Chapter 36
Emerson
It’s as if I can’t get air into my lungs. My hands shake, and my body trembles. Gannix lies there, and as soon as I start to crawl toward him, I’m ripped from the ground by someone. There’s a scream trapped in my throat as I’m hefted over someone’s shoulder. I’m in shock, that I’m sure of.
My body dangles from this man’s shoulder as other men rush around us. I have no idea who the hell they are or what they’re doing here.
The guy carries me inside, but I have no fight left in me. Gannix is gone. He’s gone, and that thought causes my chest to constrict. He can’t be gone, though, right? Because he fucking took me. He took me to keep me, and then he just dies? No, that’s not right. That’s not how this was supposed to be. How can this be?
I’m carried up the stairs and into Gannix’s room before I’m sat in a chair, my wrist yanked up and chained to the wall. I glance up and see that it’s Gannix’s friend, Ren.
“What are you doing?” I ask, my voice hoarse.
“You’re not going anywhere,” he tells me. Now I laugh darkly.
“Where the hell would I go?”
“Shit’s about to get worse, Emerson.”
“How could it possibly get worse than this?” I yell at him. He shakes his head, but I don’t understand. Ren doesn’t say anything else; he just turns and walks out, locking the door behind him. I knew this door could lock from the outside, but I never knew why. Maybe Gannix thought I could break free from the chains he used on me.
I look around the room as tears spring to my eyes. He’s gone. He’s really gone. I can’t make sense of it. It’s not like I knew him long, but he knew me. He knew everything there was to know about me, and for some reason, he made me feel alive.
The bed is still a rumpled mess from where we slept in it. When Gannix thought I was asleep, I felt him move in close and wrap his arms around me, holding me as he whispered words in my ear.
“Why did you do it?” I scream at no one. He shouldn’t have done that. He shouldn’t have killed himself. Why? I thought he wanted to be with me. I thought maybe, just maybe, somewhere in this fucked up world we live in, someone wanted me.
And I thought that someone was Gannix. He did go through all this for me. And for what?
Anger surges in my veins as I scream louder and tug at the chain holding me in place. I’m pissed at him. I want to hurt him for the way he hurt me. And maybe that’s crazy. Maybe that’s unbelievable to want to hurt him for hurting me because was he really hurting me? No. He made me feel better. He made me feel like someone cared about me.
Gannix wasn’t just a black-hearted killer. He gave to charities for fuck’s sake. He tried to help kids who were like him. He hid who he was because he thought he was fucking damaged, and those bitches, those dead bitches, made him feel even worse.
Maybe they deserved what they got. Maybe they deserved to die for making him feel lesser than he was. And why? Because he was scarred? So fucking what? We all have some sort of scars, whether they’re visible or not.
I know I have scars. Now I have more. Scars I can’t escape from, scars that run deeper than most.
I sit back in the chair as tears run down my face. I don’t know what to do now. I don’t know where to turn.
The door opens once more, and Ren comes in, pacing the room and running his hand through his hair. He doesn’t say anything to me but keeps muttering the word fuck.
I reach up with my free hand and wipe the tears away as I watch him. He almost seems panicked.
“What’s wrong?” He glances over at me shaking his head before sighing and walking over to the corner chair and sitting down.
“What are you prepared to do for Gannix?”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Just what I said. What are you prepared to do for him?” I shake my head, none of this is making sense. What does he mean? Gannix is dead. There’s nothing to do for him.
“You’re not making any sense right now,” I tell him. Maybe it’s the death of his best friend, I don’t know. Ren stands from the chair and moves toward me quickly, grabbing my face in his hand and squeezing it to the point of pain.
“I need an answer. I need to know what the fuck you’d do for him? How far are you willing to go for him?”
“He’s dead!” I scream through the hold he has on me. Ren releases my face and shakes his head.
“This is all fucked. All of it.”
“What’s happening?” I ask him as he moves through the room. He’s pulling out drawers and shoving them back closed until he finds a gun. He turns to me, and my heart leaps into my throat.
“You ever shot a gun?”
“What the hell is going on, Ren?” I yell louder this time.
“Can you aim? Can you shoot?”
“I … I’ve shot a few times with an old boyfriend.”
“Okay. Good. He won’t know you have this,” he says, coming to unhook my wrist and shoving the gun into my hand. “Hide it. In your pants,” he orders me. I take the gun and look at it before shoving it into the front of my pants and covering it with my shirt.
“Are you going to tell me what the hell is happening?”
“Gary isn’t dead,” he snarls in my direction. My heart stops. It literally stops. How can that be? Gannix wouldn’t have killed himself if his brother wasn’t dead, would he? He wouldn’t have left me to that. There’s no way.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, he’s out there, Emerson. He’s still on the property somewhere,” he tells me. I shake my head. This isn’t happening. This can’t be.
“Gannix ….” I say his name, but for what? What am I hoping will happen?
“He took his body,” he adds.
“What?”
“Gary took his body. It’s not out there, not where it was.”
“Why the hell would he take his dead body?”
“I don’t know, Emerson! I have no fucking idea what he’s doing!”
“This doesn’t make any sense,” I mumble under my breath.
“No shit! None of it does. We can’t hide in here. We need to get out of here,” he says.
“And go where?”
“I don’t know yet. I haven’t thought that far ahead,” he replies just as we hear shots being fired. Ren rushes toward me, shoving me to the floor and covering me with his body until the shots stop.
He slowly rises and peeks out the window as all of Gannix’s security lights come on.
“Oh, fuck,” he says as he looks out the window. “Fuck,” he growls this time. Slowly I climb off the floor and peek out the window next to him.
“What the hell? Is that …”
“Gannix. He has Gannix.”
“He’s dead. I saw him shove the arrow through his chest,” I mumble in disbelief.
“There’s no way that would have killed him. He couldn’t shove it in far enough with his bare hands,” he adds.
“He’s not … dead?”
“I don’t think so. I can’t fucking tell from here.”
“Come on out, Emerson!” Gary yells through the yard. That’s when I see it, and my eyes widen.
“Don’t fucking do it! Run, Emerson. Fucking run!” Gannix yells from where Gary has him strung up from a tree. His body hangs there, his feet barely touching the ground.
“What do we do?” I squeal as I look around, trying to figure out what to do now.
“I don’t fucking know. He doesn’t know I’m here. We could sneak up on him.”
“He isn’t that stupid, Ren!”
“I’m asking you one more time. What are you prepared to do for Gannix?” he asks, looking me dead in the eye this time. I swallow hard as I look out the window to where Gary has a bow and arrow, pulling it back and shooting it into Gannix’s leg. He screams in pain as my heart is in a chokehold.
“I’m going out there.”
“Keep that gun on you. I’m going to go around behind him,” Ren tells me.
“Is that smart?”
“It’s the only choice we have,” he replies. I nod my head. We both stand and head for the door together. We walk down the stairs, and I go left as he goes right. He glances over his shoulder at me as I do the same.
“We can do this,” he encourages me. I nod my head before turning back and walking toward the back door. We can do this. I can do this. Gannix is out there. He saved me once before; why can’t I save him?
I pull open the back door and step out, walking through the yard toward them. Gannix sees me first and shakes his head. That’s when Gary turns to see me. He smirks before turning back to his brother and shooting another arrow into his other leg.
“Leave him alone! You wanted me, I’m here!” I scream at him. Gary turns to face me and nods his head. The gun sits heavily in the front of my pants.
“You’re right. It was you,” he says as I walk toward him, getting a little closer. Ren is out there somewhere. He has to be. That was the plan, right? The rest of his men are dead. I passed their bodies on the way out here, but I chose to ignore them so I wouldn’t lose it.
I swallow hard as I glance over at Gannix. His chest heaves as his eyes follow me. I drag my gaze away from him because there’s no way I can take my eyes off Gary right now.