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I’d never seen this fucker in my entire life, but something seemed oddly familiar about him. His buzzed hair was red, and I didn’t know a lot of redheads but something about him…
Like stated, something familiar was there, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.
“You don’t,” he said, and my chest got all caved at a sudden flash of Aspen on my screen. Soon enough, it wasn’t just a flash. The fucker leaned against the wall beside her bed, and the way she winced had me gripping my goddamn phone. The man’s nostrils flared. “But I know you. You look different, but it is you. Actually, it’s because of her I figured it out.”
The camera moved, and Aspen filled most of my screen again. Her eyes closed when the gun touched her neck, and my stomach churned. My throat filled with bile instantly, but I got control of my shit. I had to for her.
I held up a hand again. “Look, man…”
“Nah, I’m talking, kid,” he said, and he was older than me, well older. He looked to be pushing fifty considering the dull color in his eyebrows and the age lines around his eyes and mouth. He may have been younger. He had bags and shit under his eyes, which made him appear older. Fuck if I knew how old this dude was. I didn’t care considering he had a gun pointed at my girlfriend.
Aspen was mine whether I’d put that out there between us or not, and if I never got to officially ask her to be my girl, I would put this guy in a fucking grave.
“She looks the most like she did when you guys were kids,” he said, staring at her, and Aspen’s gaze zoomed over to him. Her dark eyes narrowed, clearly confused, and I was too. This fucker knew us? The guy’s jaw clenched. “I saw her playing cello and the name matched, her name. I was a bartender at the party you both were at last night.”
“And that’s supposed to mean something to us?” I questioned, wondering how this fucker knew us when we were kids. If anything, that just raised this fucker’s ick factor ten points.
“It will,” the guy said, and his focus didn’t leave Aspen. “I saw you come in and play with her, then later, dance with her. Then later…”
What the fuck?
Aspen’s head darted back, a horror ringing her brown eyes, and that didn’t shock me. We both knew what had happened after we’d danced. We’d fucked a lot.
And that dude had been there?
How much had he seen? I’d waited to get her naked until we were in a room, but had he followed us in there. Watched us…
“Who the fuck are you, man?” I asked, getting both parties’ attention. “What the fuck do you want?”
The seconds in which this guy didn’t talk had me ill, nauseous.
“I want you to admit the truth,” he said, then sniffed before rubbing his nose with the hand holding his gun. Aspen closed her eyes, whimpering at the gun so close to her face, and it took all I had not to lose my shit.
The guy kept us in silence while he peered at his phone for a second. I didn’t know what he was watching, but I assumed the news coverage since I’d heard about his threats.
Aspen’s attention focused on me. Her full lips parted. “Thatcher?—”
“Don’t talk to him.” The guy pointed his finger at her, and I cursed. I bit the inside of my cheek after, and I clamped down so hard I drew blood. Right away, my mouth filled with the taste of metal, but I didn’t say shit about it.
I was too afraid. I was too goddamn afraid he’d hurt her, and I felt powerless like how Wells had admitted the same to me yesterday. Aspen was there at the hospital, and I was here. I was and couldn’t do anything.
“You killed my brother, you shithead,” the guy continued, sniffling again, and I realized now it was emotion that was overcoming him. He was visibly fighting down an emotional response, his face filled with red color, and Aspen blanched beside him after what he said.
I did too. I didn’t know what the fuck this dude was talking about. My hand patted the air. “Look. I don’t know?—”
“Don’t you fucking,” he started, biting down whatever initial thing he was going to say. He directed the gun toward the phone. “I saw you. You were different, younger, but it was you. You left my brother’s house, but not before setting that shit on fire, so don’t lie to me, motherfucker!”
Aspen’s eyes expanded in width, huge but mine hadn’t matched. I didn’t even need a mirror to confirm that because I had no visible response to what he said. I didn’t because I wasn’t surprised by what he said. Not like her, and most definitely not in the same way.
The fact I had no outward physical response hadn’t stopped my insides from contorting, though, restricting. The bile choked my throat in a new way now. It was sharp, violent, and I nearly lost control of the angry sea going on inside my gut.
The red hair, grizzly…
“It was you,” the guy continued, his voice somehow reaching me through the screen. It was like I had left my body and was now watching myself watch this guy on the phone. He got closer to it. “You killed my brother. You burned his house down while he was inside it.”
While he was inside it…
“I watched you leave. I watched you—” The guy cut himself off again, rubbing his face. Meanwhile, Aspen lay there horrified. Her mouth gaped open like she was watching the most gruesome part of a horror film. Her gaze shifted between me and the guy, and she really couldn’t do anything. She was trapped in that bed whether she had an aliment or not and forced to listen to this guy. He looked at her. “Did you know about it? What he did? You were obviously his friend back then.”
