Chapter 22
TWENTY-TWO
Bristol
As I’m hurrying to gather up a few things out of the haunted house, I hear the door open and shut softly behind me.
His heavy footsteps follow, one after the other, across the room toward me.
I guess Anson wants to talk more about how we’ll deal with Hazel and the rest of the town finding out we’ve been sneaking around.
So when he grabs me from behind and pins me to his chest, I’m surprised.
The last thing we need is Jasper coming back and thinking we’re doing this on purpose to rub salt in the wound.
I hope he’d know neither of us would do that, but I’m extra sensitive to his feelings today.
I would have thought Anson would have been too.
“Hey! What if Jasper sees? It’s not a good idea.” I try to curtail the tone of frustration in my voice, but it comes through anyway.
“Why would Jasper care?” The last voice I expect to hear answers me.
I whip my head over my shoulder to see Chris standing there, a lazy smirk on his face.
I open my mouth to scream, but nothing comes out.
Panic wells in my gut. I wonder for a moment if I’ve hit my head or succumbed to the fumes in the house.
He’s clearly still in his Department of Corrections jumpsuit.
Dirty and disheveled but otherwise looking like he had when I visited him before our final break.
“What are you doing here?” I hiss. “Put me down.” He doesn’t follow directions, and I squirm in his arms as he tries to pull me tighter. I claw at his arm to get him to release me when he refuses to do what I ask.
“Ow. Fuck. Stop that!” Chris curses. He nearly drops me, so he finally sets me on my feet, maintaining his grip on my arm. “Don’t scream.”
“How are you here?”
“I can explain that in a minute. But we need to find somewhere safe to go.”
“Explain now.” I feel like Anson with my terse words, but I don’t care at this point. There’s only one thing I need to know, and that’s how the hell my ex is out of prison and standing in the middle of this house with me. If it wasn’t haunted before, it definitely is now.
“I think it’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?” he grumbles, annoyed I’m not happier to see him.
“Not in the least. You should be in prison. What do you want?”
“To see you. Obviously.”
“For what?”
“You’re my girlfriend. What do you think?” A snear of irritation mars his face.
“I’m not your girlfriend. I’m your ex. You need to leave.”
“You aren’t my ex. Not really. You know this baby.
We’re never really over. You know that as well as me.
” His tone turns to coaxing but I’m in no mood to be cajoled into feeling an ounce of sympathy or loyalty to him.
Even if I was single, and I’m not, I wouldn’t want anything to do with him anymore.
“I’m pretty sure when you went to prison, we were really over. Besides, you dumped me, remember?”
“I had to pretend to so I could get her help.”
“Whose help?”
“Never mind. Just tell me where we can go. I need to take cover for a while. Until this blows over.” He motions to the jumpsuit he has on like it’s self-explanatory.
“No,” I insist, holding my ground. I hear voices coming closer outside, not close enough that I can tell who they belong to, but close enough that it makes Chris startle. I see the fear on his face, and he snatches my arm and drags me toward the steps.
“Let’s go!”
“No. I will scream if you don’t let me go, Chris. Let me fucking go!” I start to raise my voice, and then suddenly, seemingly from out of nowhere, he pulls a gun and points it at me.
“Don’t you dare fucking scream. I came here to get you. So we could run away together. Now you’re going to fucking out me? What the fuck, Bristol?” He seems genuinely confused that I’m not excited to see him.
“Just let me go. I won’t say anything to anyone,” I beg him, trying to use my weight as a counter to his, but he just drags me up the stairs with him.
“No. You’re coming with me. I did all this for you.”
“What are you talking about? What did you do?” I ask as he drags me along with him. I’m not sure I really want the answer. I can barely believe this is happening.
When we reach the second floor, he leans against the wall to peek past the shades at the window, watching what’s unfolding outside.
He pins me to his chest, not letting me have any room to run from him.
I don’t know whether to hope for a rescue or not.
I want help, but I don’t want it at the expense of someone surprising Christ and him using that gun.
“Is there another floor?” he asks. “From the outside, it looked like there was a third floor.”
“I think there’s an attic,” I answer truthfully. I haven’t been in it, but I’m pretty sure I remember seeing an attic door tucked into the ceiling in one of the rooms.
“Take me to it.” He urges me on, and as he tugs at me, it twists my wrist, and I whimper in pain. “I don’t want to hurt you, Bristol. I just want to get somewhere safe before someone finds us.”
I clutch my wrist to my chest as he follows me closely, nudging me with the gun and making me hurry through the narrow hallway of the old house. I push to the right, opening the door, and look up to see the dangling chain of the attic door.
“There.” I nod.
He doesn’t waste time, pulling it down and letting the stairs drop. They nearly thud on the floor, save for him catching it with his foot. That’s when I notice his leg. There’s blood on it, dripping down and soaking through his pants. He’s hurt. Badly, if the amount of blood is any indication.
“What happened?” I ask just as the downstairs front door squeaks open.
“Get up there.” He pushes me toward the rickety ladder, and I glance up into the dark void above our heads.
There’s a small stream of light that streaks overhead.
I’m guessing there’s a missing board or a small window that’s letting some sunshine in.
But otherwise, it’s going to be pitch-black and likely to have some friends with eight legs or wings that I’d rather not meet again.
“Chris, please.” I try to plead with him one last time, but he refuses to listen, driving me forward with a shove of his hand and the reminder that he’s holding the gun in the other.
He follows me up and, with some effort, pulls the attic door closed behind us. I’m hoping he can’t get it set back into place before whoever came in the front door reaches the top floor. But I hear Anson’s muffled voice call my name just as the door slips shut.
“Don’t say a word.” Chris breathes against my cheek as he holds the gun to my chin. I nod in understanding. I’m as scared for Anson as I am for myself.
He never liked Anson. I suppose now he’d say all his fears were proven, given the way Anson and I have ended up. But I think he would have hated him regardless for being all the things he could never be.
I hear him call my name again, pacing around the floor one more time before his muted footsteps disappear.
I’m trying to tell myself not to cry or panic just yet, but my brain is already doing the calculus about how long we can stay here.
Chris has hard limits to his patience. I’m not sure what he wants or where he thinks we’ll go after this, but I can’t argue too much more than I have before he starts getting pissed.
Where we go next―I don’t even want to think about that.
I have no idea where he’s planning or how he thinks we’ll get there when he’s bleeding.
I have no money or assets to speak of. I poured everything extra I had into Many Moons and her inner secrets.
Profits are starting to turn, but I had to spend all of those on hiring someone new to help with the additional work and hours.
That means my bank account is looking scarce.
It’s nothing I can’t handle on a regular week, but in the bright light of a getaway fund, it’s going to look meager at best. So here’s hoping he’s not counting on me for cash.
Once Chris is sure Anson’s gone, he turns to me.
“Where’s my truck?”
Well shit.
“I don’t have it. I got a new one.”
“You got rid of my truck?” He’s offended. “How the hell could you do that?”
I can’t believe he wants to argue about the truck right now.
“It was having issues, and I needed something reliable.”
“Fucking hell, Bristol. You couldn’t do me one fucking solid for a few months?”
Now that we could argue about. I’ve done this man a whole fucking stack of solids over the years. Apparently, those are all forgotten.
“I didn’t think you were coming back to get it. You didn’t expect me to hold on to it for five years, did you?”
“I expected you to hold on to it for five months,” he barks back.
“Also, I thought it was to pay me back for the money I loaned you when I sold mine.”
“Your business isn’t doing well enough to cover that yet?
” In the dim light that’s streaming in from the window on the far side of the attic, he looks at me like it’s my problem for being a failure.
I’m trying to focus on our argument and not our surroundings or our circumstances.
Arguing with Chris is an old habit. We had years of back and forth like this.
Being held hostage in an attic of an old house with a fugitive is new territory.
I have to keep calm and handle the things I know I can manage.
“How are you even here? And what’s wrong with your leg? Did you escape, Chris? They’ll add years to your sentence for that.” I blurt out the obvious. It’s probably not the best idea to ratchet up his anxiety along with mine. So much for calm.
“There was a wreck. I just ran away from it. I can’t be blamed for that, can I?” He smirks.
Was he always this much of an asshole? I’m trying hard to remember.
It feels like so long ago since I fell for him.
I can’t even bring myself to think it was love anymore.
He was handsome. Tall. Had a nice truck and a nice motorcycle.
He said sweet things to me. Lots of them at first. That’s all I really saw back then, and somehow once I signed up for this particular version of chaos, I couldn’t figure out how to get back off the ride.
“You can’t just run away from the wreck. You’re serving time. They’ll be looking for you.”
“That’s not what she said. She said if I got away, they might rule me dead, and I could start over.”
“Who is she?”
“One of the guards. We got to be good friends.” The self-satisfied look on his face tells me what kind of friendship he was offering.
“I’m sure you did,” I mutter. I don’t care, not really, but I feel another hot flush of embarrassment for my former self. I can’t believe I ever thought this man was capable of loyalty.
“That’s why I had to call things off with you for a bit. She was going to help me, but she wanted some things in return. I knew it would mean getting out and getting back to you eventually.”
“And she knew you had a girlfriend?”
“Yeah. She saw your name on the lists.”
“So don’t you think I’m one of the first places they’ll look?”
“Which is why I came here instead of your house. I’m using my fucking head.” He taps the gun to his head in a show of his version of reason.
I’m going to guess it wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out where I am if I’m not at my house or work, but I’m not about to argue with him.
“What about your leg?”
“Got it pinned during the crash. Fucked it up a little. I was hoping you’d be able to get me a first aid kit.” His eyes dart around like he’s trying to assess the best way to get out of here in a hurry if we need to. I don’t like the looks of that.
“I know where one is if you let me go get it.”
“No. I’m not letting you out of my sight. We can go get it.”
“There are too many people around right now, Chris. Someone will see you in that dayglow orange.”
“It’s Halloween. I can just say it’s a costume. That was the plan.” He grins at how clever he thinks he is.
If he’d escaped and run off to Denver or even Colorado Springs, it probably would have worked. But in this small town where everyone knows everyone else’s business? There isn’t a soul alive who doesn’t know he was shipped off to prison.
“There are people here, though, who know you. Who’ll recognize you.”
I’m too scared to tell him how batshit this whole plan is, probably quite literally if I could see more of this room.
I glance up at the rafters, nervous I’ll find more friends up there.
What I can see of it is clear, but there are copious amounts of spider webs drifting from one beam to another, wafting in the breeze that seems to be coming in through a few loose shingles in the roof.
I’m already wondering if I could climb up there and bust the rest of them out, shimmy my way down the roof, and slide down a downspout.
I’m not an athlete, though, and the chances I end up falling off the roof instead of escaping are probably pretty high.
For right now, waiting and seeing what Chris does, using a moment to my advantage, is my best plan.
“Fair. We’ll have to wait until things die down. What time does the festival close at night?”
“Ten.”
I keep my answers short. I don’t want to offer more information than I have to.
I don’t want to still be here at ten or whenever he plans to try to sneak out, but it’ll be long before then when someone notices I’m gone.
If Anson isn’t already concerned because I’m not where I said I’d be, he’ll find my truck still parked behind the ranch house when he goes to leave.
My purse and keys will be tucked in the closet.
He’ll know I’m still here somewhere, then he’ll find me.
I have to hang on to that hope. I can’t think about how he might not know there’s an attic or how massive this ranch is. I trust Anson more than anyone else in this world and as long as I have him looking for me, I can keep hoping this nightmare ends soon.
“Then I guess we wait until ten.”
“Can you make it that long? That looks like a lot of blood.”
“I’ll have to. We don’t have a choice, do we?”
I hate the way Chris says we. There is no we anymore. There’s just him and me. Stuck in this hellhole attic together while he tries not to bleed out, and I hope that Anson can figure out where we are. Because he’s the only person I want to see in the world right now.