58
THEA
I’m on the sidelines in a daze as Cole instructs the detective on where his phone is and the number to call. My daze turns to horror as Cole instructs the person on the other end to delete the footage and to back down. He tells him the job is done. And then I wait. I wait for Williams to free Cole and for Cole’s vengeance.
It doesn’t come. Williams backs away from Cole without untying him. He backs all the way back to the door.
“Hey! We had a deal,” Cole reminds him. “Untie me. Now!” He shouts.
Williams laughs—it’s a sick and callous thing. “Do you think I’m fucking stupid? All I needed was for you to tell your guy that everything’s good. You probably have plenty of copies floating around. I don’t actually need them deleted. I just needed to make sure that if you were out of the picture, there wouldn’t be someone working on your behalf. Now, I can get rid of you and walk away without a care in the world.”
Things start to click. If he gets rid of Cole, he isn’t going to let me live. I’m a witness. A loose end.
Cole must realize this, too. “Thea, I need you to untie me. Right now.” I can’t trust him. My eyes search his, but there’s too much that’s happened between us. I have too much doubt and suspicion. “I know. You have no reason to believe me, but I’ll protect you. On my life, love.” The words should make me cringe more than they do. It’s a slap in the face considering everything. I search harder, looking for some sign that he really loved me in his own demented, fucked up way.
Panic courses through me, clouding my judgment. I’m torn between my logic, that tells me that Cole is selfish, narcissistic, cruel, and soulless. And between my emotions, that tell me that while he is all of those things, he sacrificed everything just for a chance to be with me. He gave up his brothers for me. It’s so twisted, but that part of me believes that he might actually put my life above his, that he might protect me from the detective now that the circumstances have changed.
So, if I have to put my life in one of their hands, it’s going to be Cole’s. He’s the devil I know.
I lunge forward into the shower. My hand shoots out, grabbing the bloodied knife. Quickly, I begin to cut him free. The sharp edge of the blade eats through the rope faster than I expect and his hands spring free. His amputated finger splatters blood across the shower wall in the process.
The detective’s sick laugh echoes around us. “Do you really think you stand a chance?” Peering around Cole, I see that he has my gun pointed at us. I don’t let it stop me.
I reach my hand between the legs of the chair and begin working on the ropes at Cole’s feet. I feel the fibers give way, but I’m not quick enough. The click of the trigger makes me freeze for a moment, but nothing comes after it. My hands go back to work. It’s only a matter of time before he realizes.
I’m almost through, just a little more.
“What the fuck?” I hear Williams curse. Another click. Then another. That’s all he’ll get. I never loaded the gun. I just wanted to scare Cole. I thought I could kill him, but today I realized that wasn’t the answer.
Turning him in was the better option. I had the confession and he was tied up. I could’ve easily called the police and he wouldn’t be able to get away or deny his crimes. He would have gone away for a long time. Killing him would’ve been the better idea, but as much as I wanted to claim that my humanity was dead—it managed to claw itself back up from the grave I tried putting it in.
The fibers give way and he’s free. I just hope he doesn’t screw me over. Cole stands, then wobbles. He’s been tied up too long, deprived of oxygen, has blood loss and a head injury . I didn’t think this through. How is he going to protect me?
The second guessing invades my mind quickly. I should’ve used my training to go after the detective. He probably would’ve still pulled the empty gun on me. It would’ve been the advantage I needed to get the upper hand. What was I thinking?
My attention is brought back to Cole as he steadies himself with a bloodied hand on the wall. Williams reaches for his own gun, a loaded one this time, and somehow Cole finds the strength to throw himself at the detective.
They both go flying backwards as Cole hits his target, Williams’ head cracking loud against the hard floor. I realize the gun goes flying out of reach when I hear it hit the floor somewhere in my room.
The seconds stretch long and tense as I watch them grapple at each other, each one trying to gain an edge over the other. The detective finds his way out from beneath Cole and scurries out of the bathroom—Cole follows, crawling after him.
My mind reels—trying to figure out what to do next. In here, I’m trapped. But is my bedroom any better? I know exactly why Williams went into the other room. He’s looking for the gun and I’m certain he’ll find it quickly. If I leave the bathroom, I could be coming face to face with death. At least out there, I’m not cornered like helpless prey.
Slowly, I make my way toward the sounds of the two men still fighting. Grunts and thuds are the only indication that I may have a chance to get away if they’re occupied with each other. The thought of interjecting is a fleeting one. I could find the gun and take control of the situation. I could tip the scales in my favor. But that seems too risky. Making a run for it is the best option.
I peer around the corner of the bathroom door, assessing the situation and planning my exit. The two men are grappling with each other on the floor, each one trying to turn the tables in their favor as they block the door to my room. The closet it is.
It’s farfetched to think they won’t notice me. Still, I tiptoe quietly out of the bathroom, making my way across the room. I’m almost past my bed. Not much farther. Then I can use Cole’s secret entrance to make it outside. But a crunching sound, eerily similar to the one I heard when I took the crowbar to Cole’s head, catches my attention. I turn to find my ex straddling Williams and shaking his fist in pain while the detective looks dazed.
Now’s my chance.
I run toward the closet. The creaking of it is a reminder of how much violence this room has seen—of how much it’s seeing now. The thought is chased away by a high-pitched ringing in my ears. The disorientation of losing my hearing makes me stop in my tracks. Glancing behind me, I try to find the source and wonder if I’m the only one who’s been affected.
Nothing prepares me for what I see.
The two men are standing now, facing each other. Williams’ back is to me, while Cole stares into his face, shock twisting his features. Lower, I see his hand clutching his chest. My mind tries to put the pieces together around the awkward angle I’m viewing this from and the ringing that’s still dominating my hearing.
Then Cole’s eyes shift to meet mine. As much as I don’t want to easily read this man… no, this monster, who’s caused me so much pain, I can. Agony clouds his gaze as his lips part, possibly to say something. But nothing comes out.
Just as quickly as he looks at me, his stare drops to his hand on his chest. Slowly, he pulls it away and even in the darkness, I know it’s blood covering his palm.
Against my better judgment, I turn. I think I’m in shock because I know I should be running. I know that I’m missing my chance to escape. But all I can do is turn to see that the detective still has his gun aimed at Cole.
He shot him. It’s such an obvious thought that floats through my mind. It’s not helpful in any way. Yet, there it is, taking up precious space when I should be convincing myself to run.
My eyes flick back to Cole, whose gaze hasn’t left me. A chill spreads down my back as I watch everything about him shift.
His body seems to relax and his menacing features soften. But it’s the look in his eyes that gets me. It’s a familiar one. One that I saw many times before he kidnapped me. The one I’d catch him giving me when he thought I wasn’t watching—full of love and adoration. So many times in the last three months, I wondered how he could fake that. I wondered how psychotic someone would have to be to look at someone like that and not feel it in the depths of their soul. And now, I think I have my answer.
He did feel it. It wasn’t fake. As hard as it is for me to reconcile, I realize that two things can exist at once.
Cole is psychotic and a horrible person. But he loved me. No, he loves me. He loves me so much that he would do anything to have me to himself. He’d alienate himself and revolve his whole world around me. He’d take a bullet for me so that I might have the chance to live.
It’s sick. It isn’t normal by any means. But I can never say his love wasn’t real. He just didn’t know how to love me the right way. He didn’t know how to love me the way I needed to be loved. This moment is the exception. Cole’s one act of pure selflessness because he loves me. And that means something even if it shouldn’t.
Suddenly, the world is coming into focus too fast. Time speeds up and my bubble of realization pops, jolting me back to reality where the detective is pointing his gun at me and Cole’s body is falling to the floor.
I’m left with the devil I don’t know, with no salvation in sight.
DAMIAN
The odometer inches toward a hundred. The broken white lines on the road blur together to form one long one. I shouldn’t be going this fast in the dark, but when I got Cassie’s call two hours ago, I had no choice. I need to get to Thea.
She didn’t tell me everything, only that Cole has been visiting Thea and she’s been plotting her revenge. This wasn’t what I expected her to be hiding. I don’t even know how Cole’s been getting into the house. My mind is an endless stream of confusion and questions, so much so that my head begins to pound.
I can’t call the police. If Thea’s caught doing what Cassie’s alluded to, she’ll be locked up. So I have to hope that one of us gets to her in time.
I partially blame myself. I wanted to make Thea strong, in case Cole ever showed his face again. I wasn’t thinking that it could also make her feel strong enough to take him on by herself. Thankfully, she has the gun, but Cole is unhinged and desperation makes people do crazy things.
I hit the call button again. It rings and rings, then goes to voicemail. I hang up. Worry racks me. I’ve called Thea at least twenty times. I hit the call button. It goes right to voicemail. Adrian’s not answering either. He was supposed to be with her. I text him, telling him to call me immediately.
Where is everyone? Why is no one answering?
I pull up the security camera app again. I poured over the footage after Cassie called. The last thing of importance I saw was Thea breaking into Cole’s old room. Nothing since. I also saw Adrian leave the house and he hasn’t returned.
Maybe it’s fine, I tell myself. I couldn’t find any trace of Cole. He didn’t come through the front door. There’s no footage of him walking through the house. Maybe I’m overreacting. I check the camera that looks over the front of the house. An unfamiliar car is parked there now. Fuck. I look through the recent footage and see Detective Williams walking through the front door. What the hell is going on? I follow his movements through the house until he disappears into Thea’s room. He hasn’t come out. That’s not good.
I don’t trust anyone with her.
Where the fuck is Adrian? I check the cameras at the tattoo shop. Sure enough, he’s working on a client and his phone is probably on silent. This is a recipe for disaster. The pain in my chest is growing, the worry making every breath harder to take.
I make another call, this time I get an answer. “How far out are you?”
“Ten, maybe fifteen minutes,” Wes says with strain. He’s just as frantic as me.
I called him right after Cassie called me. I thought they could get to Thea sooner. But they ended up with flat tires on both of their cars in an area with shitty reception. So I couldn’t even get ahold of them until an hour ago and they were in the middle of getting the tow truck driver to help them figure out how to get the tires changed in the middle of the night in a small town.
Too much went right tonight for Thea to end up all alone with no one to help her, and that’s the scariest thought of all. Did my brother have it in him to pull all these strings to get her by herself, with no one close enough to save her? The answer’s yes. If he wants her that badly, then this is well within his capabilities.
It was just one night. I knew I should’ve stayed. This is all my fault. The moment I give up a little of that control I’m so desperate to hold onto, something bad happens. Between Adrian and the cameras and me ordering her to stay home for the next two days, I thought she was safe. My head begins to pound.
If anything happens to her, I don’t know what I’ll do. She means more to me than anything in this world. Thea owns my heart. She’s the only one who ever has and I can’t lose her. There will be no point in living if she’s gone.
Looking over to the passenger seat, I’m still in shock by the turn of events in Tennessee. “You good?” I don’t actually care, but he’s been through hell. It was deserved, considering.
“I—I don’t know,” Gavin admits. “I just want this to be over.”
I nod. “Me too.” Me too.