The tap, tap, tap of water against my forehead woke me. I groaned and blinked against the low light. My thoughts were jumbled as I tried to assemble them into some coherent narrative. This felt like the worst hangover of my life—or maybe like I’d been mauled by an elk.
My surroundings came to me in snapshots. Packed dirt beneath me. Rough wood walls assembled so haphazardly that light streamed in through the planks. Old machinery in the corner rusted from weather and disuse. What the hell?
I started to sit up, but my hands caught, not on anything that held them down but on each other. I blinked at my wrists—wrists that were bound together with rope.
Something about the sight had everything coming back to me in a flash: Amber showing up at my door. The gun.
A door swung open, and light poured in. “Oh, good, you’re awake,” Amber greeted as if I’d returned a pencil she’d borrowed. “It would’ve been a real bummer if I’d put you in a coma.”
I stared at her, no words coming. My brain was still trying to compute what was happening.
She grinned then. “Payback’s a bitch, isn’t it?”
“Payback?” I croaked. What had I ever done to her?
The smile slipped from Amber’s lips. “You all just kept right on living like nothing had even happened. None of you appreciated how lucky you were. None of you know what it’s like to lose everything.”
Icy claws of dread dug into my chest. “You’re the shooter.”
The grin was back now. “Uh-uh-uh. Joe’s the shooter. They found the rifle in his trunk.”
“You framed him.”
She studied the gun in her hand, examining it as one might take in freshly painted nails. “It’s only fair.”
“Fair?” I choked.
Anger blazed in Amber’s eyes. “They haven’t paid. Not nearly enough.”
My heart hammered in my chest. “Who hasn’t paid?”
Keep her talking. That was all I could think. I had to keep her talking until help arrived. Because someone would know I was gone. Grae would call Holt when I didn’t show up for lunch, and he would check the cameras. He’d know that Amber had me.
The rage in her face only intensified at my question. “None of you! The survivors. Randy and Paul. Who the hell do you think?”
“I’ve paid, Amber. Over and over again. Excruciating pain. Months of grueling rehab. Endless nightmares.”
Her grip on her gun tightened. “My brother died. I was always supposed to protect him, and those assholes stole him from me!”
“And they’re in prison for the rest of their lives. They’ll never breathe freely again. They’re paying.”
“It’s not enough!” Amber screamed. “They need to hurt like I do. This was the only way.” A feral smile played at her lips. “Paul’s parents were too easy to pick off. Muggings happen all the time in Seattle. They never should’ve run away to the big city in shame.”
Nausea swept through me. Paul’s parents had been destroyed by their son’s actions in a way that I knew they would never be the same. But that hadn’t been enough for Amber.
“Randy was harder. He doesn’t give a damn about his parents. Those wastes of space do more damage alive than dead. I had to get creative. Joe was all Randy ever cared about, so he has to pay for the crime.”
There was movement at the door, the sun streaming in behind a large figure I couldn’t quite make out. Relief swept through me. Help.
But then the figure spoke. “But you almost ruined everything when you played Rambo outside the police station.”
The voice was familiar. Too familiar.
He stepped inside the falling down barn, the light shifting around him and revealing a face I’d seen almost every day for all my life.
“Jude?” I croaked.
“Hey, Little Williams.”
Amber sent a scowl in his direction. “I wasn’t going to lose my chance to give this bitch a little payback. She almost cost me my job.”
A muscle along Jude’s jaw fluttered in a staccato rhythm. “And you almost fucked our entire plan.”
Redness crept up her throat. “Without me, you wouldn’t have had access to the police department like you needed. You wouldn’t have known where they were searching. Who their suspects were.”
“Except I don’t have access because you got yourself suspended. Your temper only hurts you, Amber.”
She flushed even deeper. “I got suspended because of her—”
Jude moved so fast his arm was a blur. One second, Amber was standing. The next, there was a soft pop, and she had crumpled to the ground like a marionette with its strings cut.
My breaths came quicker and quicker as shock took hold, sliding through my system and numbing everything in its wake. “You—you—”
Jude scoffed. “I did you a favor. She had a real hard-on for you. I don’t know why. Probably had a crush on Holt like the rest of our class.”
He said Holt’s name like the worst insult you could level against someone. But I couldn’t take my eyes off Amber. The low light of the barn was the only kindness. All I could see was an unmoving form cast in shadows.
Jude snapped his fingers. “Focus, Wren. This won’t be any fun if you’re catatonic.”
“Fun?” The word was just above a whisper.
A grin stretched across Jude’s face. “I’ve been waiting for this for years.” His smile morphed into a scowl. “Those idiots just couldn’t have a little patience. This all would’ve been over ten years ago if Randy and Paul were smart enough to follow directions.”
My mind spun, the past and the present mixing together in an ugly kaleidoscope of colors. “You. You were there.”
The words that had been haunting me forever replayed in my mind. Only this time, they were in Jude’s voice. The right voice. “Where the hell is Holt? We need them both.”
His grin was back now, only wider this time, such pride on his face. “People are easily manipulated. You just have to find the right strings to pull. Take our little friend here.”
He gestured to Amber, still lying crumpled on the ground. “So much rage in her. She needed a place to channel it. I helped her with that. And she gave me the same thing Randy and Paul did. Cover. The cops never once thought I could have anything to do with this. Any of it. So what if the body count was a little higher because of it?”
The numbness was fading now, replaced by a sickness steadily rolling through me. I’d let this man into my home. Into my life. He’d held me as I fell apart, sobbed at the loss of Holt, at my broken body. All of it. And he had been the trigger for it all.
“Why?”
It was the only thing I could think to ask. Because I had a deep need to know why he’d been so intent on tearing my life apart, piece by piece.
The fluttering in Jude’s jaw was back as his hand tightened around his gun. “He has to feel it.”
I blinked up at Jude, trying to make sense of the words falling from his lips. “Who?” But I had a sick feeling I knew the answer.
“Don’t play dumb. You know. I’d almost think you’d be grateful. He left us both in the dirt. But no, you just spread your legs for him the second he came back.”
The nausea washing through me intensified. “Holt loves you. He always has—”
“He’s a traitor! He knew how bad things were for me at home. He knew it, but he still bailed. The second he decided you were the damn love of his life, he didn’t have any time for me and Chris.”
“That’s not true. He—”
Jude’s hand shot out, slapping me across the face. “Shut up! You don’t know! He had everything. And I had nothing. But for a while, I had the Hartleys. Until you came along and stole them all, too.”
My head rang, and my vision doubled. The metallic taste of blood filled my mouth. I tried to sit back up, but between Amber’s hit and now Jude’s, everything swam around me.
“You wanted to kill us both that night. Because we’d hurt you.” And now we were all hurting. Lives were being torn apart yet again. Why, for some, was the answer to pain to create more? To pass that burden in an effort to pretend it hadn’t scarred them? It never worked. It just left twice the destruction.
Jude’s gaze went glacial. “I wanted you both to suffer. But Holt most of all. I wanted him to watch the life drain from your body before I took his. Slowly. So he felt it all.”
Bile surged up my throat, and I struggled to swallow it down. “Jude…don’t.”
That grin was back. “Sorry, Little Williams.”
He pulled a phone from his back pocket. “It might be ten years too late, but we’re going to watch him suffer now.”
