40. Stone
STONE
It’s going to be okay.
It’s going to be okay.
It’s going to be okay.
I resurface slowly. Kind of like swimming up from a great depth. My head throbs, but I crack my eyes open without moving the rest of my body.
Survival instinct maybe?
“It’s going to be okay.”
I blink rapidly, focusing on the girl a mere ten feet from me. Her attention is on the glass beakers in front of her, a counter full of equipment I don’t understand. She’s wearing one of those white lab coats and plastic glasses. But even obscured, it’s obviously Wren.
And she’s talking to herself. Over and over, saying, “It’s going to be okay.”
I lick my lips. My mouth is dry. The base of my skull feels like there’s a knife in it, scraping away at my brain. But before I call out to her, I take stock of the rest of myself. My hands are hung over my head, my wrists taped together and attached to a pipe. I’m sitting on an ugly, tiled floor.
There’s a sink directly to my left, and a toilet on my right.
I’m wedged between the two, the bathroom door wide open and giving me a view of the rest of the small place. A trailer, maybe? Judging from the size, a double-wide.
I shift my weight and wince at the ache. My muscles fucking kill, but my head is the worst.
I test the tape, but it holds fast. The pipe groans, though, and Wren’s head snaps in my direction.
“Stone,” she whispers.
It feels loud in this otherwise silent space.
“Are you okay?” I ask. “Did he—?”
Her eyes fill with tears, but she shakes her head quickly.
I sag against the wall. Good . If he had touched her, I would kill him. No contest. No hesitation. I glance around the tiny bathroom, but there’s not even a window in here.
“I’m sorry,” Wren continues. “I’m going to fix this. I’m going to—”
“Now, now.” Her father steps into the trailer. “Are you making promises you know you won’t be able to keep?”
A chill sweeps down my spine.
She stiffens, turning sharply away from me and back to the chemicals at hand.
Meth . Fuck. It dawns on me that she cooked for him, and that’s what she’s doing now.
She’s trembling, holding onto the counter, as he steps into her space and runs his knuckles down her cheek.
And I lose it.
“Get your hands off her!” I yank on my arms to no avail.
Her father chuckles, moving past Wren and entering the bathroom. He pulls a gun from the waistband of his jeans and shoves the barrel against my stomach. I go completely still. But I still give him my best withering glare.
He chuckles. “Awful way to die. Shot in the stomach. All those nasty acids and bile mixing up in your abdomen. The pain…and the blood.” He digs the gun in harder. “Don’t tempt me, boy.”
Fuck .
After a long moment, he rises and heads back toward Wren. She’s stopped what she’s doing and faces us. Her skin is nearly the same color as her white coat.
Her dad smiles. “You know, I had planned to take your foster brother. You loved him, so it seemed like the best course of action to use him to make you comply.”
Another man enters the trailer. A bigger guy—maybe the one who knocked me out, I don’t know. Either way, Wren’s posture turns defensive. Her shoulders hunch, and she sidles closer to the counter. Her fingers wrap around the neck of one of the beakers.
“Get him up,” Wren’s dad orders.
The big guy comes for me, a knife suddenly in his fist. He reaches over my body and slices through the tape, then hauls me up. My legs are fucking jelly, my vision spotting white. He gets me in front of him, my arms behind my back in his vise grip.
Jessie stops in front of me.
“Wrenny,” he calls. “Are you going to stand there all day or fucking make something ?”
His fist smashes into my jaw. My head whips to the side, and I would’ve fallen if the guy behind me didn’t keep me upright.
He lands another punch to my gut, knocking the wind out of me.
I gasp, bending forward, and he grips the top of my head by my hair.
He pulls my face up, stepping out of the way so I can see Wren.
She’s a shaking mess.
But I’m okay.
I’m wheezing, and there’s blood in my mouth, but I’m okay . And I try to will that toward her, so she knows. Those hazel eyes of hers are going distant.
“I’ll do it,” she whispers. “I just—”
“Just nothing,” her dad spits. “Every moment of inaction gets taken out on your precious boyfriend.”
I grit my teeth.
The big guy drags me back into the bathroom. Jessie tosses him the tape, and he re-secures me to the pipe.
“Get to work.” Jessie leaves.
The bigger guy stops just behind Wren, and he fucking sniffs the top of her head.
“Don’t fucking touch her,” I growl.
He laughs. “Or what? You’ll come over here and stop me?”
“Kerrigan!” Jessie hollers from outside.
I note his name. And the shiver of disgust that rolls down Wren’s back once he finally moves off. Without a doubt, I imagine he was the source of some of her nightmares.
The thought kills me. Because after this, how could she not go down that path again? How will the nightmares ever let her go?
There’s only one way this can end—and it has to be with Jessie Davis’s death.
* * *
I watch Wren make meth.
She does calculations in her head and carefully pours and mixes under a giant glass hood that I hadn’t really registered until now. But it comes down around the counter, protecting her—and I suppose me—from the fumes.
“Wren,” I whisper. My throat hurts.
She ignores me.
“ Wren ,” I try again.
Her head snaps toward me. “Shut up, Stone.”
I press my lips together.
For the past hour, her father or one of his goonies has periodically come in to check on Wren’s progress. When the big guy Kerrigan enters, Wren freezes up. And after he goes, she dashes away tears.
While I just clench my jaw and stay silent.
They’re smoking outside, the trailer door left open.
“It’s going to be okay,” she whispers.
Again. Like some sort of comfort—except, now I think she means it solely for me.
“I’m going to save you, Stone.”
“Don’t do anything stupid, baby.”
She ignores me.
I turn my attention back to my wrists. They’re raw, but I keep picking at the tape, trying to unravel it or at least rip it. I lean up and bite it, and it finally tears a bit.
Just as Jessie Davis returns.
“Are you being a good girl, Pumpkin?”
I hate his fucking voice.
Wren clears her throat. “It’s almost done. Do you want to see?”
He steps in closer. She pours something into a beaker and quickly steps away. One foot, then two. She glances at me and mouths, “I’m sorry.”
Why?
Too late, I know my answer. Jessie yells, the beaker smoking—and then it explodes.
A wall of fiery heat blasts outward, knocking Jessie and Wren against the far wall. My head ricochets off the tiles. The walls of the trailer tremble from the force, and the smell of smoke reaches me first.
The trailer is on fire. It’s caught on the walls, climbing toward the ceiling.
I ignore the wetness on the back of my neck and lean up, biting and tearing through the tape. I get out of it and rush into the room. The air is thick, hot and smoky. I choke, pulling my sweatshirt up over my nose and mouth, and find Wren on the floor.
She’s not moving.
My heart stops. But my feet don’t. I stumble-run to her, staying under the heaviest of the smoke. I drop to her side and brush her hair back. My hand comes away wet with blood.
Her dad lies a few feet away, in a similar state. Except, burns blacken the front of his shirt.
Ignoring him, I haul Wren into my arms and hurtle toward the open door. The floor tilts, and I lose my balance on the stairs.
We hit the ground hard. I roll just as hands grab for me and Wren. My foot kicks out on reflex, nailing Kerrigan in the balls.
Good .
He doubles over, gritting his teeth and curling his hand in the front of my sweatshirt.
My ears are ringing, and even as the asshole’s mouth starts moving, I can’t hear shit.
His head lifts. Something in the distance has caught his attention—but it doesn’t last. Suddenly, he’s focused back on me, and a sneer creeps across his face.
The first sound to filter in is the sirens.
And then his voice as he says, “Wren belongs with us.”
The glint of the knife in his hand—the one that he used to slice through the tape earlier—now draws my focus. Almost in slow motion, he slides it into my stomach.
But the pain…that’s delayed.
“What are you doing?” a voice shouts. “We need to get the fuck out…”
Kerrigan rips the knife from my stomach. That’s when the agony lances through my abdomen. He rises and hurries away with the other guy.
I press my hand to my stomach, letting out a hiss of breath, and roll onto my hands and knees. I crawl toward Wren’s prone form. She’s lying on her side where she fell.
The blue and red lights from the cop cars flash across the house, followed by a fire truck and ambulance.
“Wake up, baby.” My arms are shaking too badly. I fall to my side behind her, dragging her limp body against mine.
If she’s dead, I don’t know what I will do.
Tears fill my eyes. “Wake up, Wren.”
I can’t keep up with the pain. My head. My stomach. I hold onto her shirt. But I can’t hold onto consciousness.