Chapter Thirty-Five Hailey
It took less than twenty-four hours to find Lars Winters.
I’m still not really sure how Austen tracked him down, but Lars has been hiding at his aunt’s house less than ten minutes from my apartment this entire time.
Initially, that idea made me physically nauseous, but the more I thought about it, and the more the group went over the plan with me, the easier it became to imagine revenge.
He’s not done with me, I’m sure of that. Unfortunately for him, I’m also not done with him. Lars Winters is about to learn that I bite back. Really fucking hard.
It’s been a full forty-eight hours since the Stalkers Anonymous meeting at Jessica’s house, and Cole hasn’t left me the entire time. Which has actually been amazing, because I’m still healing and he’s a phenomenal caregiver.
No surprise there.
Things are still weird between us, and he’s been sleeping on my couch… But it’s nice to have him around again. He makes it easy—too easy?—to forget just how much he spiraled.
I sent a message to Lars’s phone yesterday afternoon from a burner Austen gave me, with a script Jessica helped me write.
The whole thing was crafted to play to Lars’s ego: I’ve been thinking about everything, I haven’t been fair to you, I should have heard you out before I made things worse with the police.
Maybe we could talk somewhere private. Just us.
Somewhere nobody else has to be involved this time.
I read it three times before I hit send. It only took him seven minutes to respond that he’d be there, and that I’d better come alone.
So now here I am, getting ready to use myself as bait to lure a predator into a trap. No one will hear him screaming out here, and there will be no one to answer his petrified pleas when I have him where I want him, scared and vulnerable. Broken and bleeding.
Cole and I are standing on a concrete path that runs beneath an old train bridge, a hundred feet south of the running trail, in a part of Fort Collins where the pavement disappears and the wide-open prairie starts.
The train bridge is above us, on tall concrete piers that sink down into the dirt.
There’s a footbridge between two of those piers, bordered on either side by a dried creek bed full of rocks and rotting branches.
The only light comes from the moon high above. Everyone else is staged in the shadows around us, waiting for Lars to show up.
“I’ll be in position before he gets here.
” Cole’s voice is low and steady. He’s dressed in all black and has gloves on.
Honestly, it’s kind of hot seeing him all dressed up like this, even given what we’re about to do.
“Twenty yards behind you. You won’t see me, but I’ll be right there with you.
If anything goes wrong that we can’t see or hear, you say Chewy. We’ve got you.”
I nod nervously, swallowing hard. “Chewy. Got it.”
My heart is racing, and my palms are sweating. I can’t stop watching the dark path ahead, waiting for him to appear before he’s supposed to.
“If you change your mind in the next ten minutes, you just say you’re done and we’ll come get you. We can be gone before he ever gets here.”
“I won’t change my mind,” I say, more to convince myself than him.
Fuck. This is a bad idea, isn’t it? Who in their right mind voluntarily agrees to this?
“I know.” He takes my hands, warming them in his.
There’s a look in his eyes I’ve never seen before, and I’m just about to ask him about it when he says, “I love you, Hailey. Everything is going to be okay. Tomorrow, you’ll wake up and it’ll be a new day with new problems, but Lars Winters won’t be one of them. ”
My lips part in shock, and after a few seconds of not being able to form words, I do the only thing that feels right, because fuck it, I need him right now.
Fisting his shirt between my hands, I pull him down to my level and crash my lips to his.
He’s frozen for a second but quickly catches up, slipping one hand around the small of my back while the other grips my cheek and jaw, giving him better access to my mouth.
The kiss is hungry and desperate, like we’ve been starved for each other.
I open for him when his tongue sweeps across my lower lip, and he doesn’t hesitate to devour me.
I’ve spent every night since our fight dreaming what it would be like to taste him again, and now we’re here. Everything, good and bad and worse, has led us to this raw, messy, beautiful moment.
“I love you, too,” I whisper when we finally force ourselves to break away, both of us panting. “We’re going to talk about this later.”
“Okay.” His voice is barely audible. “I’ll be right behind you.”
He presses a soft kiss to my forehead and slips into the shadows behind me as I step onto the footbridge.
I stand with my hands in the pockets of my jacket, my breath clouding in front of me as I wait. I don’t dare look around for the others. I have to act like I’m alone.
Based on our game plan, I know Grant’s up on the train bridge itself, lying flat with two cameras and a long lens.
He’s been up there since eight, when the last train passed.
Austen is in the van down the access road, with eyes on every angle through Grant’s various feeds.
Zach is somewhere in the dark, doing whatever it is Zach does.
I’ve stopped trying to figure that out because he’s too mysterious, and really, I’m not sure I want to know.
Tyler’s in his van a few hundred yards out on the access road, waiting for the green light to roll in once it’s done.
Jessica is twenty feet to my left, behind the closest concrete pier.
I stand there for what feels like forever, but is actually only two or three minutes, before I hear footsteps.
A figure resolves at the north end of the path, walking up from the running trail. Hood up, hands in his pockets.
It’s him.
I knew it would be him, but it still makes everything in me want to jump straight into fight-or-flight mode, with flight being the more attractive option. My pulse thunders in my ears. I want to run.
But I don’t. I refuse. I will not cower to this man.
He crosses onto the footbridge and pushes his hood down. He’s smiling. Because of course he’s fucking smiling. He’s too cocky to think I’d be brave enough to set him up.
“Hailey. You came.”
“I did.” My voice comes out softer than I want it to, and I’m instantly furious at myself for making myself smaller for him.
“You said you wanted to talk.”
I swallow hard, struggling to find words. My brain is short-circuiting with him this close to me. I’m sweating, and it’s suddenly too hard to breathe.
He steps closer. Eight feet. Six. Four. My hands are shaking inside my pockets.
“So talk,” he spits, his words venomous.
I open my mouth, and nothing comes out.
His smile widens. He sees it. He sees the shake in me. He likes it.
“What’s wrong, Hailey?” His voice dips. “You were so brave when you texted me. So sure of yourself. Cat got your tongue?”
I make myself breathe. In and out. I can’t pass out now.
I am not alone.
They’ve got me. Cole has me.
“You ran from me last time,” he murmurs. He’s inching closer now, so close I can smell the alcohol on his sour breath. “You ran. And you screamed. You bled all over that little parking garage. You really made a mess, Hailey.”
I cannot make my mouth move.
He tilts his head, studying me. His smile spreads into something vile and vicious.
“God. You’re so pretty when you bleed. So pretty when you break. And fuck, if I don’t love breaking pretty things.”
Something inside me cracks.
No, it explodes. Into a million sharp, deadly pieces, each aimed at him.
I think about a future where this man stands this close to another woman, uttering that exact sentence.
I think about her being smaller than me, or younger than me, or alone in a way I am not alone right now.
I think about the fact that I am, at this very moment, the only thing standing between this man and that woman.
The shaking in my hands stops, and I lift my chin.
“I’m not afraid of you.”
His smile flickers, and he clenches his jaw before responding. “You should be.”
“I’m not.” My voice is stronger now. It surprises both of us, but I don’t let it show.
“I’m really not. I spent too much time being afraid of you, and I don’t even understand why.
You’re not as tall as I remember. You’re not as big as I remember.
You’re a small, broken man who likes hurting women because nothing else in your life has ever made you feel powerful, and I am done giving you that. ”
“You stupid bitch—”
I cut him off before he can continue. “The parking garage was the last time you’ll ever hurt a woman. Tonight is the last time I will ever look at your face. After this, you don’t exist. Do you understand me, or are you having a hard time keeping up?”
His face shifts, his smile gone. The last time he looked at me like that was right before he put his forearm against my throat.
“Hailey—”
Behind me, I hear Cole step out from the shadows.
To my left, Jessica emerges from behind the concrete pier.
Thirty feet up, Grant rises into a crouch on top of the bridge, two cameras still rolling, and lets his camera flash one time to let Lars know he’s there.
To my right, Zach appears, holding what looks like a length of nylon rope.
Lars sees Jessica first, then Zach. Then he turns and sees Cole.
His face drains of color, and he’s frozen in place.
For a half second, I think it’s working. He’s outnumbered. He’s seen the cameras. He’s going to sit the fuck down and we are going to have the conversation we came here to have. This man will hear me and, if he struggles with that, I have no doubt Cole’s fists will relay the message.
Then his eyes lock back on me, and he charges.