Chapter 34
ELIJAH
The trek in from the woods isn’t difficult, though we did have to down a few of Emil Reyes’ men. How is it possible that he has this many people protecting one little girl?
The truth is, he shouldn’t care this much about her. None of us should. She’s disposable, and we’re going to remind everyone of that.
Going through the house isn’t going to work if we’re having this much difficulty, so the best way to do this is up the side of the house. The emergency exit ladder is disguised as part of the house, something only people with inside access know.
I send one more text to Ignacio, hoping he’ll make this easy and simply open the window.
Remember who the fuck you are, asshole.
Me:
Hey, we’re outside. Want to open the window to make our job easier?
Glancing up, I sigh.
“I don’t know what the deal is, but we’re on our own,” Theo says gruffly. “You and I can climb up pretty easily. We have extra syringes if we need them.”
Jared hands me the extras to put in my sweatshirt pockets, dropping down to give me a boost up with his hand. He’s the bulkier of the four of us since his arms are stronger, and as I stand on his hands, he launches me into the air to catch the bottom rung of the ladder. One of the downfalls of it is that it begins ten feet over my head.
It’s done like this so people won’t use it to climb up the side of the house, but we’re clearly rebels.
Silently, my black gloves on to ensure I don’t leave a single fingerprint, I climb the ladder until my feet hit the top rung, my muscles complaining. Whatever, this is the reason I train so hard. I’m in decent shape, this won’t fuck with me too badly. I hear Theo’s hands hit the bottom rung underneath me, and once I reach Rachelle’s window, I make the jump to her thin balcony.
A moment later, Theo joins me, and I pull out my lockpicking set, quickly unlocking the window. So far, so good, but I still haven’t received a text from Nacio. My phone is on vibrate just for his number.
All hopes of him being on our side crumble to dust as I climb in the window, avoiding the curtains to see that he’s sleeping in the bed next to Liliana and Rachelle. This is why he’s been dodging our calls, making excuses.
He’s fucking playing house with the little mouse! And to think, we’ve all been so worried about his father deciding to kill him for exterminating our bet. He’s lucky we’re the loyal ones, because no one will ever fucking find her.
My head turns to look at Theo, pointing at the bed. The slight ambient light of the open window spotlights what I’m showing him, and he frowns disapprovingly. Motioning toward Liliana to show that he’s going to take care of her, he pulls out one of the syringes with the heavier dose of sedative.
Doing the same as I walk toward Nacio, all I can hope is that this is a heavy enough dose to take him out for a while. Who the fuck knows what kind of conditioning his crazy fucking father has him doing in case he’s ever kidnapped?
I would say I’ve probably watched too many mafia movies, but I have a strange feeling I’m not too far from the mark. I hear Lili’s strangled scream, cursing in my mind as I force myself to move faster. Thank fuck he’s not wearing a shirt as his eyes snap open.
He’s half asleep as he swings on me, his fist catching me on the temple, disorienting me. Theo climbs over the bed after he injects Rachelle as well, helping me to hold Nacio down.
“This is the way it has to be,” Theo hisses, using his full body to immobilize him so I can plunge the syringe into his neck, emptying the contents into his body.
Continuing to hold him down, we watch the sedative begin to work, and he drifts off.
“I don’t think that’ll last nearly long enough,” I worry, blowing out a breath. “Did Lili give you trouble?”
“She reached for something in her nightstand and tried to scream. When I looked, it was a gun that was hidden in there,” Theo explains, his voice strained.
Pulling open the nightstand drawer next to Nacio’s side of the bed, I find a gun there as well.
“Lili scratched the fuck out of my neck, though. Need to make sure I don’t bleed everywhere,” Theo sighs.
Nacio was prepared to kill us for her. They both were.
“Her pussy must be made of solid gold or something,” I mutter, leaning over Nacio’s body to pick up the incapacitated little mouse. “Let’s get the fuck out of here. Every second is going to count.”
Theo nods. “Just one last thing,” he mutters, dropping the forged note on the nightstand. “Now let’s go.”
On that note, he follows me to the window. We don’t really have to be as stealthy anymore, so I step out onto the little ledge carefully, draping her body over my shoulder. My hand clamps over her ass and waist as I lean over to grab hold of the ladder and hop onto it.
The fucking thing shudders a little and I grimace. Fuck me. Maybe I shouldn’t be jumping on the damn thing.
“Go, I’ll wait,” Theo says, watching as I carefully climb down.
“Throw her to me,” Jared hisses, and I allow her body to roll off me into his waiting hands. I ignore his curses under his breath as I jump down, stepping back as I watch Theo climb down.
Thankfully, the ladder is fine for him, and the three of us begin running for the woods, keeping to the shadows. Jared doesn’t complain about carrying the little mouse over his shoulder as he runs, her body limp. While we gave her shit about her weight, the reality is that she’s a tiny thing.
While Liliana and Ignacio are no longer an issue, Emil’s men are still watching the property.
We drove a car in, parking it two miles away from the house. We have Theo’s SUV near our next destination, which is a two mile run further into the woods, where there is a wood coffin waiting for us and shovels. We needed the space for our gear tonight.
Multiple vehicles are important when you’re planning to get away with murder. We chose an area that won’t get random passersby walking past, wondering why there’s a freshly dug hole next to a coffin.
That would probably be pretty awkward.
“Get her in the box,” I grunt, ready to be done with this. Once she’s dead, we’ll be free.
“Nacio won’t stay down long,” Theo reminds me. “God only knows what contingency plans he set into place in case we came for her.”
“We’ve never talked about this place,” Jared says, carefully laying Rachelle down in the coffin.
I don’t know what the point is of that, honestly when we all know how this is going to end. I suppose there’s no reason for her to wake up until later so I won’t have to deal with the tears.
“Where are the hammers and nails?” I ask myself, locating the bag we left here. Pulling out what we need, I walk back to the coffin. “Let’s seal her up, boys.”
Lifting the lid of the coffin, we set about nailing it down. We’re not quiet about it, the wooden box shuddering slightly. The guys and I built it today after a trip to the hardware store, so while it’s not pretty, it’ll do the job.
Humming a funeral ballad we learned in one of our history classes, the three of us grab one of the ropes we looped into several eye hooks so we can easily move her.
“Time to wake her?” I ask.
We agreed that she should feel the terror of what’s happening. Dying in her sleep isn’t cruel enough.
“Make it a bumpy ride,” Jared agrees.
“Let’s sing the ballad,” Theo adds.
Ignacio is supposed to fucking be here, kicking the fucking box and telling her to wake up. But he’s not, because he’s not one of us anymore.
Standing around her final resting place, we lift the coffin, voices raised in our cruel, ironic song as we bang it along the walls of soil.
“Drop her,” Jared whispers, and we all let go, enjoying the way her body is thrown around in the box.
“What?” Rachelle asks, confused as she comes out of the sedation slowly.
Grabbing our shovels, we begin to throw dirt over the box, waiting for the truth to hit her.
“No, no, please!” she screams. “Let me out!”
“No can do, Little Mouse,” Jared calls out.
“Sing,” I growl, not wanting to interact with her.
Nodding, Jared’s voice mixes with ours as we continue to fill the gravesite. Her screaming becomes muffled as we finish what we need to do, and then we wait for them to completely end.
Die, little mouse. It’s for the best that she’s screaming, since she’ll simply run out of air faster.
The three of us grow silent as we wait, lost in thought about all the reasons we’re willing to kill her.
* * *
IGNACIO
Sitting up in bed as if awoken from the worst possible nightmare, I gasp, looking around.
“Rachelle!” I yell, knowing she’s long gone.
Liliana is knocked out from whatever they used on us, and I quickly check her pulse to make sure they didn’t fucking kill her. None of them should be messing with pharmaceuticals, despite Jared’s familiarity with it because of his family’s business.
Feeling slightly out of it, as I stand, I shake my head. They should have used something stronger on me if they actually wanted me to stay out.
There’s a note on the nightstand, and my eyes move over the obviously bullshit letter.
I’m sorry, I can’t be a burden to everyone any longer. I’m going out to the cliffs to end things.
-Rachelle
Rolling my eyes, I ask myself how they thought she was that suicidal. Maybe at one time, but she’s been in a much better place since she started doing school virtually.
Tapping on my phone, I pull it off my charger, ignoring all of the missed messages except Elijah’s last one.
Elijah:
Hey, we’re outside. Want to open the window to make our job easier?
Blowing out a breath of frustration, I change quickly into a pair of black tactical pants, a long sleeved black shirt, and black sneakers. I need to be able to blend in and move if I'm going to have any chance of getting to her in time. Lastly, I put a gun into a holster at the base of my back and then pull on a black vest to ensure that it’s covered.
Me:
Dad, they took her. I’m headed out to find her.
I know he can track me, so I don’t bother saying anything more as I pull up the tracker information on the bracelet Liliana gave our girl.
When Rachelle went to her concert and I was texting Lili about how gorgeous she looked, Lili asked me to take a photo. She smirked in the text and said she looked perfect. She also said that if Rachelle ran into any issues, she knew exactly how to find her.
Later that night, I got her to tell me what she meant. It’s not unusual in our world to have trackers on our loved ones. Maybe it seems possessive and insane for others, but it’s our only lifeline if they go missing. Lili explained that her father had given her a bracelet with a tracker, so she decided to give Rachelle the same gift for her birthday.
Seeing the tracker says she’s in the middle of the woods, I stalk toward the still open window, going the way they undoubtedly used to break in. As I hit the ground with my sneakers, I look around to see what the fuck my father’s guards are doing.
“Hey!” I yell, already moving toward the woods. I need them to pull in now that I’m leaving. Lili has to be protected.
“What’s wrong, sir?” one of the guards asks.
“You allowed my stepsister to be kidnapped,” I yell at him. “Pull in your men, contact my father, and see who you’re missing. You’ll all be lucky to keep your lives if she dies.”
Paling, he gets on the radio, barking out orders as I take off in a run, watching the phone in case the dot moves. My heart begins to drop as I see that it’s no longer moving, and I pick up the pace. While I’m still seeing stars, I force my body to push past it.
Come on, don’t go through with this.
I can still see Elijah’s disappointed look when he saw me. He doesn’t understand that it doesn’t have to be me against them. Killing Rachelle is wrong, no matter what the Kings’ Society is offering them.
Wrong. The word is what rings in my mind as I run, setting the pace and cadence as my feet hit the ground. Every step is eating the distance between me and my girl.
Hold on, Rachelle. I didn’t get to tell her so many fucking things. I wanted to think the best of my friends, believing I was good enough to keep them from taking her.
I wasn’t, and now I may lose her. With every step, I pray to all of the saints my mother once believed in. Dad told me they used to help her find things, so I ask them to keep Rachelle’s soul in body long enough for me to save her.
The tracker brings me to an open clearing, the guys crouched around a freshly filled grave. I can’t hear any crying, screaming, anything that tells me she’s alive.
“What did you do?” I scream, pocketing my phone. I won’t need it anymore. “Help me undo it. You can’t do this. I fucking love her.”
“Too late,” Jared rasps, swallowing hard. “I haven’t heard her make a peep in a while.”
“You don’t even know her,” Theo adds. “You’ve known us your whole life. We’re the ones you’re supposed to love.”
“Why does it have to be one or the other?” I snarl, walking over to yank away the shovel from him.
I can see the outlines of the fresh grave, but I force myself to do the things that will save her. I can’t lose my fucking mind. Not yet.
Sinking the blade of the shovel into the soft ground, I begin to unbury her.
“Get up and help and I won’t fucking shoot you all,” I say, calmer than I feel. “Trust me, what I do to you will be a far sight kinder than my father.”
“You wouldn’t,” Elijah says, eyes wide. “I need her to die, Ignacio! I can’t follow in my parents’ footsteps. I can’t!”
He’s breathing hard as I continue to quickly shovel out dirt. I fucking need help if I’m going to get to her.
“I would have killed your parents if you asked me to,” I say softly. “This wasn’t necessary. Two quick snaps of their entitled necks is all it would take. My father hates the rest of your family, so he would have cleaned that up for you too. Jared, get your ass off the ground and help me. Just because you’re scared of how kind she is, doesn’t mean you need to kill her.”
His entire body shudders as if it’s really hitting him now. Scrambling up, he grabs a shovel and begins to help me.
“Calvin treats those photos as if they’re the most precious things in the world,” Jared rasps. “He is the closest thing to a parent I have, which is fucked up. That man comes to every swim meet I have, even if he doesn’t need to report back to my parents. When he saw Rachelle, it’s like he fucking gravitated to her.”
“It’s okay to share your toys,” Theo mutters under his breath, gazing at the grave. “You’re not going to be able to save her, Nacio. It’s too late.”
“Then there’s no harm in trying,” I say, kicking him in the head to get him moving. Though he makes a face, he still gets up. “You know what’s really fucked up? Rachelle never understood why you hate her so much.”
Closing my eyes, I remind myself that she’s alive. She has to be. Come on, baby. Hold on as the ultimate fuck you to them.
“It was never about her, not really,” Elijah mutters. “It’s her or us. I’m choosing me.”
“Wrong goddamn choice!” I roar, wanting to shoot him. “I brought my gun, and I’m feeling really trigger-happy, Elijah. Get your ass up and help us.”
“It’s a waste of time,” he says, but he slowly gets up to help. “How tight is her pussy for you to be wrapped up in her?”
“We haven’t had sex yet,” I whisper, unable to reach the rest of the soil. Jumping in without thought, I continue to shovel, and Theo of all people joins me.
“I never got to figure her out,” he says absently, his muscles tight as he works.
“You can’t put everything back together after you break them a hundred percent of the time,” I remind him. I’m full of hard truths tonight. “If you weren’t such an asshole, she’d have told you what you wanted to know. Maybe.”
I don’t even know everything about her. I expect I’ll need a lifetime for that to happen. I may turn eighteen next month, but I know I want Lili and Rachelle in my life for a long time.
My shovel hits something hard, and I glance at Theo in confusion.
“Coffin,” he whispers, and I punch him hard.
“You motherfucker,” I say, my voice cracking.
“If you’d been around more, you’d have known what we were going to do,” he says, clearing off the dirt from the top of what appears to be pale wood.
“Throw the ropes up and then climb out,” Jared yells down.
Stomping hard on the wood, I listen for any noises.
“Baby, we’re going to get you out. Hold on,” I tell her, finding the rope Jared mentioned.
God, they thought of everything.
Tossing up the ropes, Theo and I climb out, and help them lift her out as quickly as we can. This is all moving so slowly, God. There’s not enough time. As the wood scrapes across the ground, I moan as I see the top is nailed shut.
“No one was ever supposed to find her,” Elijah says. “I’m telling you, you’re just going to have to put her back into the ground. She’s fucking dead.”
“Grab the hammers so he can see,” Theo says. “He’ll never believe it otherwise.”
Yanking out the nails together, I find it ironic that this is the first time we’ve all been together in weeks. I’ve been isolating myself because I knew somehow we’d still end up here inevitably.
Some things are written in the stars.
Throwing off the top of the coffin, I see a curled up body. Rachelle’s lips are parted, losing color, and reminding me of the nightmares I finally stopped having. I’m going to staple myself to her side when she survives this.
Not if. Never that.
Lifting her into my arms, I check to see if she’s breathing, relieved to find it’s very faint. I’ll take anything at this point. Next, I check her pulse, and then I’m running through the woods.
“It’s a fucking lost cause!” Elijah screams at me, but I ignore him.
I can hear them hammering in nails as they restore the scene even without a body, sure she’s going to die. There’s a hospital not too far from here, and I race through the woods to get there.
As I see the bright lights of the hospital parking lot, I’m reminded that I’m covered in dirt with a half dead girl in my arms. While Portland is known for their spooky shit on Halloween, there is no way they’re going to believe this was a stunt. I could end up being arrested for this.
There’s no way I’m going to pussy out of doing what’s right though. Rachelle needs a hospital, a critical care unit, and I know my father would agree if he were with me now. Fuck the consequences, we all need her alive.
As my feet stomp along the asphalt, I ignore the yells as I run through the automatic doors of the emergency department. My feet are wet from the wet grass I’ve been running in from earlier, sliding out from underneath me.
Holding Rachelle tightly as I careen across the tile floor, I look around at the startled nurses. Even for Halloween night, this is some fucked up shit.
“I need some help!” I yell. “My girlfriend is barely breathing. Please help me!”
Moving in a wave, they begin asking questions as they lift her out of my arms, while I answer the best I can. All the while, the bracelet that saved her life tangles from her wrist as they begin to treat her.
Come on, little sister, please live for me.