Chapter Forty-Nine
The breeze turns cooler, and I’m quick to notice how the shadows of the overhead trees have set a chilling path for what looms in the distance.
Devil’s Tunnel.
Where my best friend had been dumped, and where the ones before her had been thrown away.
It’s crippling and nauseating. It makes my knees turn rubbery. I keep moving though, forcing one foot in front of the other.
Harlen is beside me, extending his hand toward me, and even though my own is clammy from the terror I’m working hard to suppress, I take his, descending the sharp concrete slope that lands at the entrance of the semicircular storm tunnel.
There’s a murky, shallow pool of brown water in the center and the concrete walls are covered in painted graffiti. Most offer messages to the lives of the lost, and others are threats of what would happen if someone came face to face with the man that had resurrected my grandfather's murder spree.
I shift on my feet when they turn numb, latching onto my biceps as a sharp shiver slices horizontally across my shoulders and down the base of my spine.
Chase’s cigarette gives him away. The glowing cherry, the only speck of brightness among the lichen-lined walls of darkness.
“You okay with this?” Harlen asks, still by my side.
I’m staring ahead, watching the shadow of Chase Keller, a brother and a son, who had lost far too much.
He’s resting against the concrete, his head reclined, throat extended as he sucks on the cigarette, blowing small wispy clouds into the air above him. And if he sees us, he doesn’t make it known.
I turn to Harlen, my voice comes out in a croak. “No…” I’m shaking my head. “I’m not.” Then, I pause to swallow through the ache in my throat. “If it wasn’t for my grandfather…none of this would have…” I can’t finish, and Harlen doesn’t push it.
I pinch at my wobbling bottom lip, get myself together. I wanted to hit something. I wanted to scream, and then…I just wanted to cry.
“If it wasn’t for what he did…you and I both know Jade would still be here,” I whisper with a shake of my head. “He paved the path for another monster.”
I stop talking and catch my breath, my mouth is dry. I’m shaking so violently I can hear my own bones click. “And now he’s back, and he’s coming for me and all we can do is wait…”
Fingers latch onto my arm, Harlen spins me toward him, draws me in for a hug.
He presses his chin to the top of my head, and I nestle myself into his solid chest. His breath warming over my scalp, causing me to shiver.
He doesn’t say anything, and I don’t blame him for that. Agreeing with me is unnecessary and disagreeing with me will only make him a liar.
“I’ll wait, okay? I’ll be in the truck. You need me, I’ll be here.”
I pinch at his waist before letting go.
The deeper I walk, the cooler it becomes.
My breath has begun to crystalize, and I find myself breathing through my mouth, willing my nose to adjust to the rancid smell of stale water and death.
It lingers in every crevice, a branding, letting others know what the tunnel had become—what my grandfather had created.
Chase doesn’t look up, and the closer I get, I notice it’s because he isn’t really here.
His shell is, that much is obvious, but his mind, in a place like this, could only be lost to the horrors.
Transported into the notebook he’s clenching in the palm of his hand, Chase seems shut off from his surroundings, crawling through his own blood covered walls, and curiosity rustles through me. I want to know where it took him, what he was penning.
Pain is cut in sharp angles across his stubbled face, his brows furrowed. Chase Keller looks ragged and beat-up, yet beautiful and vulnerable, all at the same time.
But I knew he wouldn’t want me to see him this way.
I pause, choosing to clear my throat. Taking him by surprise was the last thing I wanted to do today.
Chase lifts his chin. His deep brown eyes touch mine, a strange and distant look at the surface.
The notebook that is clasped in the palm of his hand slaps shut, the sound echoing around us when he looks away.
He coughs, then tentatively sweeps his forearm beneath his nose. His eyes don’t meet mine again. And I knew they wouldn’t. He’d been crying.
“You shouldn’t be down here,” he says, voice bitter, and I hate that I grimace at the taste.
Crossing my arms, I chew the inside of my cheek, let my eyes touch my feet. “Isn’t that for me to decide?”
Chase drops the book down beside him and pushes back into the wall, heaving out an agitated sigh. He hangs his limp wrists over his knees.
“Maybe, but…” He stops talking, lets out another breath, and his shoulders fall as he exhales. Chase presses his palms to his face. “I can’t do this right now, Lai—”
“And you think I can?” A rueful laugh comes from my lips, and I know it’s a way for me to push away the hurt that had already begun to shovel its way beneath my fragile ribs. “I just…” I throw my arms out then slap my legs, shaking my head and shrugging my shoulders. “Never mind.”
His voice barely fills the space between us. “Come here, Laik.”
I hike my thumb over my shoulder, raising my voice. “Why? I thought I shouldn’t be down here?” I mock him and I know it pisses him off. “That you can’t do this right now?”
Chase’s face tenses, his steely gaze giving me a once-over. I can tell he is not in the mood for the back and forth.
I bite into my bottom lip. “Forget it.” I turn and start to walk away.
His voice hits at the back of my neck.
“I won’t ask again,” he warns.
I spin around, my trembling hands wrap around my biceps. “Are you threatening me?”
“Yeah,” he retorts almost instantly, swiping his tongue over his bottom lip, “Yeah, I fucking am.” And when I don’t reply, my erratic breath pushing me further away, he whispers so desperately I can’t help but shiver.
“Please.”
Pain registers in his expression. He openly begs me with broken eyes.
And instantly I feel my resolve slip away.
I hate that.
I hate him.
I hate even more that I still cared for the boy that had slaughtered me.
I swallow. I take a step forward, and then another, and it feels like there is a piece of glass wedged in my chest. The closer I get to it, to him, the deeper it slashes into my flesh.
“You’re so goddamn confusing,” I whisper, pushing my back against the curved and icy concrete. I leave a generous amount of space between us, just like he had on the deck last night, sliding down and drawing my thighs to my chest. My arms coil my legs; I hold onto my breath.
A snick comes from beside me and I don’t need to look to know it’s the sound of Chase blazing a cigarette. The familiar sizzle touches my ears when he draws a heavy pull, and my eyes shift to my side when I see the filter smoldering at my bicep.
I contemplate not taking it, but I’ve never been able to pass on the offering of nicotine.
I’ve been smoking cigarettes since I was thirteen, since the first time a kid at school told me I would grow up to be a psychopath like Grandpa Campbell.
I didn’t know if it was more disgusting that something deep inside of me believed I could be just as rotten as him, or that I’d taken to charring out my insides in order not to be.
It was…disturbing.
Taking the cigarette from Chase, I place it between my teeth, then I recline my head, playing with the smoke at my lips.
I can feel Chase's eyes on me, tracing the column of my neck, and at his visual touch my skin tingles, heating with every pass.
I keep my eyes diverted. “What do you want, Chase?”
Chase takes the cigarette back. He pulls on it, then says, “Could ask the same, you were the one that came looking for—”
“Don’t start,” I tell him, looking away, then looking back when he doesn’t take the bait. I wet my lips, hanging my wrists. “Why do you come down here?”
“Why not?” he shrugs, exhaling.
I pinch the cigarette from him, return it to my lips, and I feel his eyes tracing my throat again, the heat of his gaze at my skin. I take my time releasing the smoke before placing my chin over my bicep, touching my eyes to his.
“You know she’s with you…everywhere…you don’t have to subject yourself to all of this…”
“The way she didn’t have to be subjected to being thrown away down here?” Chase takes the cigarette, sucks down another pull and shakes his head. “You don’t have to understand it, Laik, but you can—”
“I’m not saying that I don’t or that it’s wrong, Chase.” Our eyes hold tighter. “I guess what I’m trying to say is…it’s brave.”
So were you, Laik. Harlen’s words, an echo, telling me the same inside the truck only moments ago.
Chase looks away, clears his throat, repeats himself, “You shouldn’t be down here.”
I pick at a leaf stuck in the white shoelaces of my Reeboks. “Why? Because he’s back?”
Chase turns this time, watches me, and I temper down my fear. I don’t want him to see it, to know what the monster that tore apart our lives return is really doing to me.
Our time is coming, Laiken. The secret I’ve kept, the same one Harlen and his father are now keeping, too.
“I’ll be okay, Chase.”
It’s a lie, and we both know it.
He takes another pull and I watch the way Chase rolls his bottom lip behind his top teeth, and I think to myself how gorgeous he is, in a ragged, Chase Keller way.
He offers over the cigarette, I tap away the ash at my side, and when he doesn’t reply, I keep my eyes on him, burning another line down my throat, rasping on a cloud of smoke, “You don’t have to worry about me.”
Chase’s throat dips. He drops his chin to his chest, and I can’t help but notice the way his tongue wets his lips. He turns away and there’s a tense silence between us before he fills it, “You know I can’t…” He pauses, corrects himself. “Won’t do that, Laiken.”
“Yes, you can, and will,” I counter, shrugging my shoulders, taking another hit from the cigarette. “Because you already did.”
Chase keeps his head between his shoulders, and sucks on his front teeth. “You have no idea what the fuck…” He doesn’t finish.
“So, tell me,” I whisper.