Chapter 28 #2
The breeze from the opened windows hits me in the face. I hear birds singing from the trees, and the atmosphere is aromatic with the rich smells of soil and pine. Normally, that is all I need to be fixed.
But I just found out that I’m pregnant, and now I’m pretty sure I’m on my way to my death. The only thing that can fix me is getting out of here. But without my phone, I can now only dream about an escape.
My heart is racing in my chest faster than this car. What if I never get to tell Caleb that Sonny is his? What if this morning out on the porch was my last chance?
This is bigger than me, and it’s much bigger than the complications that come with Caleb and me being bonded as parents. This is about Sonny. He has a right to know who his father is.
My overthinking brain is finally giving it a rest, allowing me to think clearly for the first time. It’s rare I can think at all with Caleb around, confusing everything.
But that’s the beauty of being kidnapped by a stalker. Everything becomes simple when you realize that this day could be your last. What I really want is all of us living together as a family—Caleb, Sonny, Ellie, and the newborn. That’s the life I want for myself.
I don’t want to escape with Sonny and see things other than Maple Crossing’s main street.
I want to walk through the town I know better than the back of my hand, with the people I love most in this world.
I want to give Caleb another chance and trust that he won’t leave me this time.
I’ve been so focused on the what-if, that I never stopped to consider what could happen if everything worked out.
We arrive at the motel, and as the stalker drags me out of the car, I’m hit by two things: the horrible smell of decay, and regret. The latter is more horrible. I’ve had multiple chances now to tell Caleb the truth, and I haven’t taken them.
Chances are numbered, just like days. I pray to God that I’ve not used all mine up.
“Which room?” snaps the stalker.
Some personal space would be nice, and a nose peg. The smell of the place is even more dreadful than it was the first time around.
I shuffle through the hallway, the stalker right next to me, his hand still clamped around my wrist. I hold my breath for various reasons as we draw nearer to my father’s room.
Floorboards creak underfoot. It’s the only noise in here, besides the howling wind that drifts in through ceiling cracks.
It seems to have picked up out of nowhere.
I arrive outside of my father’s room and bring up a shaky hand, preparing to knock. But the stalker shoves past me and barges in, two angry fists at his side as my father carefully rises from the bed.
I peer over the stalker’s shoulder and lose my hold on reality.
“You’re too much to handle sometimes, Piper. All that trouble, and what’s it worth?”
My father thinks I opened my mouth. I was always too much trouble for him, and now he thinks I’ve put him in it.
I shake my head and flare my eyes, telling him that I didn’t do this. But my father only believes what he wants to, and I’ve always been a weight on him that he wanted to get rid of as soon as possible.
“I didn’t tell him,” I mouth.
But all he’s seeing is red.
Caleb was right. Why the fuck was I risking the kids’ lives to keep my father’s location a secret? I still see him as a father, but he has never seen me as a daughter. All he sees is a burden.
My father looks at the stalker, and his eyes go back to their original shade—monotone gray. I’d be shitting myself too if a hitman with one eye had a gun pointed at me.
A gun.
Holy fucking shit.
I back into the door with a thump, which turns the stalker around for a moment. I hold my breath. One lifted finger is all it takes for my life to be over.
Thank God my father is present.
“We’ll skip to the chase, since I highly doubt you have two hundred thousand dollars on hand.” The stalker turns his nose up at the place, noting all of the rot.
My father goes white, until he extends his vision back to me and develops some color again. “I have a proposition to make,” he says.
“I don’t have time for any of that.”
I keep a close eye on the gun, watch as the stalker plays around with the mechanisms, chambering a round of bullets. I just wasted a few minutes of time freaking out.
But now is really the time to freak the fuck out.
He’s loaded that motherfucker.
I keep my back firmly pressed into the wall like that’s gonna change anything. The door is unlocked, but it’s best not to make any sudden movements. I’m in the middle of nowhere, and the stalker has the keys to the Chevy. And my freedom as a result.
“I know that it doesn’t quite equate to two hundred thousand dollars, but take her.” My father’s devil eyes flick over to me. “It’s a start.”
Anger and sadness tear open my chest.
I really do mean jack shit to him.
But this is exactly what I always needed to hear.
The creaking floorboards add to the suspense as the stalker turns around to give me an ugly glance up and down. It’s like I’m being sized up by a snake that’s debating whether I’d make a good meal—for him, or for one of his friends back in Boston.
All I can do is death-glare my father and hope the message conveys that I want him dead. I’m certain of that now. This freak is no father of mine.
“What an interesting offer to make,” says the man. “Your daughter has been trying to keep your location secret from me, and you want her sold. Where on earth did your daughter inherit her heart from, Phil?”
“Don’t call me that,” he grits.
I search my father’s eyes, waiting to see them change. But he doesn’t seem to care about anything other than this debt. The stalker has basically just told him that I’m innocent, that I’ve been protecting his ass, and he’s still offering to sell me.
“You’ll regret this decision in a week,” I tell my father. “Who’s gonna drag you out of the gutter the next time you get caught up in shit?” I hitch an eyebrow up at him. “I suppose you’ll have to pay someone to come and rescue you.”
The hitman interrupts. “Selling your daughter over to me, or my client, will not be an equal trade.” He steps forward and cocks his gun. His finger is now on the trigger, and the end of the shotgun is one single inch away from reaching my father’s temple.
I hold my breath. Everything in my body feels like it’s on fire. My pulse, my nerves. For all I know, this guy could be more unpredictable than my father and shoot me instead…or after he kills his first opponent.
After all, Caleb is the reason he’s now walking around with a black eye. And since Caleb and I come under one bracket in his eyes, I could be paying for the consequences of his actions.
“Let’s get this over with, shall we? One thing to know about me is that I like to make my punishment slow. That’s why they pay me the big bucks.”
He pulls the trigger.
BAM!
I hear the shell of the bullet clinking to the ground, and my father yelping out for mercy. I don’t think the hitman will be giving him that anytime soon, seeing as the gun is back in its original position, being aimed at my father’s other thigh.
Somehow, the walls of this place still remain intact.
I can feel the effects of the gunshot working through me, shaking the very membrane of my bones. I try for a breath, but I can’t get any air in my throat.
That’s because I’m holding my breath, waiting for the second gunshot.
Or because gallons of blood are dripping from my father’s thigh.
I thought I was good with blood when it’s not my own. Now I realize I could never work in the emergency room. This is a bloodbath.
Now would be a good time for me to leave, while the hitman is distracted, but I fear I’ll pass out before I make it back outside.
There is no difference between my head and a helium balloon, and the terror inside of me is all-consuming. I can’t move, can’t think. My body has forced me to simply stare, almost as if it wants to see my father bleed to death.
The second gunshot is worse than the first, and terrorizes me even more. I shut my eyes.
Don’t fall.
Keep your back pressed into the wall.
The hitman cackles away to himself. “Let’s see you try and run away from responsibility now, Philly.”
I hate to agree with the man’s comment. The only thing my father ever knew how to do right was run away. And manage bees.
I manage to gain some composure and open my eyes.
And see even more blood.
This entire room will be filled to the ceiling with blood by the time this guy’s finished. And I certainly don’t wanna be around for that.
I need to get out of here.
I shut my eyes and pretend I’m elsewhere. The first thing that comes to mind is the forest, though I’m not wandering through it alone.
Caleb’s hand presses firmly into the small of my back, saving me from a tree root.
Our eyes linger.
Little do we know how much of an effect we’re soon going to have on each other.
I smell the sap, the cologne on his skin, and open my eyes after sucking in the biggest breath.
I tear open the door and let the adrenaline carry me out of the motel. My legs wheel under me, kicking my butt as I run faster than I ever have in my life.
“Hey!” I hear the stalker growling.
Oh no.
Please don’t fucking tell me I just heard the creaking sound of that door opening back up.
I make it to the old reception area and barrel out of the front doors. I’m more breathless than an optimistic marathon runner, but I’m out and that’s all that matters.
I exit the parking lot, expecting to run close to a marathon back into Maple Crossing.
I’m dehydrated and terrified, and don’t know which one of those two things is worse.
One half of my brain wants me to stop before I sweat out what little water I have left inside of me.
The other side of my brain wants me to run for the fucking hills until I’m back at Caleb’s with my family.
Scrap wanting to explore the world.
I’ve seen enough of it today.