Chapter 42
CHAPTER 42
S ome sounds are instant reminders of the past. A barking dog, a particular song, your mother’s voice. The moment you hear it, you’re transported into a memory that you can’t forget. Metal crunching is mine. Every time I hear a pop can crush, I flinch. It’s eerily reminiscent of when our SUV crashed. That same sound played on a loop now.
Crunch, crunch. cruuuuunch .
Panic surged through me with the realization that I wasn’t dreaming. Flying forward, I smacked my head against metal. I attempted to cradle my throbbing head with my hands, only to be met with resistance. Frantically tugging, the zip ties securing my wrists refused to give. Fear engulfed my senses and my breathing came in shallow waves. The space was small and dark and every so often, I jostled, as if the space was hitting a bump. A hum filled the air and my sluggish brain put the pieces together.
I’m in the trunk of a car…
“What the actual fuck?” I mumbled.
The memory of Tiffany and Cooper rushed back. Desperately, I felt around the trunk. It was difficult, but vehicles have those hooks in them now for this exact reason. I just needed to find it. Thankfully, I was lying on my back instead of on my stomach. My body inched to the side, pushing close to where I presumed the taillights were. Victory flooded my veins when my hand grasped the hook and pulled incessantly.
Nothing happened.
“Come on,” I pleaded. My heartbeat felt like it was going to come crashing out of my chest. The roaring of my pulse drowned out all other sounds. This was it, how I would die. The girl who got kidnapped and dumped in a trunk, never to be seen again. Keith Morrison is going to have a field day narrating my Dateline episode.
“ And then,” he will draw, “She was put in the trunk. Authorities would never find her in time.”
This was not the time to be fantasizing about Keith Morrison narrating my demise. I willed myself to back off the ledge and calm down.
Breathe Maci .
Gulping stale air in through my nose, my heart rate slowly descended. I strained my ears listening for anything that could help me out of this situation. The vibration from the tires created a white-noise that made it difficult to hear anything else. I scooted the best I could towards the back of the trunk. The closer I got to the back seat, the easier it became to hear.
“Did you see her face when she realized how fucked she was?” Tiffany’s shrill laughter followed her muffled voice. Then there was silence. Cooper must’ve nodded or said something I couldn’t hear. For a little while, they cranked up the radio and Tiffany sang—horribly along to top hits. Miley Cyrus should sue her for how badly she butchered her lyrics.
In an attempt to keep track of how long we’d been driving for, I kept a tally of how many songs played. After three off-key concert performances, the music cut off, and the car slowed .
“I thought we were going to the quarry?” Tiffany said.
“Trust me,” Cooper stated, suddenly slamming on the brakes.
My body rolled with the change of momentum, smacking my face into the front of the trunk.
“Fuck,” Groaning, I gingerly touched my nose. The trunk was dark, making it impossible to see. My fingers were coated in blood, and I didn't need my vision to confirm it. It dripped down my lips and felt sticky on my skin. Was the blood from right now? Or when Cooper hit me in the locker room? Maybe it was a combination of both.
My breathing hitched, and my mind raced. Car doors slammed and silence enveloped my small prison. We were supposed to be going to the quarry. Long ago, it had been active and one of the primary sources of income for people in town. It shut down over ten years ago. Nowadays, its cliffs were a hook-up spot and the bottom basin used by teens for parties. The police patrol it frequently in the summer, but I doubt they would come out here now. Teenagers didn’t think it was cool to freeze outdoors for a party, not when there were plenty of basements and barns to use in town instead. Still, Tiffany said we were supposed to go there. If we weren’t at the quarry, where the fuck were we?
A loud bang on the lid of the trunk caused me to yelp, and a chuckle followed. “Stupid bitch.”
“Did you ditch her cell phone?” Tiffany asked.
There was silence for a beat. “I’m not a fucking moron. I smashed it and left it.”
My shoulders sagged. I’m truly fucked. There was no way to be found without my phone. Jackson and I had Life 360 from when Dad was alive. It was my last shred of hope to be found.
And bury me in all my favorite colors, my sisters and my brothers still…
Kennedy would be proud of me. I’m quoting My Chemic al Romance before my murder. I’ll haunt her and make sure she knows.
Shaking off the downward spiral I caught myself in, I quickly tried to come up with a plan. Surely, Stu or Billy would open the trunk and I could make a grand escape. Unless Freddy told Jason to keep me locked in here. Noise could do the trick. My feet weren’t zip tied…which in hindsight seems like a poor choice for my kidnappers to make. Striking out, I grunted when my foot contacted the lid of the trunk. A blood-curdling scream emitted from lips coupled with the banging of my feet. Pain radiated from my feet to my kneecaps, but I kept kicking. The sound was deafening.
Light flooded the space and thanks to years of playing a reflex driven sport, my body moved instantly. I kicked my feet out, throwing myself forward. Cooper grunted when gravity took us both down to the ground. I scrambled, quickly trying to gain footing without my hands. He snarled, and Tiffany screamed.
“Grab her, you moron!”
“Fuck you!” I kicked viciously, trying to keep them away from me.
Thankfully, Tiffany didn’t strike me as the type of girl who got her hands dirty. Cooper lunged for my torso, using his weight to hold me down. I bucked my hips and thrashed, loosening his grip.
“Baby Rae, if you keep hip thrusting me like that, I’ll pull my dick out right now and shove it up your cunt.”
His words didn’t deter me. He wouldn’t win with flowery threats. In fact, I hoped he tried to go for my pants. His center of gravity would be off if he did. Plastic bit against my skin as my wrists struggled against the restraints.
Tiffany laughed her cell phone out and pointed towards us. “This is gold, Coop, it looks like you two are in the middle of some kinky game. ”
Cooper looked behind him and glowered. “Delete that shit! Are you fucking--”
I didn’t give him a chance to complete his thought. My wrists snapped free of the plastic and I smashed my fists up into his jaw. Cooper's head snapped back, and I bucked one more time, throwing him off of me.
Standing, I backed away from the two of them, darting my eyes around for escape. My vision was blurry in one eye, but from the other, I saw rows of abandoned vehicles. They sat rusting, with parts strewn around them. Other cars sat crushed like soda cans, stacked one on top of the other, creating little towers. A chain-link fence with barbed-wire around its top surrounded us like a cage. We were in a junkyard.
A red, beat up Toyota Camry with the trunk open was to my left. That must’ve been the vehicle they used to get here. Confusion twisted in my mind. Why a junkyard? The quarry made sense when I heard them talking about it in the car. Perhaps they realized it was too open? Plus, pushing me off a cliff didn’t guarantee I would die. I had a penchant for being a survivor.
“Don’t even bother running,” Tiffany scoffed. Cooper joined her, brushing his hands off on his pants.
Together, they looked more like a Barbie ad than a homicidal maniac duo. Even after our scuffle, Cooper’s auburn hair looked untouched and bounced as he shook it out. Tiffany danced her manicured hand up his biceps. The sickly pink shade of her nails reminded me of Pepto-Bismol.
“What the fuck is this about?” My chest heaved with the adrenaline pumping through my veins.
Tiffany stalked closer, and I put a vehicle between us. Cooper flanked her, his steps methodical. His eyes were glassy and his shoulder hunched in anticipation of my next movement .
“You,” Tiffany goaded. “Poor little Maci Rae and your precious Daddy.”
I hated when people used the word ‘Daddy’. I shuddered internally.
“What did we do to you? The accident had no effect on you, Cooper sure. But is Coach Grimes that bad?” I was stalling. If I could keep them talking, maybe there’d be a chance for escape.
Tiffany scoffed, “This has jack shit to do with hockey. This is about your dad killing my mom!”
The declaration took me off guard. I never looked at the other person who died in the accident. I didn’t do much of anything in the months that immediately followed the accident. Most of it was a blur, but in the back recesses of my mind, a conversation came to the forefront.
“Did you hear that the other driver died?” Our neighbor, Gladys, a notorious gossip, stage whispered to another person. The post funeral luncheon service filled our house to the brim.
Hushed whispers continued around where I sat on the loveseat in the living room.
“Poor woman, left a son behind too. Tragedy all around.”
“The driver had a son…not a daughter.”
Tiffany rolled her eyes. “Yes, poor Reid, Mom’s golden child. Newsflash, a woman can have more than one child in her lifetime.”
Maybe it was the hits to the head, but I didn’t follow what Tiffany was hinting at all. The confusion must have shown on my face because she sighed before continuing, “I’m adopted. Mommy dearest had an affair and put me up for adoption. We just reconnected when your dad literally smashed my mom to pieces.”
Movement in the corner of my eye caught my attention, and I shifted to avoid Cooper’s tackle. Missing me caused him to trip and land on his stomach. Ignoring Tiffany, I launched onto his back. This was my one shot to disarm him. Tiffan y wasn’t going to do any of the physical work in their plan.
Cooper grunted from the force of my weight, landing on him. He tried to roll, and I dug my knee into the back of his neck while gripping his head. I dug my fingers into his eye sockets. He screamed, and Tiffany yelled obscenities behind me.
An elbow contacted my ribs, and I hung on as he tried to shake me off. It felt like I was riding the mechanical bull at the country bar downtown. My body flailed from side to side and I relented in my grip on his eyes. Hastily, I grabbed a chunk of metal car part laying near me. While I was off balance, Cooper rolled us. Before he could get the upper hand, I slammed the heavy metal into the back of his head.
His bloody eyes looked shocked at the contact. His face froze as the pain registered and the light dimmed from his eyes. Cooper’s body fell forcefully against my own, the dead weight pinning me to the ground. The object I’d used lodged into the back of his head. A combination of adrenaline and horror caused my body to shake. My fingers dabbed Cooper’s scalp, finding sticky blood gushing from the wound.
“Well shit,” a voice I recognized announced, “Guess you didn’t need that air tag after all!”