CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
LACEY
FIVE MINUTES EARLIER
I’m going through Mom’s incessant texts. I swipe away the last of them, a picture of Payton and I together as my wallpaper, his arms wrapping around me from behind, our faces lit up by the cell’s flash. He’s been expelled, yes, but it’s not the end of the world. Besides, I’m still going to tell the Dean the full story, how Ryan came onto me, how he practically molested me. Surely they will cut Payton some slack after that.
Something presses against my back. I hold my cell up. “It’s a great shot, isn’t it?”
“I’ve seen better.”
I drop the cell, turning to scream as Ryan’s hand comes over my mouth, a gun held low against my abdomen.
His eyes are wild. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have a gun on campus, but fuck Pemberton. I’m not leaving empty-handed.”
I go to fill my lungs, his hand pressing harder against my mouth. “You scream or call for help, you’re fucking dead. Nod if you understand.”
I nod.
Keep calm, I tell myself. Payton will be right back.
Ryan removes his hand.
As soon as he does, I scream at the top of my lungs. I try to kick at him, but he’s ready for me this time, lunging out of the way.
My scream is silenced when he drives the butt of gun into my stomach.
The sound coming out of my mouth is cut off. I go down to my knees completely winded.
He takes me under the arm and yanks me up.
“I’m sorry about this,” he says, “but desperate times and all that.”
I’m still trying to breathe when he takes a cloth out of his pocket, smothering me with it.
There’s a strong, acrid smell.
I drift towards unconsciousness still struggling to breathe, but it never comes. Instead, I remain in a kind of limp limbo when he removes the cloth, my limbs like lead. Ryan tucks the gun behind his back and throws my arm around his shoulder, beginning to lead us out of my room and down the hall.
“Payton,” I call, but my voice is dry and weak.
What the hell is happening?
Jackson walks past. He says something I miss to Ryan, but it’s ignored.
An alarm starts to sound, loud like a jackhammer to the head.
Everything is so bright. My head is floating as we emerge into the parking lot, people starting to swarm around us heading for the front gates.
What’s going on?
Confusion has taken hold of me. I can’t make sense of anything.
Finally, even my legs refuse to cooperate.
I’m rising, lifting to the sky, marveling at the streaky clouds above. And then I’m being shifted into a seat, a seatbelt pulled across to hold me in place.
It’s a truck, I think dimly. Ryan’s truck.
“Payton.” It’s a whisper now.
Out the corner of my eye I notice Ryan slide the gun down the front of his pants and turn the ignition, backing out hard and heading with the crowds pushing through the front gate. I don’t know where we are headed, but it can’t be anywhere good.
We make it past the gate, the alarm dying out and a fire engine rushing past us onto campus ground.
Out the window I see the Tower alight. It can’t be real, none of this can be.
Ryan accelerates hard onto the main road.
“What are you doing?” I ask, my lips tingling.
He looks sideways at me, pulling his seatbelt on. “What I should have done a long time ago: taking what’s rightfully mine.”
It takes me a second to work out he’s talking about me.
The horror of it starts to sink in.
I realize I can move my fingers, but I can’t lift my arm. It’s too heavy.
Ryan watches the road, pulling left off the main road and headed south.
“Your thing with Cox?” he says. “I honestly don’t mind. It’s going to make it all the sweeter when I fuck your brains out.”
He smiles at that, proud of himself.
The horror increases, the warning, but whatever he drugged with me is holding it away, making me docile.
My eyes dart around the cabin of the pickup for a weapon. It’s empty.
I manage to lift my hand enough to reach the door handle, but when I pull it fails to open.
Ryan taps the door controls to his right. “You think I’m that fucking stupid?”
He looks over at me. “That pretty mouth of yours is going to look so good around my cock. You’re going to love it.”
Even drugged, I have to force the panic down, pack it away so it doesn’t overwhelm me completely.
“You know,” he continues, talking to his reflection in the windshield, “I didn’t know you were inside when I lit that place up. I thought you were back at campus. That fucking Mexican was a shame. Hernandez? Was that his fucking name? Collateral damage, I suppose.”
I suddenly realize what he’s talking about.
Dante’s
He started the fire.
“Did you see it? When you were standing outside? It was a thing of beauty, watching it spread and learn, the flames becoming conscious.”
He looks across to me. “Oh, you want to tell the cops? You want to go blabbing to your boy?” He laughs. “Your throat’s going to be so stuffed you’re never going to get a chance.”
He’s a psychopath, I realize. I’m stuck, half drugged, in this pickup truck with a psychopath and no one knows where I am.
I notice my hand has become lighter. Feeling has started to return to my extremities. I wiggle my toes in my shoes, testing. My arms are responsive again, but so what? I can’t fight my way out of here.
As if sensing my intentions, Ryan takes the gun out of his waistband and holds it against the wheel with his right hand. “We use it on the ranch, you know—ketamine. I probably should have used more, put you out, but no one wants to fuck a corpse, right?”
I reach for the handle again, pulling frantically, but the door’s locked firm.
I could attack him, scratch his face perhaps, but he’s physically stronger and he’s got the gun.
My head slumps back against the headrest. The road we’re on is deserted, a single stretching line of black heading across the sparse landscape outside. I don’t know where Ryan’s taking me, but if he makes it I’m done for. You don’t confess a crime to someone you’re planning on keeping around.
I look to the side mirror and notice a tiny speck of black following us. It’s getting bigger, but slowly, given the speed Ryan’s travelling at.
It might be Payton’s Dodge.
Or I might be imagining things.
No, Payton or not, I have to get out of this myself.
An idea occurs to me, but it’s risky.
I take note of the dash. This pickup is maybe thirty or forty years old.
I breathe in deeply, my stomach sore.
I see a band of trees in the distance either side of the road. After that the landscape returns to nothingness.
That has to be it.
I wait, start to count it out in my head and get a feel for the speed the pickup is travelling at.
With my left hand, I reach to the door and take hold of the grab handle. I tug my seatbelt tighter with the other.
I’ve got to do this quickly before Ryan has time to react.
I check the side mirror one more time, but the speck is just that.
The trees are coming up fast.
Right or left? I can’t decide.
“Soon,” says Ryan. “Soon you’ll have me all to yourself, baby. Don’t worry.”
I calculate the distance.
I brace my feet flat into the foot-well.
Now.
I reach over and unclip Ryan’s seatbelt. It pops out loose from the connector
“The fuck are you—”
Just as quickly, I take hold of the left of the steering wheel and yank it down as hard as I can, holding on and steering the truck towards the nearest tree, doing my best to line it up with Ryan’s side.
“Fu—”
But the truck pulls too far left into the dirt, the tree slamming right into the middle of the grill. Still, the force of the impact is enough to send Ryan smashing through the windscreen, his seatbelt catching and sort of whipping him across the hood.
I’m ready for the impact, but the violence of it surprises me.
The pickup’s too old to have airbags, my knees hammering into the dash.
The radiator hisses ahead, the horn sounding out.
I unclip my seatbelt, wincing at a new pain in my shoulder. I reach over and undo the door locks, pushing the passenger door open and falling free to the ground, my legs like sticks of butter.
I try to stand and almost fall over again, the incessant hissing and horn drilling into my head.
I look over and see Ryan lying in the shrubbery, his face cross-hatched with fresh blood.
I climb my way up the ditch we dropped into, almost to the road when a gunshot rings out behind me. I see it impact the asphalt ahead.
“Dead or alive,” comes Ryan’s voice. “I’m fucking you either way!”
Another shot, this one not quite as wide.
I make it onto the road and spot a vehicle in the distance, but it’s too far out to see me.
“You’re fucking mine!” screams Ryan.
I climb back down into the ditch, crawling behind a tree to wait.
“Here, here, little kitty,” calls Ryan, his voice closer.
There’s nowhere to run here. It’s flat desert.
“I’m coming for you,” he calls.
I tuck myself tighter against the tree, my shoulder and knees aching.
I stand and steal a glance at the road.
The approaching vehicle is a black Ram, has to be Payton.
Relief fills me. It’s short-lived, a bullet thudding into the tree.
“You can’t hide, you bitch. You hear me?”
Does Payton even know I’m down here? Can he see the truck’s gone off the road given the way we dropped into the ditch?
I can’t take the chance he’ll drive past.
I keep watching, can hear Ryan staggering towards me, his leg dragging along the ground.
When Payton’s truck is close enough, I run with everything I have onto the road waving my arms.
He doesn’t slow down.
“There you are!”
I turn to see Ryan hobble onto the road behind me, his face covered in blood. The gun wavers as he lines it up with me.
I turn back to Payton, but instead of slowing he cuts left of my position and pulls into a hard turn, skidding the truck sideways between myself and Ryan, the first shot striking the side of the cab.
But the Dodge has too much momentum. It keeps skidding, the tailgate collecting Ryan and flinging him a good six or seven feet backwards.
I see the driver’s door open and Payton get out, his legs moving underneath the truck.
I walk around the front of the Ram cautiously.
Payton’s down by Ryan, kicking the gun away. He places two fingers against Ryan’s neck. “He’s alive,” he shouts. “Get the rope out of the back of the truck.”
I find it and toss it over, Payton binding Ryan’s arms together behind his back, but given the strange angle of his leg and bloodied face, I don’t imagine he’s going anywhere.
Payton takes out Ryan’s cell and brings it to his ear. “Nine-one-one? Yes…”
I watch him disassociated from the scene, as if I’m floating above it.
Another car has stopped, an elderly gentleman stepping out and trying to take in the scene.
Payton puts down the cell and runs over to him, pointing back in the direction of the campus and the column of smoke rising from it.
The man gets back into his car and does a U-turn.
“Lacey!” Payton shouts, his voice distant.
He runs over and hugs me.
I’m feeling more lucid, but with it comes a fresh wave of pain.
I wince. “Easy, easy.”
He loosens up. “Sorry. You alright?”
“My shoulder…”
I grimace again when Payton touches it.
His eyebrows knit together. “It might be dislocated. I’m not sure.” He helps me over to the shade under the trees. “Sit down. Help’s on its way.”
“I think Ryan lit the fire at Dante’s,” I tell him.
“I know,” he replies, kissing me on the forehead. “I know.”