Present
I pulled back, staring down at her face to make sure she was real.
Alex… I smiled from ear to ear. “Oh, my God.”
“Shh,” she hissed, glancing at the door. “I know. I know. But don’t start celebrating. Neither of us is saved yet.”
She shot off the bed and hurried to the door, listening for something, and then whipped around, running into the bathroom.
I stared after her as she filled a glass with water and drank it down. Where the hell did she come from?
Did…? How…?
And then I caught sight of the portrait on the wall. The massive, framed painting of a little girl and her corgis frolicking in some garden hung open like a door.
A secret passage.
I smiled to myself. I guess I didn’t need that screwdriver after all.
Walking back out, she pulled her hat off her head and smiled at me with her full lips and white teeth. She’d cut her hair. The A-line, shoulder-length bob curtained her long neck, strands hanging in her face and over her beautiful eyes, her green a shade darker than Will’s.
“How are you here?” I asked, taking in her tight jeans that were a lot more practical than the dress pants I’d arrived in, and her fitted, brown leather jacket that matched her rubber-soled brown leather boots.
She was dressed to run. Dirt scuffed her jaw, and she pulled off her gloves, black gunk embedded under her nails.
And then I registered what she had said a moment ago, my spine straightening. She’d watched us in the drawing room last night?
She’d been here, hiding. For at least a day.
I shot off the bed. “Did you put me here?”
I pinched my eyebrows together, anger suddenly replacing the relief I’d just felt.
But her eyes darted to mine. “No,” she said, knitting her brow. “God, no. I promise. I have no idea why you’re here.”
“Then why are you here?” I demanded, tightening the towel around me. “How…where did you come from? How did you know about the secret passageways? Where are we?”
I had too many questions, and the confusion from when I’d arrived started to bubble up again. No one had any answers.
She opened the painting wider and leaned down, pulling out a black duffle bag. Walking over, she dug out some clothes and handed them to me, remaining silent.
I looked down at the jeans and long-sleeved black T and…
Yes. Underwear and a bra.
She’d packed for this. She knew she was coming here, unlike me.
I swallowed, staring at her. “Alex?”
Why wasn’t she talking?
She shuffled the stuff in her bag, refusing to look at me.
“Alex.”
Finally, she said in a low voice, “We’re on an island. In North America.”
“Canada?”
She hesitated.
“Where in North America?” I pressed. “East Coast, West Coast, New England…?”
But she just spun around, taking her canteen into the bathroom and refilling it.
An island…
Was it deserted? Was it near the mainland? Shit. There were millions of islands out there.
“Alex?” I barked.
Goddammit.
But she whisper-yelled at me. “Emmy, shut up.”
I glanced at the door again, remembering we had a house full of men on the other side who didn’t know she was here.
And even though I was glad she was, she wasn’t putting me at ease.
I don’t know why you’re here, she’d said. So she knew why she was here, then?
“How long have you been here?” I demanded.
How long had she been hiding in the walls? I heard those sounds the night I arrived. She hadn’t been hiding that long, right?
But even as the thought occurred to me, I watched her eyes shift as she filled her bottle, and the fury boiled over.
“I arrived on the shipment like you,” she said in a low voice.
I charged over, grabbed her water bottle, and threw it. I fisted her collar and shoved her away, growling. She stumbled backward, tripped over the toilet, and fell onto the ground, landing on her ass. She broke the fall with her hands and her eyes flew up to me.
“What the hell is the matter with you?” I gritted out as quietly as I could. “Do you have any idea what could’ve happened to me?”
All this time. She’d been watching all of us. What the hell was going on?
She breathed hard, but she never blinked. She knew she’d fucked up.
“You’ve been hiding in the walls,” I pointed out. “It didn’t occur to you at some point to grab me, too?”
“Of course, it did,” she said, climbing to her feet again and picking up her bottle. “It just got complicated.”
I closed the distance between us and swatted her about fifteen times lightly in the chest. Goddamn her.
“Are you hitting my boobs?” She batted at my hands. “Seriously.”
I didn’t know what was going on, and while I was momentarily grateful not to be as alone as I thought, I had no doubt she had the answers I wanted and was refusing to give them to me.
This was bullshit.
She caught her breath, and I stood there, not at all scared if she decided to hit me back.
But she didn’t. She just cocked an eyebrow, saying, “Save it for the plutocrats. You need me.”
I stood there, about ready to hit her again, but she was right. I had a much better chance of getting out of here with her.
She refilled the water bottle that I’d spilled when I threw it, and I stalked back into the bedroom, throwing on the underwear and bra she gave me. I didn’t put on the clothes yet, because if I faced the guys again, they’d wonder where I got them.
I pulled on Aydin’s Oxford and tied up my wet hair into a ponytail with a rubber band I’d snatched from the asparagus in the fridge.
“Listen…” Alex entered the room, stuffed the bottle into the bag and tossed the duffle into the passageway again. “We guessed Will was sent here several months ago—maybe a year or more, we don’t know exactly. He’d been using and drinking, and we figured with his grandfather’s re-election coming up, Senator Grayson took matters into his own hands before Will became a liability.”
A year… So, he had been here that long. At least.
“We couldn’t get him out because no one would tell us where it was,” she told me, “but we could get someone in.”
Me?
But no. She said she didn’t know why I was here.
So, that meant they sent her?
“Michael, Kai, Damon…” I rattle off, “and they sent you?”
She stared at me, but the hesitation in her eyes said it all.
“No,” she finally admitted. “Michael was coming. I… I micked him before the pick-up.”
I narrowed my eyes. She roofied him? “Why?” I searched for words. “Alex, why would you volunteer for this? A woman would be in so much more danger. It’s crazy.”
Her gaze faltered, and she didn’t answer me. Why would she put herself in such unnecessary risk when anyone could’ve come for Will?
Unless…
Unless she loved him.
That was the only reason she’d come in Michael Crist’s place. She thought only she’d be able to bring Will home.
My stomach coiled and jealousy rolled through me, making my heart pound. It was my place to save him. Not hers.
But it was ridiculous for me to have such a thought, I knew that.
I was jealous, though. I knew their history and I liked Alex—more than I wanted to—but somehow it hadn’t hurt until now, because she just had this way about her that made you all warm and want to be wherever she was. It was impossible to hate her.
And I’d been kind of glad he had her at his side. As long as I didn’t let myself wonder if she was better for him. If she made him happy.
But now I couldn’t keep the thought from my mind.
She’d come for him. I hadn’t.
She was better for him.
I opened my mouth. “Alex, I—”
But she pressed her finger to her lips. “Shhh.”
The hallway outside my door creaked, and she grabbed my hand, pulling me into the secret passageway.
She closed the painting, and we stood there quietly as she dug in the bag at our feet for something.
“Do they know about the passageways?” I asked quietly.
“I don’t think so,” she told me. “I’ve been able to skulk around undetected.”
“Seems weird,” I said. “There’s a secret room off Aydin’s bedroom with a two-way mirror. They should suspect there’s more disguised rooms and tunnels.”
She rose, and then I heard a winding, the rechargeable flashlight illuminating as she pulled out a large, folded-up piece of paper that looked like a map.
I dropped my eyes, noticing it wasn’t paper. Not normal paper, anyway.
I grabbed it from her, the feel instantly familiar. It was vellum. This was a blueprint.
How did…? Where…? I snatched her flashlight and turned away to inspect the plans.
“If I’m being punked, I’m going to kill you,” I hissed, studying the floor plan. “If this is someone’s idea of a prank, and we’re in Thunder Bay…”
“And they imported that waterfall you saw outside?” she spat out. “Think, Em.”
She snatched the blueprints and flashlight out of my hands and walked past me, down the tunnel. I couldn’t help but glare at her back as she flipped over the folded document in her hand and studied it while we walked.
No, there wasn’t a waterfall in Thunder Bay. But there were plenty throughout New England and possibly more on the hundreds of islands dotting the coast.
I needed to see that blueprint again. I could read it a hell of a lot faster than she could.
A faint light caught my eye, and I stopped. “Alex…” I whispered, inching toward the wall and closer to the light. “What’s the plan here?”
If we were on an island, she had to have a boat or someone airlifting us out of here. I guessed she had some kind of tracker on her so they knew where to come.
“I have a satellite phone,” she told me. “The cavalry is on its way.”
“What does that mean?”
“The Horsemen,” she clarified. “They tracked me when I was transported here. We just need to hang on.”
Hang on?
“It’s been days,” I bit out in her face. “I could’ve gotten to China and back by now! Twice! Have you even talked to them? How do you know for sure they tracked you? Satellite phones use a lot of power. You would have to keep it turned on for them to track you.”
“Or make a call,” she retorted.
I narrowed my eyes. “You called them?”
“Yes.”
“And they’re coming?”
“Yes.”
My shoulders relaxed a little, but still…something concerned me. “Have you talked to them recently?” I asked.
Her eyes sharpened, and she studied me. “Why?”
“It’s been too long,” I told her. “They should’ve been here by now. When was the last time you spoke to them?”
She shifted on her feet, looking hesitant. “The night we arrived,” she murmured.
I closed my eyes, turning away. “Shit,” I said under my breath.
“It’s fine, Emory.” Her tone was firm and decisive. “They’re traveling, there’s been storms, and I haven’t been able to use the phone at times because I was afraid of being heard. They’ll be here.”
When? One day? Eight more days?
We needed to leave now. Make it to the coast and wait for the boat. Anything could happen, and I still didn’t know who dumped me here, but it was only a matter of time before the shit hit the fan.
She walked down the passageway, and I spotted slits and holes in the concrete, light from the rooms on the other side streaming through.
“What do you know about these guys?” I asked.
All I knew was what they’d wanted me to know.
“Stay away from Taylor,” she said, flashing her light ahead. “And stay away from Aydin Khadir.”
Wow, better late than never.
I pulled her to a stop and looked at her. “Why?”
She sighed and pulled out of my hold, continuing down the tunnel. “Micah is harmless unless you hurt Rory,” she told me. “Rory Geardon…”
“Killed people,” I finished for her.
But she stopped and peered through a peephole, whispering, “His twin sister was born with cerebral palsy. She was confined to a wheelchair. One night, a small party of teenagers broke into their house and brutalized her.” She peered over at me. “And I mean, brutalized her.”
I stopped breathing for a moment, remembering his story. And one by one, he sank them to the bottom of a lake and drowned them.
For his twin.
I swallowed the lump in my throat, unable to bear thinking about the details of what they might’ve done to her. My God.
“He had a motive, but that doesn’t mean it takes a lot to set him in motion, either,” she told me. “Watch yourself. His mother is an ambassador to Japan, and his family is one of the biggest real estate developers on the East Coast, specifically in for-profit prisons. That killing spree wasn’t his only foray into crime. They certainly had it coming, but that doesn’t mean he’s done, so be careful.”
I frowned. He was probably unlikely to ever get out of here. That meant he had nothing to lose.
“Taylor definitely belongs in here,” she continued. “He likes to take weekend road trips to college campuses, set fires in dorms and sorority houses, and then molest girls as they try to escape. When he finally lets go, they’re so scared of the fire, they don’t stop to fight back or try to identify him.”
The image of him with my panties flashed in my mind, and I winced.
“And Aydin?”
She’d told me to stay away from him, too.
But she just blurted out, “Just stay away from him. He doesn’t get to win.”
Win what?
“How do you know all this?” I asked her.
She twisted around and started walking, ignoring me. I guessed she must’ve done reconnaissance in her search for Will, but…
I grabbed her, hauling her ass back. “You’re not telling me something.”
She knocked my hand off her arm and glared. “I don’t know why you’re here or who arranged for you to be brought in,” she whispered, leaning in close. “But I came to get Will out, and you’re going to help me.”
I stared at her.
“I don’t mean to be cruel,” she continued, “but you better keep up and stop asking fucking questions. I like you, Em, but I’m not leaving without him, so don’t straggle.”
Why the hurry all of a sudden? It had been days already.
My breath shook as I raised my eyes again. “A year,” I said, hardening my eyes on her. “He’s been gone at least a year, and you knew that when we talked last summer.”
“Well, what were you going to do?” she fired back. “Care?”
What the hell did she just say to me?
The urge to slap her hit me, but I balled my fists instead.
“This isn’t my fault.” I stood strong. I was to blame for some things, but not everything. “You’re his friends. You saw him every day, and you knew what he was doing to himself. This is your fault.”
Maybe she was a little right. Maybe I hated myself, because she’d come for him, and I’m not sure if I would’ve. Maybe it wouldn’t have changed a damn thing if I’d known about this place months ago.
Or maybe she knew nothing about me and should shut her stupid mouth.
She held my eyes for a moment and then dropped her head, sighing. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean that. I’m worried about Will. I’m scared, because I haven’t heard from my friends. I don’t want to be found here.” And then she shook her head as if clearing it. “I’m glad I’m not alone. I’m glad you’re here.”
I chuckled despite myself. “I’m not,” I joked.
She put her hand on my shoulder, giving me a reassuring squeeze. “Nothing is going to happen to us. I’m sorry I didn’t get you sooner.”
“Why didn’t you?”
She hesitated, searching for words. “I didn’t know you were here until I saw you running for your life through the forest on our first night. I spotted you from a window as they gave chase,” she said. “We couldn’t get out until the crew got here, and you were already discovered, so…”
So you stayed hidden.
I had been sedated when we arrived because I was brought here against my will. She was smuggled in and probably awake when she entered the house. She had intel, blueprints, and supplies. She ran and found a place to hunker down, no doubt.
“I…” she paused and then continued. “I kept an eye on the situation from my vantage points, ready to swoop in if needed.”
I studied her. That made no sense. She wouldn’t have been able to stop anyone from hurting me at any moment. She could’ve dived in at any time, collected me, and hidden me somewhere. Why leave me in their care? Every moment that she did was a gamble.
“What if Will doesn’t want to leave?” I ask her.
He wasn’t even remotely content, but he’d given up. Suited to his lot in life of perpetual sidekick, whether it was to Michael Crist, Kai Mori, and Damon Torrance, or Aydin Khadir.
Alex was quiet for a moment as she looked for the entrance to the next passage. “We just gotta wake him up.”
Maybe.
Maybe seeing Alex would snap him out of it.
Another wave of jealousy rushed over me. He would listen to her.
I heard a voice through the walls and some pounding, and I trained my ears.
“Shh,” I told her.
“Emory?” Another knock in the distance.
I darted my eyes to Alex. Shit!
Spinning around, I ran back for my bedroom.
“Emory, no,” she whispered after me.
I spun around, looking at her as I walked. “The chair is under the door handle,” I told her. “He knows I’m in there. He’s going to wonder how I disappeared if he breaks in and sees me gone.”
He couldn’t find out about the passageways.
I ran back to my room, calling behind me, “Go to Will. Come back for me.”
Pushing the picture open, I leapt through, closed it, and ran to my door, scooting the chair out from underneath the knob.
Opening the door, I saw Aydin standing there with a stack of clothes in his hand.
I swallowed the heavy breaths pouring in and out, so he wouldn’t wonder why I was out of breath.
“Why didn’t you answer the door?” he asked.
“I was asleep.”
His eyes thinned on me.
But he didn’t argue further, handing the clothes out to me.
I wanted to take them, since everything I had was wet, dirty, or ripped, but…
In my clarity, I was a little pissed.
“My brother used to bring me presents, too,” I told him. “After he made me bleed.”
I moved to close the door, but he shot out his foot, stopping me.
I looked up, seeing his eyes crinkle at the corners, and I’m sure he thought we bonded or some shit over that episode in the greenhouse, and maybe we did a little, because I wasn’t afraid of him anymore, but I wasn’t letting him off the hook. That was mean.
And also, the more I distracted him, the more time Alex might have with Will.
“What are you playing at?” I asked him. “What do you want from me?”
He dropped his hand, still holding the clothes, and stalked for me, forcing me back into the room as he slammed the door behind him and never took his eyes off me.
“The clothes aren’t an apology,” he said, tossing them behind me to the bed. “They’re respect.”
He stared down at me, still dressed in his black pants and smudged white T-shirt, but instead of feeling backed into a wall or defensive, I…
I couldn’t help the comfort I felt. I shouldn’t need his respect or admiration, but something about it made me feel stronger.
Strangely, he hadn’t been exactly bad for me, had he?
I grabbed the black sweatpants off the bed and slipped them on, fastening the tie and thankful these actually fit pretty perfectly, and then pulled off his dress shirt, aware of his eyes on me in my bra.
I turned around and picked up the white T-shirt, slipping it on.
I felt him approach.
“Does he know about your brother?” he said, standing at my back.
“Yes.”
“And he’s still so cold?”
I pulled the shirt down my stomach and fixed the neckline, straightening it.
For a moment, Alex was forgotten.
“You see Micah?” I asked him in a quiet voice. “Kind of playful, prone to smile, happy to let others lead because he’s afraid of upsetting the balance in order to take his place?” I paused, feeling him pull my ponytail out of my shirt for me. “Because he’s afraid of failing?”
“Yeah.”
“That was Will,” I told him. “The joker. He never had a worry in the world. Happy, because he didn’t want to be unhappy. He was charmed.”
I turned around, my mouth dry and so weary I just wanted to crawl into bed, almost as if I didn’t care Alex was here.
“He hasn’t smiled since I’ve been here,” I said. “Not the same way anyway. He hasn’t laughed or played or cracked a joke.”
“He never does.”
I nodded, Aydin and I holding each other’s eyes. “I did that to him,” I told him. “I killed him.”
Before I could stop it, tears sprang to my eyes, and I didn’t know what was wrong with me.
At this moment, I didn’t want to leave. I didn’t want to hurt Will anymore. I didn’t want to face the world.
Aydin took my face in his hands, wiping my tears with his thumbs.
“Stop crying,” he said. “You’re in the company of killers now. You’re not special.”
More tears spilled over, but I drew in a deep breath, hearing him.
“Welcome to the tribe,” he told me.
I broke out into a laugh as he wiped more tears, and I didn’t know what the hell was wrong with me, but it was nice to have someone to talk to.
“Stop crying,” he said again. “Shit happens, and you did your best.”
I stared at him, those words like a glass of cool water on the fire in my head. I wanted to believe them.
And there was nothing I could do to change what I’d done.
But if I’d done to Aydin what I did to Will, Aydin might not sympathize with me so much.
I belonged here.
