Taint (The SNAP Trilogy #2)

Chapter 1

CADY

MY blood turned cold when I reached for the doorknob, and it opened.

For some reason I didn’t think to knock, I just reached for it and it turned.

I should have known better with everything going on.

Hazel locks up her apartment tighter than Fort Knox these days.

But when the door swung open, there was an eerie silence that greeted us.

My heart pounded in my chest as I stepped inside.

“Cady,” Erick whispers, and points to a dent in the wall that has a spot of blood on it.

Erick turns to Bobby and swallows hard. I spin around, taking in her apartment, but I don’t see anything out of place. It doesn’t look like there was a struggle in here.

“Hazel?”

I yell out to her, thinking maybe she and Cash are in the bedroom, and she didn’t lock the door since he was here.

Hope blooms in my chest. Maybe, just maybe, I’ll catch the two fucking, and we’ll get a laugh about this.

A clicking sound from the hallway catches my attention, and I hold my finger to my lips.

Everyone freezes and strains to hear something.

I swear there are footsteps further in the house, but I’m not sure if it’s just my ears playing tricks on me.

I wave my hand as I tiptoe toward the hallway and see a chair toppled over on the floor in the kitchen.

The knife next to it scares the shit out of me.

Erick and Bobby stop and stare at it too.

I listen intently but can’t hear anything except my heart pounding in my ears as the adrenaline courses through my body. I have to find Hazel. Now.

I check the bathroom and find Hazel’s work clothes soaking wet on the floor.

As I step toward her bedroom door, the foreboding in my gut intensifies.

Fear makes it seem as if time is moving so slowly that it takes a lifetime to reach it.

I take a deep breath and put my ear against the wood.

I wish I could say I hear panting and moans, but I hear nothing.

My attempt to turn the knob leads me nowhere. It’s locked. I raise my hand and knock on the door.

“Hazel?”

I listen for a moment before pounding harder.

“Hazel,” I yell, getting more and more terrified by the second.

“Are you in there?” I yell again.

A sound I can’t identify comes from behind her door and petrifies me. I grab the knob, shake the door, and slam my shoulder against it, screaming her name over and over. Erick tries to pull me away, but I need to get to Hazel. Oh god, what if she’s hurt in there?

“Cady, move out of the way,” Bobby bellows. I let go of the knob and let Erick pull me back.

Bobby tries the knob first, then slams the door with his shoulder.

It shakes against the frame but doesn’t budge.

Without a second thought, he lifts his foot and kicks the door.

Wood splinters around the knob, and, with one more kick, the door flies open.

I hold my breath for a moment as Bobby stands in the doorway and doesn’t move.

As I shove past him, he tries to stop me, but he’s not quick enough. I wish he were.

A scream rips from chest as I stumble toward the bed.

My vision blurs with the tears streaming down my face.

All I can see is red. Red everywhere. I reach out and Erick grabs my hand, wrapping his arms around me.

I hear Bobby crying behind me as he yells directions to someone.

It sounds like he’s yelling through a tunnel.

“You can’t touch her,” Erick chokes out. I think he’s going to be sick. Hell, I might be sick. “Take a breath before you pass out.”

I suck in a lung full of air, but all I smell is the coppery scent of blood.

My throat closes up, and I begin to panic.

I wipe the tears from my face and stare at my best friend who is unrecognizable.

Her face a blend of red, purple, blue, and black.

The belt around her neck trails down her nude chest that is covered in blood, bruises, and whip marks.

The indents of teeth around one of her nipples causes me to almost vomit.

I choke as I swallow it down, my eyes trailing down her body.

No one should see her like this. She wouldn’t want anyone to see her like this.

I want to tell Erick and Bobby to leave me alone with her, but I fear I’ll lose it completely if they aren’t here with me. We all need each other right now.

“Oh, Hazel,” I whimper, as I fight the urge to take her in my arms and show her how much she was loved. How much I love her.

When Erick turns to Bobby to calm him down, I reach out and hook my finger around Hazel’s, peeking out from under her.

I don’t give a fuck. She’s like my sister.

I need this. I need to touch her. I couldn’t be here to stop it, but I can be here for her now.

Her skin is warm against mine, and I wonder if she’s still alive.

“Hazel, can you hear me?” My voice breaks as the tears start again. “Please, for the fucking love of God, please be alive!”

“Cady.” Erick grabs my shoulder and sobs. “You can’t touch her, babe.”

“Don’t fucking tell me wha—” I start yelling, but I stop when Hazel’s lip moves. “Did you see that?”

“What?” Erick asks, kneeling by me.

I slip my hand farther under her, gripping her hand tightly, then lean as close as I can to her while trying not to touch anything else.

“She moved,” I whisper to Erick without looking away.

He leans in next to me and watches closely as I whisper to Hazel.

“I don’t know if you can hear me, but hold on, Hazel. I love you so much.” I hiccup as I squeeze her hand tighter. “You can’t leave me. I need you. You’re so strong, Hazel. Please don’t leave me.”

Tears slip from her eyes, and I choke on my sobs knowing my best friend is alive.

Sirens sound from down the street, and Erick clutches my shoulders. “Keep talking, babe. Don’t stop,” he says, before running from the room.

“I love you so much. I don’t know what I would ever do without you.”

My heart breaks and yet heals at the same time when Hazel tries to grip my hand.

Her mouth moves slightly, but no sound comes out.

She doesn’t need to tell me who did this, we all know who did this to her.

As I cling to Hazel, I hope against hope that if she loses her strength she can draw from my own.

I’d give her every bit of it with a prayer if she makes it through this to see tomorrow.

Seeing her beaten, broken, and covered in blood breaks something in me too.

I never thought there would be a day in my life that I would enter a house to discover someone I loved brutalized and almost murdered.

That shit is only supposed to happen in horror movies.

I feel like I’m in a horror movie. My gut burns as my fear shifts to a hatred I’ve never known.

I squeeze Hazel’s hand as I hear the shouts of Erick and Bobby outside, waving down the ambulance and police.

“I’m going to find him, Hazel.” My resolve solidifies my voice. “And when I do, I promise you, I’m going to fucking kill him.”

Hazel’s eyelids flutter as footsteps sound in the hallway. She grips my hand and then whispers in broken words, “No. I will.”

Hands land on my shoulders and pull me away from Hazel. Her hand slips from mine as I fight to stay with her. The last thing I see as I’m wrestled from the room is a wall of paramedics and police, shouting orders as they converge on my best friend.

Everything is a blur as I fight my way back to her, but I’m roughly yanked from her apartment.

Police tape off her porch as if it’s a murder scene, like they know she’s not going to make it through this.

I spin around in circles, trying to understand what’s happening, but my brain isn’t processing it.

It’s too much. She was alive goddamn it! Don’t they fucking see that?

There are too many people talking at once.

Their words are incoherent, ricocheting around in my head like a jumbled mess of sounds.

A sharp pain tears through my chest, making it hard to breath, and my knees go weak.

I reach out, desperate to grab hold of anything to keep steady before I hit the ground, but I get knocked to the side.

My arms are yanked behind my back, and I’m shoved against something hard, pushing what little air I had left out of my lungs.

Erick’s voice breaks through the haze in my mind. “Hey, don’t manhandle her like that!”

The hood of the police cruiser comes into focus as I get my breathing in check.

I turn my head to see Erick fighting to get to me, but other officers are blocking his path and wrestle him to the ground.

Bobby is nowhere in sight. The cop holding me against the car stands me up and turns me around as they wheel Hazel out on a stretcher.

Time seems frozen as everyone rushing about stops to watch the spectacle. A crime of this magnitude has never happened in Trinity. By the expressions on all their faces, this isn’t something they’ve encountered before.

The oxygen mask over Hazel’s face does little to hide the blood, swelling, and bruising as they rush her down the sidewalk to the ambulance.

My feet surge forward instantly so I won’t be left behind, but the cop pulls me back by my wrists, jerking me to a halt.

Metal bites into my skin making my teeth grit.

At some point, while being shoved against the car, he had slapped handcuffs on me.

“I need to go with her.” The words rush urgently from my mouth as I pull my wrists apart, like the cuffs are just going to fall off on their own.

“You’re not going anywhere,” the cop states, jerking me back against the car. “There are questions that need answered.”

The paramedics lift Hazel into the back of the ambulance and swing the doors closed. The driver runs to the front and jumps in, taking off like a bat out of Hell. Between my tears and the flashing lights, the letters on the vehicle blur as I watch it drive away.