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A steady stream of tears fell down my face, but I couldn’t stop them. I was panicked, terrified. I got my phone, using steadiness I didn’t have in me to scroll to my missed calls. I touched Thatcher’s name and the phone dialed.
“You calling him?”
I nodded and even showed him my phone. “Look. It’s ringing.”
He no doubt could hear the ring just as I could. Even still, I put the phone on speaker mode.
I sat with bated breath waiting for Thatcher to answer. I didn’t know what he’d done to this man. I didn’t know what this was, and I wanted Thatcher to pick up just as much as I didn’t. If Thatcher was in trouble with this man, truly, then I didn’t want him anywhere near this situation. I didn’t want him involved, and the fear suffocated me then. I may be on my own in this in the end…
Because no way would I let this man hurt him.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-EIGHT
Thatcher
The moment Aspen’s face flashed on my phone screen, I answered. It was a candid picture of her I’d taken during one of our campus lunches. She hated it, her face full of salad, but I loved it. She was calling me via video call, and I couldn’t have answered the phone fast enough.
“Thatcher…”
She said my name before I could say hers, and I started to respond, but then the camera shifted.
She wasn’t alone.
A dude was with her, a grizzly-looking motherfucker with a buzz cut and five o’clock shadow. He was also wearing a Regency costume, but before I could question anything… do anything at all, the camera shifted again. It honed in on the gun pressed to my girl’s temple.
Ice hit my veins, cold, frigid-as-fuck ice, and Aspen’s image went away completely when the man filled my phone screen.
“Wherever you are, get yourself alone,” he said, his voice clipped, serious. His eyes narrowed. “Don’t speak until you do and don’t draw attention to yourself.”
That’d be hard to do at the present. I wasn’t the focus of attention where I was. Not when literally there was a hold-up at the local hospital. Everyone in this entire precinct was buzzing about it, and the only reason I was here was because being at the hospital had been pointless…
They weren’t letting anyone in.
I called my father after I’d been turned away. I didn’t know what he could do, but I needed to either get inside that hospital or know what the fuck was going on. I told him Aspen was in there, and the moment he knew, he started making calls from home. I hadn’t heard back from him yet or any new updates from my friends. I called them to let them know what was going on, and they started making their own calls to help. Their parents had connections just like mine and were apparently helping my dad in whatever way they could once my friends had called them.
I loved my family, my friends there for me. After I’d been turned away from the hospital, they had all offered to come to the police precinct to wait things out with me. I figured being there listening in on conversations was better than nothing, but I let my friends know it was best they stay away from the place. It was chaos here and wouldn’t help.
I waited here for news from both my friends or my dad, Aspen’s mom with me. She too had been turned away despite the fact her daughter was in that hospital. She told the cops that, but she’d been informed a lot of people were in there, and she needed to wait to hear news like everyone else. The police weren’t letting anyone in or out via the directions of the guy inside holding up the place.
He said he’d start filling bodies with bullets if anyone left.
Apparently, he was watching news coverage of this whole hold-up on his phone. He’d know if someone left, so the cops were playing things safe.
Ms. Davis and I hadn’t known what that meant for Aspen, but I think we both hoped (and prayed) she would remain out of all this. This was a big-ass hospital, so odds were, the fucker doing all this was nowhere near her.
This obviously wasn’t the case, and my blood managed to run even colder. Aspen hadn’t been answering her phone when both her mom and I had tried to call, but Ms. Davis also said Aspen had been sleeping when she’d left the hospital.
I lifted a hand so the guy on my phone could see, then made an exit. Again, everyone in the police station was buzzing, and Ms. Davis wasn’t paying me any attention. She was still on her phone, probably still trying to call Aspen.
I ended up taking the call outside around the building, and the moment I was alone…
“I don’t know who you are, but if you hurt her, I’ll dig your grave myself,” I said, gazing around. There was no one out here, but I kept my voice low.
The guy on the phone said nothing, shaking his head. “I’m sure you would,” he said, his response to what I said curious, but I gave no reaction. His head tilted. “It really is you, isn’t it?”
I unfortunately couldn’t hide my reaction to that. I blinked. “I don’t know you, man.”
