Chapter 15
RUE
“The eggs are too runny, Rue,” Mom stabs her fork into the yoke, making a face up at me. “You know how I like them.”
“Sorry,” the word comes out barely audible.
“You look rough,” Mom sets her fork down. “Did you not sleep well? Are you sick? If you’re sick, you need to stay away from me.”
My head swims with fatigue and shame, among things I can’t even place. My eyes jump to my phone, finally charging after coming home in a daze and passing out. I reach over and click the lock button, but it still flashes the empty battery symbol.
“Rue?” Are you going to answer me?” Mom’s tone grows sharper.
I turn to her and let out a pained sigh.
“I am listening to you. I’m not sick.” Not physically anyway.
I catch sight of my reflection in the glass of the end cabinet and wince.
I get what she’s talking about. The dark circles, overtly pale complexion, messy hair, and my hunched posture do make me look ill.
But mostly the mental kind.
“Macey sent me a message last night. She was freaking out because you didn’t text her when you got home. I heard you come in, so I was able to tell her. She seemed very concerned about you.”
“My phone died,” I deadpan.
“Well, you should keep it charged.”
“Thanks for the tip.” I lean against the counter, my eyes jumping to the window, where the fog seems to settle like a blanket on the overgrown backyard and path to the lake.
And my mind runs right back to Noah.
I turn to my mother. “Why did no one tell me that Noah Anders became Thomas Noah Peterson.”
Mom’s entire body goes rigid. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, you do,” I snap. “You do know. Dad knew, too. I mean, Macey knew.”
“Macey doesn’t know anything.” Mom lets out a dry laugh, leaning back in her wheelchair. “The woman became obsessed with you and the case. She needs to stop poking her nose into it.”
Is that why she asked me to hang out?
I shake that paranoid thought off. “Nancy Zendetti was there last night, too. She confronted me about it all and said that I should be writing the man in prison for murder—because he was my childhood friend.” Boyfriend, according to her, but she’s an idiot.
“She’s just making assumptions.” Mom never even looks up at me.
“She name-dropped Noah Anders.”
Mom lets out a frustrated, obnoxiously loud breath, slamming her fork down on the plate.
“All that happened over a decade ago, for heaven’s sake.
I don’t know why anyone would even bring it up to you, if you weren’t doing something to cause that!
” She angles her head toward me, and glares.
“If you’d just let it go, and be grateful you were able to walk free after what you did—”
“Thank you for the information,” I cut her off, shaking my head. “I’m going for a walk.”
“You need to clean up breakfast.”
“I’ll clean it up when I get back,” I snap at her, as I grab my coat. I shove my arms into it, and then stalk for the back door.
“Where’s Bullet?” Mom calls out.
“I already let him out.” I slide the deadbolt and rip the door open, stalking out onto the back porch. The cold blasts my face as I step out, and I shiver. My eyes scan the dead, wilted grass.
I flip my hood up, forcing my eyes away from the back porch swing. The place where my dad gave me the news of the arrest. Noah’s arrest.
How could he let that happen?
I swallow the stupid, suffocating sob that threatens to break loose in my chest all over again, and ease down the back steps, feeling them groan under my weight. I squeeze my arms around myself as I follow the trail—that’s not really there anymore—leading to the Wilson’s place.
And the ravine.
Tears well up in my eyes, and my movements quicken, the walk to my childhood hideout known like the back of my hand. I tear through knee-high grass until I make it to the woods, where winter has cleared out most of the underbrush for me.
I slip through the trees, sweat beading up along my spine. My mind replays the man in the Grab n’ Go. How was that not Noah? The man had his eyes. I know it.
But Noah’s in prison.
I run my hands down my face, and as I do, a branch breaks to my left. I still, dropping my arms. Squinting through the trees, I try to find the origin, but the heavy white haze makes it nearly impossible.
Bullet bays somewhere in the trees, and I shudder in response.
Freaking dog.
I push forward, my converse crunching on dead leaves. The hair on the back of my neck stands on end, but I’m not all that sure it’s reliable.
‘I don’t know why you like the woods so much, Rue,’ Matthew’s voice drops into my brain unwantedly, as my palm brushes the trunk of an Oak. ‘If we get married, you have to do normal shit. You can’t just walk around touching stupid trees.’
Rage, old but familiar, swells in my chest.
Fuck you, Matthew.
He talked so big for a guy who had to steal an old man’s truck to pay a debt to a motorcycle club. And why did he have the debt?
Because Nancy’s little precious baby boy was using drugs.
I pause as I reach the bluff overlooking the ravine, sensing something else in the air. I take a long, deep breath, and name the scent.
Smoke.
My brows furrow as my lids open, and I glance around once more. My heart jumps to my throat. If someone lit a fire down on the shore, would it reach all the way up here?
But maybe it would. I don’t know.
I dig my nails into the trunk of a nearby tree, and lean forward, peering over the edge, down the ravine to the seasonal creek bottom.
And I’m met with those translucent eyes again.
My chest constricts as the man peers up at me, his jaw set. My lips part, but not a single freaking sound comes out of my mouth.
“Rue.” His voice cracks through the still air like a gunshot.
I blink, my lungs suddenly not getting enough oxygen. But I can’t look away from the man twenty feet below, standing in the sand, right outside the cave we built.
It has to be him. It has to be. But he’s in prison.
“Rue…” He narrows his eyes as he continues to study my face.
He’s not real.
“You’re not real,” I say stupidly, like talking to a ghost is going to make it go away. “You’re not really here.”
He tilts his head, anger flashing across his face.
And I don’t give him a chance to say anything else before I take off at a dead run, back toward my mom’s house. My feet crash through the leaves, and my calves burn as I tear through the briars, ripping my jeans.
I gasp for air as I see the clearing to the backyard up ahead.
But I don’t make it.
A firm grip comes down around my wrist, and I let out a squeal, causing Bullet to start barking somewhere nearby. I whip my head around, eyes wide and heart pounding.
“Where you going so fast?” A deep, unfamiliar voice sneers above me. “You gonna tell on me?”
I don’t recognize the black eyes glaring down at me. I don’t recognize the camouflage jacket, and I don’t recognize the black and gray headed man holding me.
“You hear me?” He jerks me, and I try to pull away. “I swear to God, I’ll kill you, if you go run your mouth.”
“I won’t…” I choke the words out, my head spinning in ways I don’t understand. Was this who really was in the ravine? Is my mind playing tricks on me? Is this the guy from Martha’s barn?
He shoves me forward, and I fall backward through the trees, my back scraping the branches as I go down. I let out a grunt as I slam the ground, half in the woods and half in the backyard.
“Better run,” he whispers. “Or I might have to get you like your little dog gets all these rabbits.”
I dig my heels into the dirt, pushing myself backward, as the man in camo stands in the shadows of the woods, grinning down at me. There’s a rifle slung over his shoulder, but I don’t give myself any more time to take that in.
I scramble upward, and make a break for the back porch, soon joined by my happy fucking Beagle, bounding through the grass beside me.
What the hell is happening to me? Who was that?
I glance back to the woods as I stumble up the porch steps, and there’s no one there. There’s not a fucking soul standing in those trees.
I’m going crazy. That’s what is happening.
Pushing the door inward, Bullet and I make it inside the mudroom. My lungs are burning, my entire body exhausted, but I still slam the door closed—and flip the deadbolt.
There’s fucking monsters in those woods.
“Rue,” Mom clears her throat, her tone friendly. “Are you okay?”
I flip my hood back, and peer into the kitchen, shocked by the genuine concern coming out of my mother’s mouth. But my eyes don’t land on my mom.
They land on two U.S. Marshals, standing in the kitchen.
“They’re here to discuss the escape of Thomas Noah Peterson with us,” Mom says the words, as if they’re not sending me into another full-blown mental conniption. “He escaped from North Willard Penitentiary about a week ago.”
“We have reason to believe he might have traveled back to this area,” one of the Marshals meets my gaze. “Have you heard or seen anything of this man?” He holds up a picture for me to see, and those bright, beautiful eyes capturing mine even through the photograph. “Do you recognize him?”
My heart thunders in my chest.
“No.”