Cason comes bundling out of the front door just in time to cut me short. “Let’s go.”
I began bounding down the porch stairs towards the driveway, feeling the adrenalin begin to course through my veins. Somebody better know something. “You too, girl,” I throw over my shoulder as I head towards the car.
“What? I’m not going,” she begins to say.
I spin and cut her off as I backtrack the few steps needed to get up into her face. “Right now, you seem to be the only person who knows anything about where my girl is. Until I can confirm you know nothing else in that pretty little head of yours or tell you otherwise, you will stick close. So you can either get in the car, or I can put you in there. I’m not giving you a choice.”
She swallows hard and glares at me as she flexes her jaw. I don’t know if it’s anger or fear warring through her right now, but I don’t fucking care. I don’t let up; I tower over her, waiting for her next move. After a few seconds of mulling it over she nods. Good. She understands.
“Come on! Let’s go!” Cason yells, putting an end to our standoff. I’m sure that was his intent.
Narni stands tall, confident. I have a feeling that if she didn’t want to go, she would fight me tooth and nail if I tried to force her. She quietly walks the rest of the way to meet Cason at the Jeep and climbs into the backseat.
She has no idea what I’m willing to do for my family. But she just may find out
It hurts—it all hurts. An ice pick is chipping away at my skull on the inside trying to find its way out. At least, that’s what it feels like as I pull myself out of the fog twisting around my brain, making me feel like I’m still dreaming. Maybe I am.
I don’t remember drinking that much last night.
I don’t know how I ever woke up on mornings like this without Jesse. Hangovers are so much more bearable with him by my side. I slide my hand towards him, slowly reaching out for the sweet warmth he gives me. I reach and reach until I’m stopped by something cold and hard, and definitely not what I was looking for.
I wince as soon as I touch the wall and breathe slowly, trying to wrap my head around what I’m feeling. It’s not Jesse, and it’s cold. Where the fuck am I? I’m scared to open my eyes. I’m scared of the little voice in the back of my head that tells me the moment I do I’m not going to like what I find. I slowly blink my eyes open, and as I do, the sting of the air hits my dry eyes, making the tears roll without permission. I’m greeted by a swinging lamp that only makes the hammering in my head ten times worse each time the light sways into my view.
My focus fluctuates in and out. But even though I can’t make out my surroundings quite yet, I know instinctively that this isn’t home. The smell is wrong, and from what I can make out, I’m in a dark, dank room with one little window. Like a basement—a very empty basement, except for me and whatever it is I’m lying on.
I grab onto a metal frame that is even colder than the wall and pull myself up. As soon as I’m upright a wave of nausea hits me, and the room sways. I hunch over and breathe through it until my world rights itself enough to open my eyes again. The panic starts in my toes, a lightness that begins until my whole body, my whole world, is cloaked in fear. I close my eyes again, trying to keep my breaths steady. I need to think back to last night. To what happened.
We were at the barn party. Jade was with Adam, and Cason and I were talking on the bench. My heart tears a little remembering that conversation. Then Jesse went to get another beer. Jade was sick. Wait. Jade wasn’t sick. Jordan told me Jade was sick. A cold, calculating voice saying, “Goodnight, Fallon.”
This isn’t a hangover.
Ice douses my veins as last night’s memories all hit me at once. Was it even last night?
Jordan is a traitor. Jade wasn’t sick. He tricked me. He’s helping Marcus.
The last thing I remember is nothing. Literally. My world went dark. And now I’m here. The thought that I was brought here by Marcus makes my stomach roll even more until I am full-on retching off the side of the makeshift cot under me. Nothing but bile comes up, making me gag harder and causing my head to pound and my stomach muscles to ache.
A door placed conveniently across the room—or maybe I’m conveniently placed away from it—opens. The hair on my body rises up as fear pounds in my blood. I scoot back into the corner, forcing the nausea under control as I wipe my mouth clean with the back of my hand. My eyes lock onto the only way in or out, waiting for him to appear in the doorframe.
I recognize his gate before I can see him clearly. His form comes into view, all five-foot-ten inches of the lanky devil, holding something in his hand that he rests on the floor on the side of the cot in front of me. He looks next to him where the bile is pooled and wrinkles his nose. It’s ridiculous this disgusts him, after every wicked thing he’s done. A little bile should be easy for him.
“Yeah, side effects of the drug. It’ll wear off soon enough,” Marcus says with a little chuckle that makes me wince further into the corner. The fact that he finds drugging his ex and the side effects from that drug amusing is disturbing. I can’t help but close my
