Chapter 30
WREN
“Hang up,” Jared commanded, a gun pressed to the back of Caleb’s skull. I could hear Max hollering through the phone as I disconnected, setting it down on the counter.
“Fuck, Wren.” Caleb’s voice was full of remorse. “He and I played lacrosse together. I didn’t think I—”
“Shut up,” Jared ordered harshly as he turned to me, a chilling gleam lighting his gaze. “Let’s go.”
When I hesitated, he pointed the gun toward Liv. “You come with me or I put a bullet in her. She always wanted us to get together anyway.” He grinned.
Olivia paled, looking at me helplessly.
“It’s okay,” I tried to assure her, even though we both knew it was far from it. “I’ll come with you,” I told Jared, the very idea making my stomach churn.
He waved the gun toward the front door, indicating that I should head that way. “Try anything and a bullet goes in her back,” he warned Caleb, who looked ready to rip the man’s heart out with his bare hands.
Now that I thought back on it, I remembered that he and Jared had been friendly in high school. It was no wonder he’d opened the door to him.
He pushed me toward a silver sedan, shoving me into the passenger seat. My heart hammered in my chest, my palms slick with sweat as I debated my next move. The minute I left this driveway with him, I knew my chances for survival plummeted. It was with that knowledge that I used the split second I had as he jogged to the driver’s side to catapult out of the seat toward the woods.
My legs pumped as fast as I could go as the sound of gunfire boomed through the air. My leg exploded with pain as a bullet ripped through my calf. I stumbled as the boom of more gunfire erupted.
Jared appeared above me as I sat helplessly on the ground, unable to move. “You can come with me or die right here, your choice.” He panted as I noticed a bloom of red appearing on his chest.
He’d been shot.
I stood up as he wrenched my arm toward him, pointing the gun on me as I limped after him. Caleb stood in the driveway, a gun aimed in our direction, his expression fierce.
He’d used my escape as an opportunity to fire on Jared, but now that I had a gun trained on me once again, his options were limited.
“Follow me and I’ll kill her,” Jared warned. After having no qualms about shooting me, I believed him.
This time, he shoved me through the driver’s side, forcing me over the console as I cried out in pain. I streaked the upholstery with blood as I slumped into the passenger seat once again, clutching at my leg in agony.
As the engine fired up and Jared hit the gas, I watched Axel’s house disappear in the sideview mirror, determined that this wouldn’t be my last time seeing it. I’d survive this. I had to.
“Asshole shot me,” Jared grunted, his hand clutching his chest as blood expanded across his chest and down his torso.
I looked down, watching as rivulets of blood slid down my leg, and didn’t respond.
“We’re not going far,” he shared, and I didn’t know if that was a good or bad thing. “I’ll make sure to get you all bandaged up. You shouldn’t have made me shoot you,” he rebuked. “I only want to take care of you. I’ve waited so long for you to finally be mine.”
I shivered at the yearning in his words as we hit the freeway.
“Where are we going?” I demanded through gritted teeth. I needed to get some sort of tourniquet on my leg right away, even if that meant arriving at whatever shop of horrors he had in store.
“Just a little place I’ve been fixing up for us,” he answered. “We’re nearly there.”
He pulled off the freeway and onto a tree-lined street I’d driven through many times in my years in Hawthorne.
“Here we are,” he announced proudly as he pulled into the driveway of a single-story home with a white picket fence.
I prayed someone, anyone, would see us as he held the gun trained on me, forcing me to walk ahead of him into the house.
The house was remarkable in how unremarkable it was. I’d expected something dark and dreary, for the walls to be covered in photos of me, something to indicate his obvious obsession. Instead, this looked like a perfectly ordinary home; it was charming even.
“I’ll give you a tour later,” he said as he pushed me gently toward a set of stairs off the kitchen. “I’ve got the master bedroom all decorated with your favorite colors, but for now, you’ll need to stay down here until I can trust you not to run away again.”
As we descended down the stairwell, dread swirled in my belly as we left the quaint kitchen and arrived in a basement outfitted with a floor-to-ceiling-sized cage.
“No!” I protested. “Don’t make me go in there. I won’t run away, I promise,” I pleaded, eyeing the cell outfitted with a bed and toilet, feeling a fear I’d never known until that moment.
“It’s just for a little while, sweetie,” he crooned, opening the door and giving me a little shove inside.
The door shut with a resounding metal clang I felt all the way to my bones.
He sat on a nearby chair outside of the cell, and for the first time, I noticed how pale he was. “I just need to clean myself up.” He sighed tiredly. “There are some fresh towels and a bucket of water for you to freshen up,” he added, as though I was preparing for a night out rather than cleaning a bullet wound.
I didn’t take the time to protest as I sat on the small bed and immediately dipped a towel into the nearby bucket. I needed to clean away some of the blood to get an idea of what I was dealing with. Not that that would tell me much. I wasn’t a nurse.
The bucket quickly turned red with my blood as I dipped the towel repeatedly, finally able to see the quarter-sized wound. I could feel the bullet still lodged there. Was that good or bad? Should I try to pull it out? With what?
While I deliberated, I pulled a pillowcase off the nearby pillow, tying it just above my kneecap in hopes of staunching the blood flow.
When I looked at Jared again, his posture was slumped and his pallor had grown gray. “You’re going to bleed to death,” I informed him quietly. “You should call an ambulance.”
He offered a shallow laugh in return. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? You were always looking for an excuse to get away from me. Even when I paid that idiot to rob you in that parking lot, you wouldn’t even let me drive you home!” His gaze flared with anger before growing dull once more from blood loss. “Always too good for me. Well, not anymore. We’re going to stay here together until you accept me. Until you love me the way that I love you.”
Holy shit, he was so twisted.
“Rest up, sweetie.” He sighed, shutting his eyes and leaning back in his seat. “I’m just going to take a little nap, and I’ll be good as new.”
Realization hit me with horrifying force. He was going to die and leave me trapped in this cage.
I stood up, grasping the bars with both hands. “Jared!” I cried, trying to rouse him. “You’re dying. Let me out so I can help,” I insisted.
He smiled serenely but didn’t open his eyes. “I knew you’d want to take care of me the way that I want to take care of you, Wren.”
“Jared!” I cried desperately, terror sweeping through me as the reality of my situation loomed.
He didn’t respond, and after a moment, he started to slide toward the right, careening off the chair and collapsing on the ground in a heap.
He was dead. I knew it without doubt and yet, couldn’t seem to believe it. For a few moments, I just stood there looking at his waxen form and tried to think clearly.
Desperation took over as I tried frantically to pull the iron bars apart. When that didn’t work, I dumped the water out of the bucket and hurled it repeatedly at the bars, hoping for a weak spot, hoping to make a crack, a dent, anything.
Nothing worked.
I clung to the bars, my head drooped, chest heaving as the enormity of my situation loomed.
It was several moments before I could collect myself enough to take stock of my situation. The toilet had water, so at least I wouldn’t die of thirst. I didn’t have any food, and my leg was still oozing blood. How long could I survive down here? A few days? A week? How would anyone ever find me?
I sat on the edge of the bed and allowed myself to break down. The thought of dying down here, of never seeing Max again, of not having the life with him I’d wanted more than anything, was more than I could bare.