90. Willow
WILLOW
TWO WEEKS AGO
“He’s alive,” I scream, standing just as Jeremy limps through the doorway. “Jeremy…I can’t lift him on my own,” I cry out, falling back down to my knees at his side and glancing back down at the knife.
“It’s okay…Just don’t be mad…” he stammers as he pulls his belt off and wraps it around his thigh just above the bleeding wound.
“What do you mean, don’t be mad?” I demand with tears still streaming down my face.
“I…I texted Jenna when I got here.”
“YOU WHAT?!” I scream. “Why the fuck would you do that?! She can’t know about this…I don’t want her dragged into this. What the hell were you thinking?”
“Willow, stop! She’s stronger than you realize. She can handle this,” he snaps back.
“I’m not doubting that she can handle it. But what the fuck? If this goes south, we’ll all be going to jail.”
“That won’t happen, Willow. This…” He gestures back to the doorway leading to the labyrinth. “This has been going on for a long time. Longer than you know. Trust me, we won’t get caught. We just have to figure out a story we can all stick to.”
“Jeremy? Willow?” Jenna shouts.
“Down here,” Jeremy shouts back before finally tightening the belt tight enough to slow the bleeding. “Fuck, this hurts.”
“No shit. You were sliced open by a fucking knife.”
The cracked-open door at the top of the steps flings open, and Jenna comes rushing down the steps.
“Oh my God, babe. Are you okay?” Jenna asks me, but Jeremy thinks she’s talking to him.
“I’m okay, Wildcat. Thanks for coming so quickly,” he says, reaching for her, but stops when he sees her reaching for me. “Oh…Wrong babe.”
“I’m so sorry, Jenna. I didn’t know he was going to involve you. You shouldn’t be here…”
“Hey,” she snaps, cutting me off. “You are my family, Willow. I love you and I always joked that if you needed help hiding a body, I’d be there in a heartbeat, but I was dead serious.”
She winks at me then smiles. I rush forward, wrapping my arms around her neck and hugging her tightly.
I grew up as an only child and didn’t even have cousins.
I only had my adopted grandparents. This is the only family connection I’ve had with someone since my grandparents died.
She truly feels like a sister to me, and I couldn’t be more grateful to have her in my life.
“Come on. We need to get him upstairs. Willow, can you lift his legs?” Jenna asks as she gets above Noah and loops her arms under his.
“I think my wrist might be sprained, but I can try.”
“I’ll grab one leg, you grab the other. We just need to try to keep him steady. We don’t want the knife shifting more,” Jeremy says.
“I called an ambulance. We need to get him upstairs,” Jenna says as we grab his legs. “Okay…One, two, three, lift.”
All three of us work together to lift him.
His head lolls back against Jenna then drops to the side.
My heart breaks watching how weak and lifeless his body looks.
We silently make our way upstairs and carry him through the dining room and into the front of the house, gently resting him on the floor near the front door.
“Hold on. I need to do something,” Jeremy says as he starts loosening the belt from around his thigh, then pinches the skin around the wound.
“What are you…Jeremy, what the fuck?” Jenna snaps as Jeremy drops the belt to the ground and blood starts flowing from the wound again.
He stands next to Noah letting the blood puddle on the ground near him.
“I’m making it look like he got stabbed up here and not down in that hellhole.”
He continues walking around and starts making it look like there was a struggle. He tosses the new foyer table, smashing it on the floor. Then he knocks over the coat rack and begins to let his blood drip onto the jackets. I get what he means now. We need to make it look like this happened up here.
“What are we going to say?” I finally ask.
“Okay. You and Noah went out for date night. You came home, and the door was open. He came inside, and there was someone in here. There was a struggle, and then the guy stabbed Noah,” Jeremy says as he breaks something else.
“What about me?” I ask.
“You were in the car. Noah wouldn’t have let you come in if he thought you would be in danger.”
“But my wrist?”
“You tripped and fell when you were running in after you heard Noah scream and saw the man run out.”
“What about you though?” I ask gesturing to his leg.
“This? I’ll be fine. I know a guy. You guys get him to the hospital. I’m going to hide in the staircase until you guys are gone. Jenna, go with Willow.”
“I’m not leaving you. What if you pass out from blood loss?”
“I’m not going to pass out. I’ll be fine. I’ve had worse,” he teases.
“Jesus. What is wrong with your family?” she asks, gesturing down to Noah then at Jeremy.
“What do you mean? Nothing is wrong with me…Him maybe, but I’m the most normal one out of the two of us,” Jeremy laughs.
“Oh, I highly doubt that,” I say as Jeremy hobbles over to the door and punches in a code on the keypad on the wall.
You can see off in the distance as the iron gate slowly opens for whenever the ambulance gets here.
Jenna walks over to him and rewraps the belt around his thigh before kissing him.
I kneel down by Noah’s side and run my fingers through his hair trying to track his breathing.
His pulse is still there, but it’s faint.
“Okay. I’m going back down into the hellhole,” Jeremy says as sirens blare from the driveway.
Cops, ambulances, and a firetruck file in one after another before everyone jumps out of their vehicles. Jeremy is nowhere to be found when I turn back around. Jenna quickly comes running back into the room and nods to me before opening the door.
Paramedics come rushing in and immediately get to work. They get the knife stabilized and start checking everything as they put him on the stretcher then take him out to the ambulance.
“Excuse me, Miss?” an officer asks, looking at Jenna and me.
“Yes?” I ask.
“Hello. I’m Officer Whitmore. Were you the one who placed the call?” he asks me.
“I’m the one who called it in, but she’s his girlfriend. She was here when it happened,” Jenna says as she places her hand on my back.
“Where were you?” he asks Jenna skeptically, and I immediately want to go on the defensive. I know it’s only protocol for him to ask questions.
“I was on the phone with her when we were pulling up the driveway and saw the door was open,” I say quietly, watching as the doors close to the ambulance.
“She needs to go with him,” Jenna snaps and starts ushering me toward the ambulance.
“We will give her an escort after a few more questions. You said the door was open? Was there a sign of a break-in?”
He glances at the unbroken door. It’s not kicked in, and it doesn’t look like someone even used tools to break in. Fuck. We didn’t think of everything.
The ambulance starts to pull away, and I can feel my heart breaking. I should be with him holding his hand so that he knows I’m there.
“We didn’t lock the door if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Why not?” he asks, keeping his tone calm.
“Have you seen the fence around the entire property? Noah assumed that unless the person was an idiot or swam over, no one would break in.”
The cop only hums in acknowledgement as he writes more notes down into his device.
“And what happened next? Did you see the perpetrator?”
“I was on the phone with Jenna until I heard Noah scream. Then a person, who I’m assuming was male, ran out of the house. He had a black ski mask over his face, black clothing, and black gloves on so I didn’t get a good look at him.”
“And where did he run?”
“To the open gate,” I snap, gesturing to the gate behind him. “It’s the only way in or out. So I’m assuming that was where he went.”
“Sorry, Miss. I’m just trying to get everything documented. Do you have any idea who it might have been? Or do you believe it was a random break-in?” he asks.
I know why he asked that. He wants to know if Noah had any enemies.
“My boyfriend’s a lawyer, so I’m not sure if it was a targeted or random break-in. Is this going to take much longer?”
“No, Miss. My team is going to go in and take some photos and gather evidence. With your visual of him wearing black gloves, I doubt we will be able to pull any prints, and there isn’t a blood trail leading out of here so I’m assuming your boyfriend didn’t have a weapon to fight back with?”
“Not that I know of. The man ran away fast and didn’t seem injured.”
“Very well. One of my men will take you to the hospital,” he says, waving over one of the other officers.
“I’ll drive her. Can he at least escort us with lights so we can get there quicker?” Jenna asks, placing a protective arm around my shoulders.
“Very well. Smitty, please escort these two to the hospital Mr. Anderson was taken to.”
“Yes, sir,” the other officer says before nodding to us.
When we climb into Jenna’s car, I finally allow myself to breathe. My chest feels like it’s constricted, and I want to be sick. Her phone dings with a text, and I see Jeremy’s face pop up on the screen. She opens the text, letting me see what he said.
Jeremy
Please let me know how Noah is. I managed to clean up the blood that was in the laundry room and hall before they came in. I’ll get the cops taken care of though, so don’t worry about them. Just focus on you guys. Make sure Willow’s wrist gets checked, please.
Jenna
I will. What are you going to do about the cops? They are about to send in a team to take photos.
I told you, I’ve got it covered. Don’t worry, Wildcat. I always protect what’s mine, and Noah is like a brother to me. Nothing’s going to happen.
I don’t know whether to be relieved or concerned. He seems to know that this isn’t just a recent thing for Noah, and that has me curious as to how long it’s been going on. He had James down there for four years. Four years that man was held captive, but how many others were there?
I close my eyes and rest my head against the back of the seat as we pull out behind the cop.
His lights and sirens are on. I don’t bother watching as we drive toward the hospital.
My mind is frantic about what will happen next.
What do we do with James’s body? What do we do about the cops?
And most importantly, will Noah make it through this?
My throat tightens as my eyes burn from unshed tears. I need to hold it together. I need to be strong for just a little bit longer. As if Jenna can sense my stress, she places a hand on my knee and squeezes.
“Everything is going to be okay, Willow. We’re all in this together.”