And then she rushes out the door and jumps in her car and screeches away to race to Raffy’s house before the world implodes around them both.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Andi
When I open my eyes, I don’t know where I am. My throat feels like it’s on fire and when I try to open my mouth to cry out, I can feel that it’s sealed closed. That’s the first thing I notice—the tape on my mouth and how hard it is to breathe through my nose. I immediately recognize that if I start crying right now, I will probably suffocate myself. I force myself not to cry. Where the fuck am I?
My hands are zip-tied and the zip tie is connected to something. I squint in the dark space and see that there’s a nylon rope connecting the tie around my hands to the metal leg of a workbench. My feet are chained together but not bound to anything else. Breathe. Breathe. Oh, my God. I can’t scream; I can’t run. I can’t even start sobbing. I have to somehow work out a way to stay calm.
Don’t panic. Panic gets you killed. And... he didn’t killme. If he didn’t kill me already, he probably doesn’t want to have to do that. It’s the only thing that makes sense. That means there’s hope. I try to channel all the years of yoga and find an inner calm that will help me stay grounded enough to think—to not panic. Losing my mind right now will not get me out of this. I’m in a small space and it’s mostly dark, but there is a rectangle of light coming in from the gap around the door, so I can see in the hazy light just enough to work out that I’m in some kind of shed.
It’s similar to the toolshed on our property. There’s a work surface cluttered with dusty tools, empty gas cans on the floor underneath it. The wall behind the work surface has dozens of tools hanging from nails—they were probably neatly organized at one point, but now only a handsaw, some wrenches and a level are hanging up, and the rest of the tools are scattered around the floor and table. There has to be something here I can use. If I slide the rope that’s connecting my hands to the workbench leg up, I can stand, even if only partially. The leg stops at hip level, so I’m hunched over, but it’s enough to get my head above the tabletop and look around.
My heart pounds so hard it almost hurts and the adrenaline is surging through me. I can’t control the shaking, but my mind is focused on getting out. There’s a clarity that takes over when it feels like life or death, and I’m scanning the small space for anything that can help me. I see a box of wooden matches just out of reach on the table, and my heart leaps a little. If I can get to it, I might have some hope.
I see a few rusty nails sticking out of the wood at the edge of the workbench and they’re close enough that I can just reach them. Tears spring to my eyes as I formulate a plan to get myself free. I try to slow down and breathe. I lean my faceagainst the nail, right where the tape adheres to the side of my cheek, and I try to catch the edge of the tape on the nail. I use the nail to pick at the side of the tape until it starts to strip away from my skin, in small threads at first. Finally, I’m able to get enough of the tape caught on the nail, to carefully move my head from left to right and peel the entire piece of tape off. I suck in a deep breath, my throat still on fire from his hands around my neck, trying to choke out my life.
Then I look around to see how I can get the matches. If there is any way to reach them, I have a plan. Just below my chin on the workbench is a Phillips screwdriver. I bite the handle and pick it up with my mouth, trying to catch the side of it on the matchbox and pull it toward me. I groan as I accidentally push it farther away. I drop the screwdriver. “Fuck.” I get it in the right position in my mouth and stretch my neck out as far as I can, then I try again. This time I feel the tip touch the small cardboard box and I scoop it toward me, inching it ever so slightly so I don’t lose my grip. Once it falls to the floor, I practically scream with relief. I can get out of here. This has to work.
I sit back down on the floor where the matches dropped. I can use my hands since only my wrists are bound, though there is limited mobility. But I’m able to open the matches, light one, and if I bend my finger down in just the right way, I can get the flame under the nylon rope. I drop the first two matches because it’s too hard to contort my hand and hold it there long enough, but on the third try, I steady my shaking hand and hold the match in the right spot to start melting the nylon rope. I can smell chemicals from the cheap material burning my nose—like a mixture of burning hair and plastic. I want to turn my face away from the smoke, but I can’t takemy eyes off that match, which is burning down to my fingertips quickly.
It takes four more dropped matches until I light one more and get it into position and then finally, mercifully, the rope breaks where I’ve melted it. Now the only thing left binding my hands is the zip ties. But with my feet bound, I can’t climb high enough to get to the spot across the room where I see an X-Acto knife stuck into the cardboard of a turned-over box, like someone stopped opening a package halfway through and left it there. What I can reach is a hammer—I saw one on top of the workbench.
I get up again, but I’m not tied to the leg of the workbench anymore, so I can stand up fully and I can reach out both of my bound hands and pick up the hammer, albeit awkwardly. When I sit on the floor again, I don’t think about whether he’ll hear me and come out. I can’t worry about that because there’s no other choice. At least now I have a hammer and if he does appear in the doorway, he won’t expect me to have a weapon, and I might get a swing in. So I take the chance.
I pound the length of chain between my ankles with the hammer against the concrete slab the shed is built on and I swing and swing, gasping for breath because it’s more exhausting than I thought it could be. At first, I think it won’t work because it seems like it’s not even making a dent, but then suddenly, one of the links flings off, ricocheting off the slab.
I can’t believe it. I can’t fucking believe it. I spring to my feet. They’re free. I rush to the knife and pull it out of the box. I can’t hold it and also cut the zip tie, so I sit down on the box, hold the knife, blade up, between my boots, and thank God I pulled on rain boots instead of wearing my slippers when I flew out the door earlier. I hold the knife tight, then place mywrists in front of it, the blade rubbing back and forth in a sawing motion on the tie until very quickly, it snaps off and I’m totally free. I cup my mouth over my hand. I’m free. Okay. Now, where am I?
I go to the gap in the door frame and peer out. I have no earthly idea where this place is. It looks like just about every other plot of land in the tri-state area. Tree-covered, brush, rural. I see the house and I don’t recognize it, then I see a man. The man from the file of papers. Rafael Carro. I watch him walk out the back door of the house. He rubs his eyes as if he just woke up. Then he stumbles over to a chair by the firepit. He looks at the roaring fire in the pit with confusion on his face. What is going on? Why am I here?
All of a sudden, I hear shouting from the house, not clear enough to tell who’s yelling or what they’re saying. Raffy seems startled by this—and confused, even. Scared, I think. But he pushes himself up and walks toward the house, and then I can’t see him anymore. I try to tie all the threads of what I know together. I wish I’d taken more time to look at that file. I looked at it long enough to know some bad shit was going on and I needed more explanation, but not long enough to know how the hell I got here. Someone must know what I’ve done. Is this revenge?
The sound of a truck engine revving startles me. It’s loud and it backfires like a shotgun. Then I hear the truck screech out of the dirt driveway and pull away, and in a matter of seconds, everything is silent. I don’t know if I’m alone, but now’s my chance to run. When I push the door open to take my shot, I realized it’s locked from the outside. I’m trapped.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Regan
We take the back roads all the way to the house. I have to pull over and let Jack drive, because I’m trembling too hard to even grip the steering wheel. Everything in the world has been flipped upside down and somehow, I’m supposed to comprehend all of it and make life-altering decisions immediately. I can’t. I don’t know what to do yet.
“There’s a motel thirty miles out of town that takes cash—sort of off the grid. It’s a shithole, but it’s a good place to stay under the radar until you decide what you want. Of course it’s your decision, but I also don’t know how I can let you stay—now that they know I’m alive—now that we know you’re a target.”
“What about Hallie? Is she safer at my parents’ for now or should she come right away? Jesus. How do I take everything she knows away from her? Her grandparents, friends,her whole life. How do I explain that? How do we just disappear and let my parents think her daughter and grandchild are dead? It’s so absurd—it’s... How does someone do that?” I ask, swallowing down the tears, my mind spinning as the ramifications start to sink in.
“Because their lives depend on it.”
“What if we all band together?” I say, desperate. “We tell my family and we all protect each other—we... I don’t know...” Then I think about the night of the Labor Day party and how my car burst into millions of pieces with Ally inside and how bits of her flesh were found blocks away from the explosion. I think about how it was supposed to be me.
“These people don’t usually miss. The fact that some act of God happened and Ally Whitlock, who’s never driven your car before, randomly had reason to need it, it’s astounding you’re here. Either of us. If you’d seen the things I’ve seen...” He stops, leans his head back and blows out a hard breath. “The police are afraid of them. It doesn’t matter anyway, because they’ll do whatever they want right under the cops’ noses. They have such a network of protection, they’re not afraid to do it. Kids aren’t immune to the danger. These guys don’t care who they hurt.”
“That can’t be true. Hal is just an innocent kid who doesn’t know anything about any of this. Why would they... This is a fucking nightmare,” I say, and I wish I didn’t know any of it. I wish I could go back in time and pretend none of this was happening. I suppose maybe knowing is saving my life, but it’s all too much to bear.
“Two hours later and it would have been you and Hallie in that car, not Ally Whitlock.” I don’t have words to respond tothis. It’s true. And it’s not Jack’s fault all of this is happening. It’s his nightmare, too.
“They wouldn’t want you if they had me. Sometimes I think about just surrendering to it all. Since I found out they knew where you were, I’ve thought about it—that I should just give myself up. If it means you two are safe, maybe it’s the only thing left to do.”
“No!” I practically scream. “Jesus. No.”
