43. Chelsea
CHELSEA
Istare down at the barrel of the gun, blinking as my brain struggles to make sense of what's happening.
My gaze trails up to the person holding it, the pieces forming an incomprehensible puzzle.
“Claire?” My ex-friend is standing across from me, holding a gun right at me. Bizarre. What’s even more bizarre is the fact that she's wearing pajamas, her hair in a messy bun, clearly ready for bed.
But she's not in bed.
She's here.
Pointing a gun at me.
Her eyes are red like she’s been crying. Her face looks a mess.
"What the actual fuck is going on right now?” I wonder aloud.
She doesn’t answer my question. Instead, her gaze flicks up to the lamppost, and then she jerks her head to the side.
“What?”
She does it again.
I shake my head. “I have no clue what you’re trying to say.”
“For God’s sake, walk!” She was gesturing toward the side of the apartment complex that leads to a woodsy area, populated mostly by birches, red maples, and magnolias.
The trees are packed thickly enough to obscure the moon, and though some of the residents occasionally take walks here, it's typically never this late.
It's not hard to figure out what she wants. Right now we're out in the open. However, in there....
People might hear the gunshot, but only after it's too late.
Oh God.
She's going to kill me.
The realization strikes me like lightning.
My heart flies into my throat, pounding there.
I put my hands up automatically, alarm racing through my body, kicking my senses into overdrive as the paralyzing shock starts to wear off.
“Claire,” I say, voice shaking as I try to act calm. “Please put the gun down.” I have no idea how I manage to get the words out with my vocal cords so stiff. My heart is zooming like a runaway train, fear seizing my throat. The words she has a gun keep repeating in my head on a threatening loop.
Yet, I sound almost normal. I sound like I'm having a conversation with an old friend.
Wait, should I scream? Alert someone that I’m in danger.
Probably.
As I take a deep breath, the safety on the gun goes off, and she snarls, “I swear to God if you let out a single sound, I will blow your brains out right here and now."
That stops the scream in its tracks.
She might be bluffing. There’s a chance she is bluffing, but the look in her eyes…I’ve never seen her like this before. There have been hints of crazy, like Jenna said, but nothing to this extent.
Oh God, Jenna. She warned me about this. Not in so many words, but she tried to tell me how unhinged Claire was, and I never listened.
She’s going to give me so many I told you so’s once I get out of here.
If I get out of here.
No. Positive thinking.
Maybe I can talk her out of this.
First, I should make sure she doesn't use that gun on me. Follow her instructions, and while I wait for an opening, I’ll try to talk her down.
How do I talk a crazy person down from shooting me?
Wait, why does she want to shoot me in the first place?
She jerks the gun to the side again and says between her teeth. "Walk.”
“Okay.” I keep my hands up, swallowing, and start shuffling toward the forest.
I realize with a glance up that she was not in view of the security cameras. There’s supposed to be one on every lamppost, but a few of them don’t work. Eric knows that. God, did he tell her?
Is that why she’s here?
"What’s going on?” I ask as my feet crunching on the leaves leading into the woods. She’s behind me, and I can still feel the cool metal pointed at my back. I can imagine the explosion of force, a bullet piercing into my back. “Why are you doing this?”
“Why?” She scoffs. “Are you really going to ask me that after you lured him here?"
“Who? Eric?” That’s the only person she could be talking about, and I’m guessing she followed him here. “I didn’t lure him here. I didn’t even know he would show up.”
“Lies. I know he called you. I saw your number on his phone."
"Yes, but it was only once, and I didn't pick up. I swear, Eric and I haven't spoken to each other for weeks."
"Then who has he been calling?"
"I have no idea."
"Liar."
"I'm not lying to you, Claire." We finally stop somewhere in the middle, and I take the risk and turn around, hoping she can observe my honesty even in the dim night. "If he’s cheating on you, it’s not with me."
“He’s not cheating on me!” The anger breaks her tone, pain exploding from her mouth. "He wouldn't!"
The sheer hurt almost makes me pity her, if not for the fact that she's currently trying to shoot me.
I acutely remember everything she told me about her family.
Her father and what a cheating asshole he was, and how her family fell apart due to his infidelity.
She probably thought Eric was different.
It's why she chose him, because he has a way of pretending to be all nice and reasonable, unlike her father.
I fell for the same lies.
I swallow as I hope that I’m not making a mistake.
“Claire,” I tell her, but she shakes her head.
“We were fine,” she says. "He was falling in love with me. But you just could not stand me having anything, could you? You just had to have him too. You take everything from me.”
“I haven't taken anything from you. What are you talking about?”
"Yes, you have," she said. "The marketing job, you know I applied for it right? Eric didn’t think I had what it takes. That’s why he made me a PA instead.” Tears well in her eyes as she adds, “Then you took him too.”
“I…” I trail off because that’s not how I remember it.
I never even knew she had feelings for Eric.
They were friends before we were, but I thought it was just a close friendship because they were from the same hometown.
I also never knew that she wanted my job.
Had she been in this strange competition with me the entire time?
"There’s nothing between Eric and me,” I tell her. “I swear I haven’t contacted him since we broke up, and the only other time I’ve seen him is when he came to get his things. I didn't take him from you. If anything, he picked you over me. You won."
I'm hoping that will be enough to placate her. If she sees this as a competition, then my admission of defeat should help calm her down.
The ensuing silence gives me hope that maybe I can reach her. Maybe we can survive this.
When she speaks again, her voice has a quiet devastation rippling through it. "But he still loves you, doesn’t he?”
I can already sense the danger skittering up my spine. Desperation pours out. "Don't do this, Claire. You're better than this. Better than me."
Her response to that tells me that she's already too far gone.
"Maybe with you gone he’ll finally love me."
Oh fuck.
The crunching of leaves has us both tearing our heads to the side in time to see a dark figure emerge. The outline tells me it's Sam.
Relief and terror clash inside me. Because the fact that he's here means he's also in danger.
He starts barreling towards me, and my mouth opens in a silent scream as she swings the gun at him.
Before the breath bursts out, she lets out one shot, then another. He weaves around the first, but the second bullet hits him somewhere around the thigh area. He jerks, but he doesn't stop moving. He keeps running, his eyes laser-focused on me.
"Sam, no!" He needs to stop. She's going to shoot him again. He needs to drop to the ground and get out of the way.
But he doesn't.
He doesn't stop running for me.
I'm so focused on him that I don't see the attack coming from the other side.
I don't see Adam tackling Claire to the dirt, or Jake grabbing hold of me, crushing me to his chest, asking if I'm alright.
I tear away from him.
The silence pounds as I reach for Sam, who collapses beside us. I run my hands over his body, immediately searching, scanning for the wounds he might have, harsh, desperate pleas flying from my lips.
"It's okay," Sam says, cupping my cheeks. "It's okay."
"How can it be okay?" My voice breaks in a harsh whisper. My hand comes away with blood. "You just got shot."
"Yes, but it's just a flesh wound, I'm pretty sure."
"Pretty sure?"
"Well, I've never been shot before so I can't tell you."
"Not the time for jokes, Sam," Adam says as sirens sound in the background. I think I hear Jenna calling my name as well, and Claire throwing a tantrum on the ground, but I don't care.
“Don’t ever do anything like that again.
" I look at all of them. “All of you. I don’t know what I would do without you.
I love you all so much, do you hear? So, so much.
If anything had happened...I don't think I could live without you.
" All the feelings I've been trying so hard to suppress push to the forefront, coming into acute focus.
It leaks out amidst the tears. "I love you. "
I can't see their faces, but I can feel their joy, their chuckles. The love in their kisses as they go one by one, pressing relieved lips against mine.
"We love you too, Chels," Jake whispers. "So fucking much. We would have fucking died without you."
It's a messy environment for a love confession, not romantic in the slightest. It's dark. Sam is bleeding all over the place. There's a snarling psychopath on the ground and Jenna chewing her out. But all I care about is my men.
I tell Sam, "I can't believe you took a bullet for me."
"Well, to be fair, the others were fighting over wanting to play the role of the distraction, and I kind of went around them by going for it anyway."
"Which was stupid by the way," Adam said. "That could have gone very wrong."
"But it didn't. I wasn't going to let you or Jake do it.
It would have brought back bad memories for you, and Jake would have gotten special treatment for the second month in a row if he got another injury.
" The jealousy in his voice is palpable, but it's not the bitter, angry type. More so the competitive type.
Which allows me to joke, "So you decided to get yourself shot so you can get special treatment?"
"Yes," he admits shamelessly. "The things we do for love, baby.”