Chapter 5
Five
Santiago
It’s been five fucking days without Rhett and Blair.
How do you eat or sleep when someone you love is in the wind with no idea if they’re okay or not? How does someone do this when it’s more than one person? It’s been five days since they left Caddawalk, but it might as well be five decades with how desperately I miss them.
I’m going fucking insane.
It’s actually starting to affect work. I don’t know why Wes thought it was smart for us to keep Gnarly Pines open.
With the owner of the business out of his goddamn mind and two of the employees running for their lives, it feels a bit ridiculous to me.
But here I am, standing behind The Shop’s counter, bagging the items Mr. Shaw wants to purchase.
“You know something, Santi? My daughter was right. They have everything on that tube thing online. Any video I want, it’s right there. That’s why I decided to tackle building my own deck,” Mr. Shaw says.
Typically, I’d smile and tell him good luck or give him some advice, but right now all I can picture is slamming my axe down through his skull.
I can see it now. Pieces of bone and brain going everywhere, splattering across the counter.
The other people in the store probably wouldn’t notice right away, too absorbed in their own shopping experience.
But when they did, there would be screaming. Lots of fucking screaming.
But I’d make it stop. None of them would make it to the door. I could chop everyone to pieces and bathe in their blood. And for a moment, maybe I wouldn’t feel this agony ripping me apart inside.
Loss—everyone experiences it in their life at some point or another.
I’ve already gone through it with my parents.
I lost my family and the pain it inspired sent me on a murderous rampage.
The only reason I managed to get it under control was because I had Ledger, Wes, and eventually Rhett to love.
They became my family and that murderous rage in me became less insistent.
All that’s gone now.
My family has splintered apart and that madness that drove me to gutting and cutting in the first place—it’s back with a vengeance.
The heartache and despair bleaching my soul is making me bloodthirsty.
After both my parents passed, I told myself that I wouldn’t lose anyone else close to me.
That the next person I loved would be in my life forever.
I’ve failed, though. Rhett and Blair are gone. And Ledger? The one that brought us all together in the first place—is the one tearing us apart.
Rage rises in my chest, so intense that I can hardly breathe.
“Ah… Santi?”
I blink rapidly, dispelling the notion of murder to find Mr. Slaw standing there staring at me with concern.
“You okay?” he asks, his white brows pinching together with concern.
Mentally, I give myself a shake and force myself to be present and non-murdery. While I would love to dive headfirst into a fierce and unstoppable killing spree, I’m a level-headed serial killer. I can’t just start chopping people up right here in The Shop.
“Yeah,” I mutter.
I ring him up and shove the bag at him.
He frowns. “I’ve never seen you not smile before. Are you sure you’re—”
“I’m fine. Good-bye,” I snap, interrupting the old man as an idea takes root.
Ok, I can’t go on a murdering spree now… but what about in a few hours? I may not be able to do anything for Rhett and Blair right now and I certainly can’t give Ledger a piece of my mind while he’s gone.
But I can draw blood.
I can chop people up.
The law has never stopped me from killing before—why should I hold back now? Why not blow off a little bit of steam?
There are people out there who deserve to be on the receiving end of my rage and helplessness. It’s time to play my favorite game: The Hunt.
Mr. Shaw gives me a perplexed look but shuffles away toward the front of the store. I glare at his back then check the time. It’s four minutes until closing. Fuck it, I’m the shop manager and I say it’s time to lock up now.
“Hey everyone, we’re closing up!” I call. “You can come back tomorrow.”
The few patrons in the store look up and someone even has the nerve to remind me what time it is.
“I said,” I snarl. “Get the fuck out!”
“Wes!”
Oh god, he’s going to be so pissed at me.
I totally deserve it—this was impulsive, stupid, and the exact wrong time to have this happen.
It seemed like a great idea when it first came to me.
And it was, until all my victims showed up at the same time.
They looked at each other, saw the axe in my hand, the humanoid mask covering my face, and then scattered in different directions into the Gnarly Pines property.
Tossing my axe to the side, I rush up the porch steps, fling open the back door, and—
“Ooph!” I slam into Wes’s chest as he steps out the same moment I try to rush in.
He tries to reach out to catch me but it’s too late. I bounce off him cartoonishly, legs flinging upward, and I land hard on my back.
I gasp, gaping like a fish, trying to fill my lungs with air as I stare up at Wes.
“What the hell, Santi?!” he demands. “What’s going on? Why are alerts going off all over the woods? Are we under attack?”
“No,” I rasp.
Wes reaches down, offering me his hand. I take it as I gobble up enough air to tell him what’s going on.
“I needed to blow off steam, so I might’ve lured a few assholes here to kill but then I overestimated my ability and now they’ve scattered.”
Wes stares at me, his brows furrowing. He opens his mouth, shuts it, opens it again and then closes it. He crosses his arms over his chest, stares, and then shakes his head.
“Alright, let me make sure I got this straight: there are a handful of men—”
“There are five of them and ‘men’ is a stretch for these animals, but yeah.”
“—on this property, not the one you typically use to hunt on, and they’re now running for their lives and that’s what is setting off the cameras?”
I nod aggressively. “Yes! We can’t let them get to the road and call for help.”
While I’m pretty sure calling the police would be a bad idea on their part given each one of them were lured here under the false pretenses that I was a fourteen-year-old boy—I can’t risk it.
Wes reaches up to pinch the bridge of his nose.
“Let’s deal with the ‘why now’, ‘why here’, and ‘what the hell you were thinking’ later,” he growls as his hand drops away from his face. The glare he shoots me speaks volumes on how mad he is. “Go open the shed, we’ll take the ATVs out.”
I gasp with delight. “Hell yeah! Let’s go kill these—”
Wes catches me by the neckline of my shirt and yanks me toward him. Bearing down into my face he growls, “If Blair or Rhett call while we’re out in these woods and they need us and we can’t just drop everything, there will be six bodies laid to rest here. Got it?”
My stomach drops, and the blood drains from my face. Fuck, I was so worried about how quickly tonight went awry, I managed to distract myself from the root cause of my anxiety and fear.
I nod. “Right, sorry, Wes.”
He lets go of me to turn and head back inside the house. “Get the ATVs running, Santi. Oh, and rope. I’ll be out in a second.”
By the time I’ve rolled both ATVs out and have them running, Wes has rejoined me. He hands me a gun that I immediately shove into the waistband of my pants.
“Get your phone out,” he snarls. “We’re using the cameras to help us locate them faster.”
Right. This isn’t a typical Hunt. This is just a quick elimination round.
Shame cools the excitement in my veins as I pull my phone out and pull up the cameras.
“Closest one?” Wes asks as he pulls out his gun.
I point into the darkness. “That way. Only about three hundred yards out, hiding behind a boulder.”
Wes nods. “Let’s go.”
Climbing onto our ATVs, the two of us take off into the darkness.
The roar of our off-road vehicles is loud enough to spook the nearest asshole. As we approach, he jumps up from his hiding spot and attempts to take off. I struggle to get my gun unholstered. While I fumble with it, Wes lifts and aims his.
One shot. That’s all it takes to take the first pedophile down.
“Woohoo!” I whisper under my breath, too astonished to hide my awe.
“Next one, Santi,” Wes calls out as he gets off his ATV and ties the rope around the body of the grotesque asshole who once preyed on children.
Pulling out my phone, I check for the second pedophile. “Ah, that way—trying to climb a tree. Approximately five hundred or so yards out.”
Wes hoists the body onto the back of his ATV like a dead deer and ties him down. “Ready?”
I nod. Ready as I’ll ever be.
We turn our ATVs around and speed through the woods.
As we give chase, my heart races. This isn’t like a normal game and while I’m not finding a thrill in it, there is a satisfaction in knowing that I’m the hunter under these conditions.
I’m in charge of the fate of these men and while their future is short-lived, I’ve got the power.
Unlike the situation with Rhett and Blair.
We get to the second man who—had I not seen him climb the tree—is hiding pretty well. We stop just below the branch he’s standing on and look up. Yanking out my gun, I point it up and fire off a few rounds.
The older man cries out as he falls out of the tree.
He hits the ground hard, but he’s not dead.
Not yet anyway. I recognize him as the piano instructor who’d reached out to my underage profile—offering me extra special lessons.
Bile climbs up my throat as I watch him try to get to his hands and knees.
“Stop fucking around, Santi. Let’s go!” Wes snaps as he pulls his phone out of his flannel jacket pocket.
I put two bullets in the instructor’s skull.
“Get him on the back of your ATV, I’m going ahead to find the next one.”
At my nod, Wes peels off into the night, searching for our third victim.