Chapter 29 Kaitlyn
Kaitlyn
My body knows what it is to run, to feel the burn of it zipping through every muscle. Even when I’ve been injured, my body’s always been able to push past the pain.
But running for fun and running for your life?
Two entirely different things.
Right now, it’s not so much a burn as it is every muscle’s being torn to shreds. I push myself deeper and deeper into the woods, heart banging against my chest, branches tearing at my skin, sneakers struggling to grip the slick ground.
I’m going to die. It’s all I can think. I’m going to die—actually die—and it’s all because of fucking Emerson.
I round a bend in the trail and skid to a stop.
I have no idea where Javi or Marlene went or how long I’ve been running for.
When I heard those footsteps and when Emerson shouted, something primal took over and I just bolted.
I don’t even know where I’ve been running to.
But now that I can think, all I can see in my mind is Javi.
I need to go back and find him. I’ve got to find him and keep him safe.
I look around, trying to get my bearings. Trying to figure out how the hell to tell which direction to go in to find my way back to the Airbnb. But every damn tree looks the same, and the rain’s erased any sort of trail I might be able to follow.
Or has it?
I was never a Girl Scout, but even I can trace the path of destruction I smashed through the trees.
Limbs are broken, ripped off and scattered around, and the mud’s marked with traces of hands and feet scrambling for balance.
I trek along the haphazard damage, following it this way and that.
I’d be the easiest person to track by a long shot.
Shit, I wonder, did all of us leave paths like this one?
I think of how we must’ve looked: like deer startled by a hunter.
Still, at least I can make use of my own thoughtlessness to double back to the place we split apart, and if I’m lucky, I’ll be able to follow Javi’s trail.
I listen for any sign of someone nearby, but all I hear is the wind, so I keep going, following the evidence I left in the mud.
After several minutes of working my way back, I hear a groan, and I freeze.
Shit. Who the hell was that? I turn around slowly, narrowing my eyes to better see in the darkness. It didn’t sound like Javi. But it also didn’t sound like Marlene.
“Who’s there?” I dare to whisper.
“Me,” says the douchiest voice I know. “Obviously.”
I step back, and it’s so dark that even standing so close I have to strain to see Emerson, who is practically right under my feet. He’s curled up on his side in the mud, holding on to his thigh where Marlene stabbed him, though the knife is no longer sticking out of it.
“Jesus, Butler,” I say. “You don’t look so good.”
And it’s true. His hair’s a rat’s nest, and his clothes are ripped and torn. His true form, if you ask me.
“Yeah, awesome, great police work,” Emerson says, straining to sit up. “I’ve been attacked twice, remember?”
I cross my arms. “Marlene didn’t attack you. She stopped you from stabbing Javi. You’re lucky it was Marlene who grabbed that knife and not me.”
Emerson glowers at me, blue eyes as sharp and beady as ever.
“I’m sorry that I didn’t take my chances with your lunatic boyfriend,” Emerson says. “I wouldn’t have actually done anything. Marlene’s the one that lost her fucking mind.”
I bite my tongue. Going off on him right now won’t get me the answers I want. I channel my anger, keeping it just under the surface, holding on to the reins like I’ve been trained to do.
“Where’s the knife?” I ask.
He waves his hand. “I pulled it out. Dropped it somewhere when I was running.”
Do I buy it? I scan the ground, and I don’t see it anywhere. And, in the chaos, maybe he did drop it? Still, I don’t trust him.
“Marlene’s going to pay for this,” he grumbles, wincing as he tries to stand.
I glare at him. “Stop blaming Marlene. All of this is your fault. You shouldn’t have left the house in the first place—something you still haven’t explained.”
Emerson’s eyes flash in my direction, and I know we’re now transitioning to the Emerson you get when he’s past caring what you think of him, the side where he doesn’t bother to hide his rage or make excuses for it.
You get this Emerson only when he’s really pissed.
Like when Avery and Caulder were announced as co-captains.
I’d expected Avery to look enraged, but when I looked at Emerson, I saw the threat of something beyond fury burning under the surface.
It took him a beat to start clapping, and when he did, that usual casual expression had swung back into place.
But I didn’t forget it, and I recognize it now for what it is.
“I know you’re hiding something,” I say. “I know you’ve been hiding something since the start.”
He grips the tree next to him to pull himself up to standing. Once he’s on his feet, he turns those tumultuous, stormy blue eyes on me, and he cocks his head. He looks like a predator.
“So we’re talking secrets now, are we?” he says, voice low and dangerous. “Should we discuss yours?”
I hold myself as still as I can, focusing on keeping my expression impassive. Emerson doesn’t know anything—not anything important. He’s bluffing. He’s always bluffing.
He leans on the tree, folding his arms over his chest. “Does Javi know? About why you’d want to kill Jay?”
I hate that the words pull a reaction out of me, that the rage I’ve kept neatly bottled up for the past four years is so close to the surface. I tamp it down, keep my tone cool, but I feel it waiting to bubble over.
“I never wanted to kill Jay,” I lie.
“So Javi doesn’t know,” Emerson says, savoring my discomfort.
I angle my chin up. “He knows what’s important.”
He shakes his head. “He knows your sister’s a liar?”
I can’t help it. My feet move forward before I can stop myself. I’m inches from Emerson, and I don’t care that he’s been stabbed or attacked or whatever else. All I know is I hate him, and I’ll do whatever it takes to get him to shut the fuck up.
“Don’t talk about Hadley,” I say. “Don’t talk about any of my sisters.”
Emerson laughs. “I can’t believe she actually tried to accuse him of rape. Her own boyfriend, the same guy she was posting everywhere and calling the love of her life. Did she really think anyone would buy that?”
The words are cold and awful. They stir up images of Hadley crying in our shared bedroom.
My sister, unmoving in bed, staring at the wall, spiraling in shame and depression and locked inside her mind.
As she pulled away from school, from her friends, from us.
From me. It took years to get her back, and she still disappears like that sometimes.
And everything she lost…All because Jay Pearce, her supposedly perfect boyfriend, date-raped her.
And when she called him on it, when she confronted him…
He broke up with her and then told everyone it was because she was crazy.
Jealous. He made sure her reputation was so thrashed, no one would ever believe anything she had to say.
He spread the rumors and the lies before she even had a chance to go public, convinced everyone that she was a liar before she could try to tell her side.
Hadley’s friends—people she’d known since elementary school—suddenly looked at her like she was nothing.
He made sure she felt so small that she didn’t dare say a word against him, that she wouldn’t even tell our parents what had actually happened.
He got to stay the perfect guy in everyone’s eyes—so perfect that he even got to come back to the very same school as a teacher.
But if Emerson heard, that means Jay must have told someone the truth. Did he tell Emerson’s brother, who told Emerson? Did he feel any scrap of remorse for what he did to my sister, for how he ruined her life?
Not that it really matters. He’s dead.
And yeah.
I’ll admit it.
I’m glad.
“We need to get you back to the house. That’s where the others probably went,” I say, forcing myself to end the conversation here. I’m not giving Emerson or his army of lawyers a smidge of leverage against me. I know how to play nice. Let Emerson think he’s won.
I know the truth.
Besides, the sooner we get to the house, the sooner I’ll find Javi.
I go to Emerson and angle myself so he can lean on me. He looks at me suspiciously, but he doesn’t have much of a choice. With his weight on me, I half lead, half force him to hobble with me in search of the path.
“Keep an eye out for Javi,” I tell Emerson. “And Marlene.”
He just laughs.
“That bitch can die for all I care.”