Alex and I tried, stepping left and right and trying to get through, but strong arms pulled me back.
“Take her,” Will ordered.
The next thing I knew I was being swept into someone’s arms and over his shoulder, and I screamed, trying to thrash my way free.
I could walk.
“And don’t put her down,” Will growled. “She likes to not cooperate.”
Motherfucker!
“Lev!” someone called.
And then I heard someone say David and murmurs mentioning Aydin and Misha.
Where were we going?
We left the house, rain splattering my body as the foyer grew smaller and smaller in my vision and more of the house came into view.
The fire reached the upstairs windows, an orange glow filling the rooms behind the curtains, and I stared as far into the foyer as I could the farther away we got, hoping for Aydin to make it.
Waiting to see a glimpse of him.
I didn’t want him to die.
“Give her to me,” Micah growled.
I was pulled off someone’s shoulder and into Micah’s arms, looking over and seeing that Michael was the one who had been carrying me.
I snarled at him.
“I got her,” Micah told him.
Michael nodded and ran ahead, and as soon as he was gone, Micah dropped me to my feet, holding my hand as we ran with everyone else. I looked over my shoulder, stumbling.
The greenhouse was separated from the main house. Not that I cared about the snakes, but that was a rotten way for any living being to go. They should be safe, though.
We ran through the woods, and I barely noticed the cold as the thunder roared over us and the rain spilled heavier.
“Where are we?” Will asked them.
“You’ll never guess,” Damon told him.
“How long will it take to get home,” Will prodded.
And everyone just laughed, whatever that meant.
We raced through the trees, and I gasped for breath as my legs turned to rubber under me.
“Micah,” I pleaded for him to slow.
But he just pulled me along, and then I saw it, through the trees in the distance.
I squinted, trying to blink away the blur that was always there. I needed my glasses. Shit.
Was that a… A train?
We scurried over the rocks and leaves, past the tree line to a train spanning to my left and right on tracks as far as I could see.
Did Aydin know this was here? They all must’ve known. We hadn’t run that long—maybe ten minutes?
Maybe he thought it was abandoned.
Everyone ran to a car in the middle, and I looked at the beautiful black steam engine, old but well restored. Curtains hung on the inside of the windows, and the engine chugged a steady rhythm.
“Go!” Erika shouted. “Go now!”
Everyone climbed into the car, and I looked behind me one more time for any sign of Aydin or Taylor.
I do know where you’re going, he’d said.
I didn’t even have to act like I didn’t know, either.
Back to Thunder Bay.
“Close the doors!” Michael shouted and hung out the door, waving, probably to the conductor.
We all piled in, some dark-haired woman grabbing Will’s wrist and cutting off his bracelet with a bolt cutter. She planted a quick kiss on his cheek, and then moved to Micah and Rory, severed theirs from their wrists and tossing them all out the window.
The train moved under us, and I swayed, but before I could even look around or figure out who the other women were, someone grabbed my arm and whipped me around.
“You hesitated,” Will growled, black streaks covering his body from the fire. “In the cellar… You hesitated! Again! And you were going back for him when you never came back for me. Ever!”
I flinched, remembering minutes ago when he’d told me to come to him.
He saw it as me taking Aydin’s side.
I saw it as me standing on my own. “Will…”
“After everything you’ve done to us, you hesitated!” he yelled, his face twisted in anger.
Everyone surrounded us, standing silently, and I felt the heat of their eyes like I was a mouse and they were snakes circling me.
“What are you talking about?” Damon asked him. “What do you mean ‘to us’? What did she do?”
I stared at Will, shaking my head slowly, begging him. Not here. Please, not here. Not now.
He straightened and drifted backward a couple of steps, finally having me trapped exactly where I deserved and savoring this moment.
“She’s the reason we all went to jail seven years ago,” he told them.
Emory
Seven Years Ago
-A few months after the attack on Martin Scott-
“Hey,” Thea called out, entering our room.
I looked up from my desk, seeing her whip off her Mia Wallace wig and toss it on our futon couch with the adrenaline needle she’d made me plaster to her chest earlier tonight. Her boyfriend was supposed to complete her Pulp Fiction theme by going as Vincent Vega, but they got in a fight an hour before, and I let her go to the party alone.
Like a jerk.
“Hey,” I said, smiling at her makeup smeared everywhere. “Have fun?”
Judging from the lipstick across her cheek, Vincent must’ve found her and they made up.
But she just shrugged. “Eh, I don’t remember.”
I snorted as she skipped over to me, the beer on her breath hitting my nose. “But I thought of you.” She held out a small jack-o’-lantern, already carved with a toothless happy face. “I stole it from in front of a frat house on my way home.”
I laughed, taking it. “Thank you.”
Man, I lucked out with roommates.
I shook my head, setting the pumpkin on my desk. After I’d graduated last spring, I convinced Martin to use my college fund to put Grand-Mère in the nicest home money could buy because I didn’t need it. With a scholarship thanks to my stunning designs around Thunder Bay, showcasing how you can make a ruin still functional while keeping its character, I didn’t need my college fund. What I didn’t cover with the scholarship, I got in loans. Screw it.
I had wanted to handle her myself, but he had power of attorney over her care, and that wasn’t changing. He agreed when I outlined the perks of having the house to himself finally, plus the respect and admiration of people thinking he paid for her first-class care out of his modest, civil servant salary.
I called her every day, and I hadn’t spoken to him since I’d left after graduation. I interned in San Francisco for the summer, snuck into town in late July to visit her, and then promptly left again to move into my dorm.
“You should’ve come,” Thea said. “For once, just say…‘yes’.” And then she moaned loudly. “Yes, yes, yes!”
There were no shortages of parties and fun at Berkeley, but in the two months since school had started, adjusting to a new set of people and new surroundings proved harder than I thought it would be.
Which was stupid, because I didn’t think anyone would agree I’d particularly adjusted to Thunder Bay, either, and I grew up there.
I was kind of homesick.
“I ruin the fun,” I told her with a half-smile. “Trust me.”
I took out a pack of matches from my drawer and lit the tealight still inside the pumpkin, the warm glow peeking out of his eyes and mouth. We weren’t supposed to be lighting anything in the dorms, but they’d never know.