Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
Normal people would probably drop the chainsaw, I realize belatedly. But my buddy and I have already been through so much that it’s still tightly clamped in my hand, and my fingers are unwilling to open to drop it to the ground.
When Pearl lets out another uncertain noise, I lay my hand absently on her head, making sure to miss her torn-up ear as the sheriff and his companion watch me with the same amount of confusion I’ve been feeling since I woke up.
“Who…?” The stranger glances at the sheriff and runs his fingers through his curly, tousled blond hair. “You didn’t tell me there was a girl.”
“Yeah, I didn’t because there isn’t one.
Not with them,” the sheriff shoots back.
But he’s watching me, observing, and I can’t help but feel his gaze zeroing in on the blood and the chainsaw.
It almost makes me self-conscious. And I almost drop my chainsaw.
“I remember you,” he says after a moment.
“You’re the girl from the gas station in town. ”
“Yeah. Yep. The uh, the one who has—had—the really shitty friends.” My voice breaks on the correction, which causes the sheriff to tilt his head.
“I don’t know what happened. I don’t know…
” I trail off and when I run my fingers through my hair without thinking, I can feel how it’s dried with the blood and gore from the man downstairs in it.
Disgusting.
“No, I do know. Umm.” I close my eyes hard for a second, take a breath, and open them again.
“My friends and I were taken.” My legs feel locked, and I don’t close the distance between me and safety, though I glance back over my shoulder, as if the man I killed is going to reanimate and come after me.
Which, all things considered, would be the craziest thing to happen to me today.
“Maybe last night? I’m not sure. I was knocked out, and I woke up to—” Fuck, I’m not sure how to finish that statement.
The two men watch me, waiting, before the sheriff sighs and adjusts the cap on his head, turning it around to face the wrong way.
Dressed in his uniform, he looks like a mix of authority and like he’s about to step into a photoshoot for the Rural Sheriffs Charity Calendar.
“Could you, uh, maybe drop the chainsaw?” he asks finally. “You know what you look like, right?”
I glance down at the chainsaw, my fingers still holding tight as if they’re welded to the handle.
“Do I look feral with good ol’ Sally here?
” I ask slowly, my voice tired. “The name is a work in progress, by the way. I’m not sure what I want to call it.
But this is my emotional support chainsaw, and I’d really like to not let go. ”
“I say let her keep it,” his companion remarks, his voice quieter, though with the same accent and even more of a soft drawl that makes me want to lean closer and hang on every word. “Feral, actually.” He flashes a sly grin in my direction, and his blue eyes are full of something I can’t read.
Before I can do more than take a step, the reality of the situation slams back into me.
Relief still sits in my stomach, though it causes a mix of lightheadedness and exhaustion to surge through my veins in lieu of the adrenaline that’s kept me going so far.
“Ariana,” I murmur, squeezing my eyes shut tight for just a moment.
My hand goes back to Pearl as the dog leans against me, though I realize belatedly her eyes never leave the two men.
“H-hey. My friend is down there still. She needs help. She’s…
she’s not doing well,” I explain quickly, trying to keep my words straight.
“I wanted to help her, but I couldn’t get her out and carry this, plus I thought there were others.
There were others,” I correct. “But I thought they were still here. After I killed the first guy down there, I—”
“You killed someone?” The blond’s brows disappear under his curls and he lets loose a low whistle.
“Feral.” He shakes his head, seemingly unbothered by the rest of my statement.
“I’ll go take care of it.” He trades a look with the sheriff, and whatever communication passes between them, I can’t read.
“I’ll go find this guy you killed, and this friend—”
I don’t mean to, but when he walks by me, my disgusting, bloody, raw hand reaches out and I grab his wrist hard enough that my knuckles ache. But he doesn’t push me off.
His sky-blue eyes, brighter than any I’ve ever seen, flick in my direction, and the initial warning there fades, though he looks from my hand to my face.
But the warning is mostly lost on me as I try to get my words together. “Ariana,” I murmur. “My friend’s name is Ariana. She said…” I trail off, not sure how to articulate what she said.
Or why it’s important to me for him to know.
“What did your friend say?” His voice is surprisingly gentle, though Pearl apparently doesn’t think that’s a positive thing, judging by the way she gives a soft grumble low in her throat and glues herself more tightly to my side.
The man barely spares her a look, and it’s only to roll his eyes at the dog like she’s a known inconvenience, rather than a true danger.
Swallowing back bile, I drop his arm, still holding his gaze.
“She’s in a lot of pain,” I breathe. “And her eyes, her tongue, th-they’re gone.
” Waiting for shock to show on his face, something settles deeper in my chest when it doesn’t come.
Uneasiness travels through me, though I push it away, telling myself it’s simply leftover from my morning.
Of course I’m ill at ease and on edge. Who the hell wouldn’t be? I remind myself that this man has done nothing wrong, and if he’s with the sheriff of Wolf Lake, I doubt I’m in danger of anything except maybe being arrested for killing a man in self-defense with Sally.
“She told me to kill her. If she says that to you, then you can’t. Please.” My fingers tighten in the hem of my shirt, and I’m glad I released his arm before he could feel how I’m trembling. “She’ll be okay. We just need to get her to a doctor. She just—”
“I’ll find your friend.” There’s a note of gentleness in his voice, I think, as he trades one more look with the sheriff. “And I don’t need you to show me where I’m going.” With that, he walks away, gravel crunching softly under his boots before he disappears into the old auto shop behind me.
Noise in front of me catches my attention, and when I turn back, the sheriff is leaning into the back seat of his truck, top half swallowed up by it. When he’s in view again, he’s holding a half-unwrapped cheeseburger, and when he meets my quizzical gaze, he grins ruefully.
“Sorry.” He chuckles, kneeling down with it held out towards Pearl. “I just know she’s hungry as hell, and I like to feed her when I can.”
Pearl doesn’t leave my side, even with no prompting from me. She looks at the cheeseburger and whines, shifting so her backside is flush against my knee. “Where’d you find her, anyway?” he adds, patient as he continues to hold out the bribe.
“She was down there too, um…” I close my eyes and suck in a breath, reminding myself that this isn’t the time to break down.
Not yet. “I was looking for Tyler. He is—was—the guy from the gas station who was being shitty with you. He’s, uh, not gonna be shitty to anyone anymore.
” My dry words tremble slightly, though I’m proud of myself for managing to get even that much of a joke out.
“I just found her in one of the rooms when I was looking for my friends and a way out. Do you think they were going to kill her?”
“Yeah.” There’s no hesitation in his voice, though the sheriff offers me a tight smile.
“Sorry. That wasn’t exactly tactful. She’s a real problem for a lot of people ‘round here. I’m surprised no one’s gotten her already.
But I guess that’s damn lucky for you, isn’t it?
” He trails off, meeting my gaze over the cheeseburger.
“I’m Fox, by the way.” He gets to his feet with a sigh and carefully tosses the burger onto the gravel between us, keeping an eye on it until it lands.
As if it would be somehow less appetizing to the dog if it became deconstructed, rather than probably more appealing if Pearl can actually see the meat and cheese.
“Sheriff Fox Shaw. It was nice meeting you the first time. And I sure wish this one was under better circumstances.” He doesn’t look at me when he says it, though. He’s too focused on Pearl.
Distance does the trick, and she walks forward to sniff at the burger, nosing at it for a few seconds before she downs it in a few open-mouthed chomps.
For a few seconds I can see the contents—patty, cheese, ketchup, and something bright white that must be onion, though normally I’d pull it off before giving a burger to a dog.
But hell, she’s earned it, clearly.
“Oh, hey. Sorry, uh.” Fox brushes off the already-clean legs of his jeans and heads back to the truck.
As I watch, he fiddles in the back, having to lean in until he’s braced on the balls of his feet, and after a few moments he comes back with a bottle of water.
“You probably need this.” With a wry grin on his lips, the sheriff hands it to me, and I take it with one hand, twisting the cap off without much effort, like I’ve become strong enough to break a water seal without even noticing.
I didn’t realize how thirsty I was until the water hits my lips. What starts as a sip turns into me chugging about half the bottle, and when I finally take a breath, I’m surprised and a little unnerved to find that Fox is just staring at me.
“That’s, uh, sort of embarrassing,” I admit. “All of this is embarrassing and awful, but humor is sort of the only way I’m not hysterical.” The smile I give him is probably five kinds of manic, and my hand shakes until he carefully extracts the now blood-stained plastic bottle from my hand.
“Pace yourself,” he suggests. “You don’t need to puke it all up.”
“Wouldn’t want to contaminate the crime scene,” I agree automatically.
“Hmm…” But Fox is already walking away, heading to look at a few of the newer-ish cars parked outside the shop. “You said you were taken by a truck, right? And how many guys were there?”
I follow after him, still dragging ol’ Sally at my side like an overgrown child with her teddy bear.
“Uh, yeah. It was a dark truck, I think, but it was dark when it happened. And I think there were three, maybe four guys. Three for certain. The guy in the basement was in the back seat.” Now that I’m explaining, I find I can’t stop.
The words about that night pour out of me while I follow Fox around until he’s walking into the auto shop and I hesitate at the door.
The brunet looks at me with a sweet, amicable smile on his lips when he senses my hesitation, and the understanding there is so kind that it hurts.
“It’s okay,” he promises, standing in a fucking ray of sunlight, making him look like my personal guardian angel.
“You can wait outside. I won’t be long.”
“Yeah, okay, it’s just.” With the adrenaline wearing off more quickly than I realized, I’m feeling tired and a little foggy. “The office,” I continue, working hard not to slur my words. “There’s some kind of ledger.”
“Noted. Go wait with Pearl.” It isn’t a question, but there’s no real order behind the words. I open my mouth to ask when he’s going to call for backup. At least, that’s what I assume needs to happen here.
But really, I’m just too worn out. With a sigh, I trudge out to the yard, heading to where Pearl is sniffing around in the grass, walking in a slow circle. Without really thinking about it, I drop my best friend Sally and sink down in the grass beside her, my eyes on the circling dog.
“Burger’s all gone,” I tell her, my words sounding hoarse. The sun is warm on my face, and I turn my gaze up to the light through the trees, letting it fall uninhibited onto my cheeks. “We’ll get you another one, though.”
A groan and a flop make me open my eyes, and my vision swims slightly when I look down at where Pearl is on her side, panting, eyes heavy.
“Pearl?” I call, concern stirring in my chest. “Hey, you okay?” Getting to my knees is a mistake, and I have to catch myself in the grass on my raw, stinging palms so I don’t topple over.
“The fuck?” I murmur, unable to move closer to her.
I can’t do anything except blink at the grass under me that swims and moves in my vision.
This isn’t right, I realize with a dull kind of horror that doesn’t quite reach my brain. But what—
The cheeseburger.
The already-opened bottle of water.
Fuck.
Footsteps crunching on the gravel, then closer in the grass, have me forcing myself onto my back. I can barely brace myself on my elbows to glare up at Fox, who’s standing a few feet away, between me and Sally.
Not that I’d be able to grab her if I can’t even sit up straight.
“Youdruggedus!” I gasp, my words slurred. Getting right to the point seems like my only option when my eyes are feeling heavier than they ever have. “Why would you do that? Are you with them? Oh, fuck, oh, fuck—”
Without warning, Fox is kneeling in front of me, the concern on his face mixed with a kind of predatory interest. “No, little rabbit,” he promises. “We’re not with them.” His voice is cold, with less of the ‘good ol’ southern boy’ charm from before. “They’re not welcome here.”
“You’re the sheriff,” I go on, my vision wavering in and out, with blackness swimming at the edges of my eyes. “You’re supposed to help me.”
“I’m supposed to help Wolf Lake,” he corrects, and reaches out a hand to cup my jaw. I have just enough left to jerk away from him, though my arms buckle a second later, sending me to my back in the grass, where I’m once again left staring up at the sun.
“Like I said before, little rabbit”—his voice is a tired, overworked sigh, and I can hear his footsteps getting further away—“the excitement here in Wolf Lake can be deadly. You really should’ve hightailed it out of here with your friends when you could.”