19. Rowan
Author’s Note:
My friend wanted me to let you all know that the coffee in the previous chapter was not, under any circumstances, pumpkin spice coffee.
Pumpkin spice is, according to him, an abomination.
So they were just drinking plain coffee.
If anyone cares. And they’re both okay, I promise.
I’m low-angst like that. No worries! Rowan will save everyone, but Betsy comes first. Or maybe Milo will save himself.
Or maybe Ethel will save both of them. The possibilities are endless.
ROWAN
We finally pulled up to a dirt road that looked like it led to a cabin in the woods. What the hell was it with cabins in the woods? Was there some supervillain rulebook that said you needed a cabin in the woods in order to successfully commit crime?
I drove past when Sky pulled off—I didn’t want to be too suspicious, and there wasn’t really any traffic on this road.
I made a U-turn partway down the street, though, and turned off my headlights.
I debated driving up the dirt path, but I didn’t want to alert Sky to my presence.
I pulled the car off onto the shoulder and partway into the woods, then I texted Milo my location and got a thumbs up in reply.
I let him know I was following, and without waiting, I got out of the car and ran down the path.
Within a minute I was at the cabin; Sky had already gotten out and was inside.
I had a weird feeling in my chest, and I looked back toward the road, feeling the urge to go in that direction.
But when I looked back toward the cabin and breathed in, I could smell not just Sky, but also a fainter scent underneath.
It was too similar to one of the scents in Betsy’s room to be dismissed.
Milo would kill me if I went back and something happened to Betsy. I knew that without a doubt, so I pushed aside the odd feeling in my chest. I wasn’t panicked, anyway—I just felt like something was off.
I briefly debated waiting until Milo got to the cabin to save the girl, because I knew he would want to be in on the fun. But that weird feeling was pressing me forward, and I decided I’d rather get this taken care of, even if Milo was pissed.
Subtlety was not really my thing, so I barged into the front door of the cabin, because I could smell that Sky was in the front room.
He screamed when he saw me, and he was reaching for something, but I walked over and hit him on the head.
I didn’t want him dead, but unconscious would be good while I searched the house.
The cabin was rustic, but it was decorated and had furniture. I searched the entire ground floor and eventually found a basement door that was padlocked from the outside. Of course it was a basement. It was always a basement. So predictable.
I didn’t bother looking for a key—I just used my hellfire to break the lock.
When I opened the door, I heard muffled movement from downstairs, including the sound of a chain.
I walked slowly down the stairs, trying not to appear too menacing.
The scent of the human was frightened, and I didn’t want to panic her further.
I reached the bottom, and there was a small room off to the left. It was also locked, but it clearly wasn’t soundproof. The movement had stopped, though, so I figured Betsy probably knew someone was downstairs.
“Betsy?” I called out. “Is that you?”
“Holy shit,” she cried out. “Are you with the police? Oh my god, I’ve been down here for days. Please get me out of here.”
“Okay, Betsy. I’m gonna open the door. Don’t panic, okay?” I burned through the lock, carefully opening the door but not entering. I wanted to try and give Betsy as much autonomy as possible in her rescue.
When I looked in the room, I could see her chained to a metal bed frame with a cuff around one ankle. The room had a rudimentary set up, but it did the job it needed to. There was a sink, a toilet, and that metal bed frame with the chain attached.
I walked in, keeping my hands up and in sight. “I’m going to get you unchained, okay?”
“You’re not the police. Who are you?” she asked, looking frightened.
“I’m a friend of Mildred’s. She’s been worried about you,” I answered.
She breathed out a sigh of relief. Then the panic was back. “Sky, the TA—he took me. I don’t know when he’ll be back.”
“He’s unconscious upstairs. It’s okay. You’re safe.”
With that, I lifted the bed frame and unhooked the chain. I could’ve burned it off her ankle, but people tended to get a little weird when hellfire was that close to them. Plus, I didn’t necessarily want to let her know I wasn’t human. The girl had dealt with enough.
She seemed exhausted but not bruised or beaten. She started talking as soon as she was free.
“I was getting these emails, you know? I told my one friend about them, but I had no idea who they were coming from. She thought maybe one of my professors, but I thought there was no way. Then a couple nights ago—maybe two or three? I’m not really sure—I was in the lab working, and Sky told me that my professor was asking about me.
I got kind of nervous and he noticed, and he offered to drive me home.
He’s kinda odd, but it seemed like a nice offer, and I did feel better not walking across campus in the dark.
Only when we got in the car, he hit me or something, because I blacked out, and then I was chained in this room. ”
“Did he hurt you?” I asked.
She gave me a look. “I know what you’re asking, and no, he didn’t rape me.
He was weirdly polite most of the time. He acted like I was his guest and was here of my own free will.
If I said anything otherwise he just walked out, sometimes without giving me food or water.
He said something about us being soul mates and how I needed uninterrupted space to work on my art. He’s fucking insane.”
“No doubt,” I commented.
“What if he wakes up while you’re down here? You better go check on him. In the movies, they always wake up, you know? I won’t feel safe unless he’s locked up.”
“He’s out, but I’ll go check if it’ll make you feel better. Will you be okay here on your own?” I asked.
“Yeah, just don’t shut the door. Call down when it’s clear, okay? Did you already call the police? If not, you gotta call them, okay? He’s gotta be arrested.”
I sighed and nodded, then turned around and headed out of the room and up the stairs.
Of course she wanted the cops. They were such a pain in the ass, and now they were gonna be involved.
The guy wasn’t a hellbound soul, though—not yet, at least. Killing him wasn’t an option, but Betsy was right that leaving him free wasn’t really an option, either.
When I got upstairs, Sky was, as predicted, still unconscious. This wasn’t the movies, so he hadn’t jumped up and ran off in the ten minutes I’d taken downstairs.
“All clear,” I called out, and I heard Betsy walking upstairs.
I kept my eye on the guy, figuring that would put Betsy more at ease. I heard her coming up the stairs, and then she came into the room, carrying the chain that was still attached to her leg on one end.
“Do you want me to break that off?” I asked.
She shook her head. “No. It’s, like, evidence or whatever. Did you call the police?”
I shook my head and took out my cell phone, handing it to Betsy.
She dialed 911 and then walked into the other room with the phone when the operator picked up.
She started off calm, but before long she was crying into the phone, telling the dispatcher what had happened.
It wasn’t totally unexpected—she’d been surprisingly calm so far, and a little hysterics and panic was definitely called for.
The girl had been abducted, for goodness sake.
Within a few minutes, I heard the cop cars approaching, and I debated my course of action. Did I really want to get caught up with the cops? No. Should I ask Betsy to lie and say she had escaped on her own? Probably not.
Still, there was that nagging feeling in my gut that something was off. Betsy ran out to meet the cop cars, and after making sure Sky was still unconscious—he was—I stepped out the back door and called Milo.
It rang for an eternity, and then it went to voicemail. I tried again right away, and the same thing happened.
Shit. Something was wrong. I could feel it.
He’d said he was going to ask Ethel to pick him up, so I scrolled down to her number next. She’d given it to me, along with the rest of the crew, the other afternoon.
Her phone also went to voicemail.
I tried Mildred next.
“Hello?” she answered.
“It’s Rowan. I found Betsy, and she’s fine. She’s with the cops now, and I’m sure they’ll be calling you soon.”
“Oh, thank god. Thank you, Rowan. You don’t know how relieved I am. I’ll call her mother right now.”
Before she could hang up, I asked, “Did Ethel and Milo get back there? He said he was going to ask her for a ride home.”
“Oh, yes, she flew out of here a while ago. I assumed they were on their way to meet you, because they didn’t come back here.”
I didn’t want to panic Mildred, so I just said, “Okay, thanks. Spread the good word about Betsy.”
We said our goodbyes and hung up. The cops still hadn’t come out back looking for me, and even though I knew I really should stay, I walked down the back porch steps and off into the woods.
Once I was out of sight of the cabin, I started running toward the car.
Something was wrong. Milo wasn’t answering, Ethel wasn’t answering, and they should have been.
I found my car without an issue, and I managed to get in and get going without being stopped by the cops.
I drove back toward campus, thinking about which route Ethel and Milo would take.
If I didn’t see them on the way to the cabin, maybe Ethel had decided to head back toward the retirement home.
I’d made the drive with Milo and remembered which way to go if I didn’t see their car en route to campus.
I was maybe five minutes from the college when I saw the flashing lights ahead. I threw the car in park and jumped out, the police yelling at me as I ran over toward the car that was sitting on the side of the road.
It was Ethel’s car, and it was pretty banged up. It looked like she’d been sideswiped. I didn’t see or hear anyone in the car, so I turned to the cop who was running toward me to stop me from messing with their accident scene.
“Where are they? Are they okay?” I asked.
The policeman waved another cop over. This one opened a notebook. “Do you know the owners of this car?”
“Yes. Are they okay? Did the ambulance take them already? What hospital are they at?” I tried not to let panic take over, but it was hard, especially when the cops didn’t seem forthcoming with information.
“When did you last hear from them?”
I advanced on the cop with the notebook, letting a little fire into my eyes. “Tell me where they are, and then we’ll talk.”
The cop, to his credit, didn’t back up, but he did close the notebook. “The car was empty when we got to it. A passing motorist reported it. There was no other car on scene. I’m sorry, but we don't know where they are. That’s what we’re trying to figure out.”
Without waiting any longer, I turned and walked back to my car. The cop yelled after me, but unless he was gonna shoot me, I wasn't planning on stopping.
Milo and Ethel were missing. I had to find them. They had to be okay. There was no other option.