Chapter forty-seven:
She hears it before I do. Because I’m still lost in the past. Trapped in the memories.
You shouldn’t look back, even when it’s tempting.
Carrie stands up and makes a run for the bedroom door. And though she hears it first, and though I am still in a daze, I still manage to grab her before she leaves. She doesn’t scream; I think her lungs hurt too much for that because she has a hand protectively over one side.
My fingers graze over her hair and I almost lose my grip, but then I close my palm around her locks and I pull back. And then she does try to scream but I clap a hand over her mouth and pull her back to my chest before the sound fully makes it out of her mouth.
“Carrie! Where the fuck are you?”
He’s inside.
It must be Adam. He had a key, not like that other person that came around screaming her name. Adam has a key and now he is in the house. I wonder what will happen now that he is here. Will it be like with Cody Mathews again? Will Mr. Fancy Asshole Adam kick my ass? And my back? And my head? And my legs? And my arms? My mom isn’t here to bathe my wounds this time, but maybe Carrie will.
“Carrie! I sent someone around and you weren’t here. You should always be here, you know that!” he’s yelling. “He was a good client, payed top whack for you because he likes it a little rough!”
I hold her close and I listen as Adam storms through the house looking for her. I hear him mutter something else as he goes into the living room and then into the kitchen. He must know that something isn’t right. That something is very, very wrong.
I would know if I were her boyfriend. I would be able to tell right away. I would feel it in my heart and in my bones and in every part of me before I even got here. I would know that something is wrong.
And now here is Mr. Fancy Asshole Adam storming up the stairs two at a time, still calling her name, but sounding less angry and more wary now. And I have no idea what I’m going to do. All I know is that I’m not a kid anymore, and I’m not a pussy, and he’s not taking her from me.
And here he is opening the door and coming into Carrie’s bedroom and he’s staring at me. A frown crosses his features as he sees me holding Carrie.
Carrie with her black-and-blue face and her wheezing lungs and her swollen head.
“Who the fuck are you?” he says, and he reaches into his pocket and he pulls out a gun.
And, what the fuck?A gun, Adam? Really? Who carries a gun around with them? No one, Adam, that’s who. Only gangsters, and you’re not a gangster, you’re a stuck-up white boy pimp, that’s what you are. A rich boy dabbling in a poor man’s business.
“I’m Ethan, and you should probably leave,” I say calmly.
Andwell done, Ethan,I think, because I even manage to sound scary to me.
Adam looks from me to Carrie and then back again. I must look scary because his eyes go wide as he assesses the situation. I remember watching an old black-and-white movie with Carrie years ago. The main character was in a similar situation to this, only he didn’t just have the girl as a hostage, he had a gun too. There was this huge shootout where the girl got shot because they didn’t think about the situation properly before starting to shoot. I don’t want that to happen here, not to Carrie, so I know we need to think things through properly. Especially since Adam has a gun, and I can tell he’s a trigger-happy kind of guy. Of course he is. Another thing to stick on my list of reasons why I hate this guy.
He’s too quick to react. He doesn’t think things through. Doesn’t work through the situation before reacting. So I know this is all down to me. I need to take control of the situation before he fucking blows it for all of us.
“Carrie and I are old friends,” I say.
“Looks like it,” he replies almost calmly.
He’s not dressed in his suit today, but he still looks pretty smart. I wonder if he just came from home. I wonder if he fucked his wife before coming around here to fuck Carrie.
He makes me feel sick.
“Real good friends, right?” he sneers.
Smartass,I think. “This isn’t how it looks,” I add on with a scowl.
Adam raises an eyebrow and I can tell that he normally gets his eyebrows waxed so they are a good shape. They’re not a man’s eyebrows. They’re too groomed, too perfect.
What a dick.
“Really? Because it looks like you got my girl there against her will and it looks like you beat the shit out of her.” Adam lifts his gun a little higher. “And it looks like you need to let her go before I blow your fucking head off.”
And it’s weird, because I honestly thought he would sound…smoother, more stuck-up, but he doesn’t. He has a Boston drawl to him, and I think how strange that is. Because in that black-and-white movie, the other guy (the bad guy) he was from Boston too. And God I hope that’s not a hint for how this is going to play out.
