I ran.
From the forest a branch cracked. Footsteps?
My heart ratcheted up into my throat. I sucked in a breath. My whole body trembled.
Jefferson’s image clanged around inside my skull.
Would they slash our limbs with bear claws and leave us bleeding out in the middle of the forest?
The gruesome discovery would definitely seal the granting of hunting permits and be another tick towards allowing the development to go ahead.
Or would we meet an equally horrific fate and simply disappear like all those hikers?
My blood ran so cold I felt as though I was sculpted from ice.
I stopped two hundred yards in. Panting, not from exhaustion, but fear. I had no weapons. I should have asked the cab driver for pepper spray, or even a tyre iron.
I churned over the ways in which I might be able to save BJ, and I realized grimly, I could only think of one.
And he wasn’t there.