Chapter 28 TRACE #2
I brush my thumb against the pulse in her neck, knowing that no matter what we do, I’m not leaving her behind again.
Knowing that no matter what, as long as this is still beating, I'll do anything she ever asks.
I'll give her hell on earth and bring heaven down from fucking clouds.
Whatever she wants. Leaving her behind was the hardest thing I've ever had to do and I can feel it, she'll know everything soon and the reward for my patience will be worth the pain and the suffering.
If I can't have her, then I want nothing.
“We can leave, Olivia. We can drop this. We can leave everything behind and run, just like we wanted to the first time,” I tell her and I can feel the flutter in her neck speed up. “Or I can help you piece together the rest of that night and we can find who killed your brother.”
“And Seren…” she breathes. “But if Deck really did do that . . . set your sister up, then don’t you think the killer did everyone a service? I mean, didn’t he deserve it? And Tyre and Jett would make sense but Seren-”
“You don’t believe he did it, do you, Livie?” I interrupt her, knowing she’s trying to fit things together that we can’t possibly understand without knowing the whole truth.
She sighs, looking up at me through her red-rimmed eyes and I swipe at the trail of tears on her cheekbone.
“Trace, I didn’t know Seren went through that.
If she would have told me when it happened, I honestly don’t know how I would have reacted.
I want to believe her. I mean, I do. I know she wouldn't make that up. But I know my brother, Trace. Declan would never do something like that, ever. I just wish they were both still here.”
Discomfort tangles in my nerves, despising that I might let myself go against Seren’s words.
I owe it to my sister to believe her, to avenge her.
But when I see the look of despair in Olivia’s eyes, seeing the way it wrecks her to think that her brother could do something like that, I know that I owe it to her to be by her side too.
I know that no matter what the outcome is, Declan is already dead.
And I recognize that if she finds out that her brother was murdered as an innocent man, it’s going to destroy her.
I do my best to pacify her, wanting to be the person she can trust. I know she already does. It takes a lot for someone to relinquish control the way she has already, even if nothing around her is making sense.
“I believe you, baby,” I aver and her eyes pop open wide with uncontained ardor, appreciation glistening in the pools of her ocean eyes.
“So what do we do?” she asks, trying to hold back her tears.
But right as I'm about to divulge a mediocre plan to her, a loud noise resounds around us, causing Olivia to jump and me to reach for my pistol.
“What was that?” she questions in a hushed tone.
“Stay here,” I tell her, talking a step away but she reaches out to stop me.
“Don't leave me,” she begs and with the legitimate frightened look in her eye and the sheer clamp of her hand over my arm, I almost listen. But someone is out there.
“Olivia, stay here,” I argue, making sure my voice doesn’t carry before turning around and walking toward where I believe the noise came from.
I realize that I can’t see much, so after taking a few steps more, I stop, centering myself in the silence, treating my ears to pick up on anything.
Suddenly, a scream rips through the cold air, and my heart drops.
I rush back only to see that Olivia is gone.
I don’t even hear a struggle after the faded echo of the scream dies down, she’s just gone.
Panic expands inside me, but not more than the fury I feel, knowing that if anything happens to her, I’ll fucking lose it.
I twist my body, slamming my fist into the back of the mirror wall, glass shattering on impact. My heart fills my throat and I stop breathing as I feel the creep of blood start to seep from my knuckles.
I have to force myself to go silent for a beat, listening for mumbles or anything that will give her and whoever snatched her away.
That’s when I hear the slam of a door echo in the distance and I immediately know where it comes from.
I rush over to the basement door nearby, the same basement where I kept Broden tied up.
I swing it open and I see a reflection of light shifting back and forth.
As I walk down the steps, the swinging light fixture from the ceiling slows its movements, likely having been swung at from an impact of some sort, telling me that whoever took Olivia came down here.
But where the fuck could they have gone? There’s nothing down here except…
I see a sliver of yellow light peeking out from behind one of the old, dusty book cases. You’ve got to be kidding me.
I pull out my phone, dialing Evrin first as I walk toward the book case. But he doesn’t answer. I push my hands up against it, trying to get it to move and it doesn’t budge. I dial Sage, but the phone rings and rings and rings.
No answer.
I kick my foot at the stupid bookshelf but it still doesn’t move and I can sense my rage growing rapidly, the need to find Olivia becoming violently intense.
I dial the next number, and surprisingly, he answers on the first ring.
“Where the fuck is everyone?” I say, aggression hanging in my tone, not caring for pleasantries of any sort.
I hear static buzz through the speaker along with something that sounds like wind.
“Hello?” I demand looking down at my phone.
“Try one of the books,” he says to me but his voice doesn't reach me through a muffled speaker.
I turn around to see him standing behind me, near the bottom of the steps. His bright neon blue mask glowing against his face, his long black hair tied up into a knot at the crown of his head.
He slides his Cutthroat’s mask off his head and lets it hang from his neck, looking at me like I’m a fucking idiot. That’s when I realized he’d been watching me struggle with this damn book case, so I flip him off.
“Banks,” I greet him. “Where the hell did you come from?” I ask.
He steps forward, meeting me at the book case.
“I traced Alli’s location out here. But I lost signal just outside. The bitch fucking drugged me,” he states before tugging on one of the shelved books, causing the case to automatically reveal an opening behind the wall.
“I swear, for someone who notices a lot shit, you seem to fail to notice the obvious,” he says to me and I just look at him, damn near ready to burst with fury and wrath and…
Suddenly, it hits me.
The obvious.
How could I be so fucking blind?
The clues have all been right in front of me, but I’ve been trying to hunt down the people who hurt Seren, not the person who killed for her.
And suddenly, now her words from that night make a little more sense.
Besides, the only person who’s capable of truly hurting me is myself.
But I have a best friend who's going to miss me…
I also have to send my stalker my forwarding address.
Please, Trace. Just let me go. I swear I'll never bother you about anything ever again.
I feel my heart incinerate once more, blazing with hatred for what was done to her. I hate that she was going through that, that I wasn't there for her. It makes me eager to rip someone else's throat out, my skin is crawling with that need.
“You said Alli drugged you?” I ask, checking my phone and opening my video surveillance feed, seeing that all of my cameras have been shut down.
“Yeah, she got up after the fucking show you made her put on and I wasn’t gonna follow right away.
But then Jensen got up so I did too. I followed her back to my cabin and I found her inside, alone.
She was making hot chocolate. Claimed she needed something to calm her nerves and when she offered me my own cup, I took it.
How the fuck was I supposed to know she dropped a half a fucking Rohypnol in my cup? ”
I can see the look of irritation in Banks’ eyes and it matches my own. Everything is starting to make sense now. And while there’s a few things that I don’t even care to have an answer for, I now know who the killer is. And I’m pretty sure I know the reason why.
The chain. The notes. His close proximity. This whole weekend. I should have fucking known.
"TK, before we go anywhere, I need you to know I found this." He hands me a very crinkled piece of paper and the moment I touch it, I already know it what it is.
"Where did you get it?" I ask, unfolding it delicately. My body buzzes, anger sparking at every nerve ending. Anticipation to finally read the last page of Seren's torn out journal entry.
"I found it on the path as I was following Alli back to the cabin. I can't be sure who it fell from, but I held onto it. I know you've been looking for it."
"Did you read it? I ask him, now questioning if I really even do want to know what it says, because I know deep down, I might already have an idea. I know deep down, it's going to make things final.
He shakes his head as he takes a step back, opening up the space between us to grant me the moment I might need to read it. But I carefully fold it back up and tuck it away. I need a clear head, and I know that reading that will only send me into a further frenzy than I already am right now.
But I have to know. So I open it back and read it, seeing that it starts exactly where the first page left off.
want to die. I want to end it all right now.
My life doesn’t matter anyway. No one will take me seriously and I’d rather get it over with than walk around not knowing who my other abusers are, than looking at the faces of those I know did this.
And even if I could remember their faces, even if I heard their voices again and figured it out, would it even matter?
They could say I made it all up. Because I’m a slut and I want attention.
Because I’m a flirt. And I can’t even tell my best friend because how do I tell her that her brother betrayed me?
How do I tell her that I loved him and I think he set me up.
What if I’m wrong and then she hates me for putting him through that.
But will she even believe me? Will anyone?
So I might as well just fucking end it. That way maybe they can live with my death and I’ll never have to see their faces ever again. Maybe it’s better that way.
Nausea fills my veins, but it's what I suspected. My sister wanted to die because of what was done to her. She went up there to end her life. and I failed her. “We need to find them,” I state, folding up the paper and pulling my gun from my waistband.
“Where do you think this leads?” Banks asks as we step into the narrow, amber-lit path. The walls look like cement or stone and about 2 inches of water cover our feet. Once both of us are fully situated, the bookcase closes us in automatically.
“I know where it goes,” I declare as I lead us through the passageway. “We’re going to Olivia’s cabin.”