Chapter 42
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
CORINNE WILDE - PRESENT DAY
We run.
Oh, do we run. I’ve never moved so fast in my life. Never moved so quickly that I feel as if I’m ripping my muscles as I go, tearing my lungs straight out of my chest.
She must’ve been forced to stop near the patch of flooded road Conrad and Benji mentioned and decided to walk the rest of the way, walk home to us.
If he hurts her—if EJ hurts my baby—it will be my fault. My fault for asking for the divorce. My fault for moving us here. My fault for not asking enough questions when Mom ignored me. My fault for not checking Taylor’s phone more often. My fault for not saving her.
We reach the door, and I turn the handle.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
I’m falling, falling, falling.
I crash to the ground. “It’s locked. He locked us out.”
Lewis pulls out his keys, but reality is already setting in for me. “You don’t have the new key.” I curse, stepping back. “You don’t have the new key.”
My fault.
My fault.
My fault.
“Taylor!” I pound on the door, shouting. Begging. “Taylor! It’s Mom! Let us in!”
Nothing.
There is no response.
“The tunnels,” Mom whispers in my ear, pulling me back.
“There’s no time. We have to go through the window,” I cry.
“I’ll do it.” Lewis takes off his rain jacket, wrapping it around his arm as he walks around the house to the kitchen window.
“Be careful,” I call after him. Once he’s gone, I turn, looking at Conrad and Benji. At Greta. “You guys should go back to the road. I couldn’t live with myself if anything…” I stop, looking down to compose myself as panic claws at my chest.
“What are you talking about?” Greta asks.
I take both of her hands in mine, my voice tight with emotion. “I need you to do this for me, okay? I need you to go back to the woods and wait for the police. Find them and bring them here.”
“What?” Conrad asks.
“No.” Greta’s face is fierce, haunted. “Stop it. I’m not leaving you. Not now. No.”
“Please. Please go and get help.” I’m crying then as I hug her. “We need someone to help them find us. To tell them what happened.” I squeeze her tighter. “I need to know that you’re safe.”
“We can help you.” I can’t tell her tears from the rain painting her cheeks.
“Please,” I beg. “I have to save her, and I need you to save me. We need the police, or we’ll never make it out of this.”
I watch my words wash over her expression, over all of their expressions.
Slowly, reluctantly, Benji tugs at her arm. “Come on. She’s right.”
Greta doesn’t move, but Conrad gives me a look that says they’ll be okay. He juts his chin forward, toward Foxglove. “Go. We’ve got her.”
“Be safe,” Greta says, chin quivering. “Please be safe. Find our girl.”
I don’t wait.
I can’t.
Together, Mom and I run toward the meadow. I should send her away, but I need her. I need her help navigating the tunnels and navigating this man.
At the base of the old oak tree, she shoves a large rock aside, revealing an iron door set into the earth. My heart hammers in my chest.
This is impossible.
The door’s groan pierces the air as she tugs it open, then pulls me inside. Our footsteps echo on the stone stairs, and when the door closes behind us, we’re swallowed whole by inescapable darkness.
A shiver crawls down my spine as the heavy silence presses against my skin, my lungs. This place is nothing like I imagined, and I only wish I could see it better.
See it at all.
My fingers brush the cold stone walls as we ease down the spiral staircase. At the bottom, Mom takes my hand without a word, guiding me until I feel the walls pressing against both sides of my body.
The path we follow is narrow, suffocating, the air dusty and damp. I think of the women who have walked this same path. I wonder if they were as terrified as I am, if they had as much to lose.
Mom is limping as we move through the passage, and I wonder if she twisted her ankle just now, running through the meadow or on the stairs.
Or if it’s pain she’s been hiding from before. From EJ.
His name burns me, and I pray we reach him in time.
She slows her steps, and I worry momentarily she’s hurting too badly to go on, but then I hear voices.
“Please.”
Taylor.
She’s crying. Begging.
I’m going to be sick.
Mom holds a hand against my chest. I try to shove past her, but she stops me, gripping both my shoulders.
“Wait,” she whispers, voice so low I barely hear it. A breath more than a word.
All thoughts cease. Time stops. The world shrinks further, darkness closing in around me. I can’t wait. My baby is on the other side of this wall.
She’s crying for me.
She needs me.
“Why are you doing this?” Taylor asks, and to my surprise, she sounds stronger than before. Angrier.
It takes several seconds for him to respond. “You were never meant to be a part of this, you know? I had a plan for you to be tucked safely away. You can thank your grandma for that. Your parents.”
“You’re Austin,” she says firmly. There’s no shock in her voice.
“Bingo.” He laughs. “Don’t look at me like that. You’re not exactly Miss Innocent here.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, psycho.” After a beat she yelps, and my heart tugs. He’s hurting her.
“How do you think your parents would feel if they found out you were the one who ruined your things so your mom would want to leave? Or that you texted your dad when that didn’t work, pretending to be your mom in hopes he’d come here and you could convince him to bring you home?
Honestly, nice touch. Austin was proud, and so am I.
And if we can get them back together, we both win. ”
My chest tightens.
“What do you even want Foxglove for?” she cries, voice feral, panicked. “You said this place sucks.”
“That’s for me to know. Now keep quiet. I’ll be back.” I hear footsteps upstairs, and I hold my breath, squeezing my hands into fists.
Someone’s up there. Lewis.
The sound of EJ climbing the steps echoes through the shadows. He closes the cellar with a soft thud. Once we’re certain he’s gone, Mom moves her hand and shoves the wall aside.
Taylor is on the ground, hands tied behind her back. She spins around, panic flickering across her features. “What the—”
“Shh, shh, shhhhh,” I whisper, throwing my hands up to keep her quiet. “It’s us. It’s us.”
I hurry forward, desperate to hold her. To prove that she’s real. That she’s here. Hurt—with a bloody gash across her lip—but alive.
“Where did you come from?” she whispers, eyes wild.
My stomach knots. “We’ll explain everything. But first, we have to get you out of here.”
CRACK.
We all flinch as the sound tears through Foxglove. I can’t breathe, can’t hear. My ears roar, thoughts collapse. Reality shatters. A gun. That was a gun.
Upstairs, Lewis cries out with a guttural groan I feel deep in my chest. I squeeze my eyes shut as the sickening thud of someone hitting the floor reaches my ears.
No.
My vision flashes, blotting with black ink like a Rorschach test.
“Take her.” I shove Taylor toward Mom, my voice trembling. “Please.”
She resists, unmoving. “I’m not leaving you.”
“Me neither,” Taylor snaps, eyes wide with fear. “What’s happening?”
I clutch Taylor’s rain-soaked hair in both hands, pressing a desperate kiss to her forehead. “I love you.”
Taylor’s hands go to mine. “Mom, you’re scaring me.”
“Go with your grandmother.” My tone doesn’t leave room for negotiation, however quiet my voice is. “Go now, and I will come find you, okay?” My eyes lock on Mom’s. “Get her out of here. Go back the way we came and find the others. Wait for the police.”
Mom’s gaze flicks to Taylor, then back to me. “Come with us. I can’t leave you here. I won’t.”
Before I can answer, something warm hits my cheek. I look up, brushing it away, then glance down at my finger.
A bitter lump hardens in my throat.
Even in the dark, I can see the crimson painting my skin. Blood.
“Corinne!” Upstairs, Lewis coughs, spits, and wheezes in rapid succession. “Corinne, please! Help!”
Taylor goes stiff, then yanks out of Mom’s arms. “Dad!” Her wide, furious eyes drill into mine.
Above us, he groans again, his ragged breaths leaking through the floorboards. Taylor bolts, shoving Mom aside and slipping past me before I can stop her.
She doesn’t know.
She doesn’t know that it might not be him.
“Taylor, wait!” I shout after her. My arms shoot out, fingers clawing for her ankle, but she kicks me away.
She climbs the stairs in seconds, with me just behind her. When we reach the cabin floor, she rushes ahead. I lunge to stop her, but I’m not quick enough.
In the living room, she freezes mid-step. I nearly crash into her as the terrible sight snaps into focus.
My blood runs cold. The edges of my vision turn black, as if being burned by a match.
Lewis lies motionless on the floor next to the fireplace. Unconscious or…worse. All around him, the floor is puddled with thick blood, creeping across the floorboards like a shadow, and slowly dripping into the cellar below.
“Dad! No!” Taylor runs to his side, dropping to her knees. Her hands tremble as her eyes dart desperately, searching for something—anything—to fix. Her voice breaks. “This is all my fault.”
Before anyone can respond, EJ steps out of the closet across the room, a smug grin tugging at his lips. He holds up his phone and taps the screen.
“Corinne, please! Help!” The message plays again, clear and chilling. And still in Lewis’s voice.
“Let them go,” Mom’s voice cuts through the air as she appears behind me. The muscles in my chest squeeze tighter. She winces, leaning heavily on her good foot. Her pain is hidden, but I can see it.
“No can do,” EJ says in a cheery, singsong voice.
“What do you want?” I grit out, jaw clenched.
“She hasn’t told you?” His surprise is fake, a performance unworthy of an Oscar.
“All this for money?” I glare at him. “Why?”
He chuckles darkly, running a hand over his buzzed hair. “Money? I mean, come on. We’re not talking about a five-spot, Rinnie Ren, but don’t insult me. I don’t need the money. Would it be nice? Sure. But I’m already successful. I certainly sell more than your little friend.”
He sneers, eyes gleaming with something vicious. Of course he had to bring Greta into this. “No, this isn’t about money,” he says, his voice curdling. “It’s about justice.”
Mom steps in front of me. “Justice?” Her voice is sharp, uncertain. “What are you talking about?”
EJ’s smile twists into something darker. He looks down, then back up from behind his heavy brows. “I’m talking about my mom, Billie.” There’s a pause, cold and deliberate, and Foxglove seems to hold her breath right along with us. “Or did you think I was genuinely attracted to you?”