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Once I had steady enough footing he steered me into his parents’ room to the mirror in the bathroom. When I saw myself I almost fainted. I was drenched in blood, his and mine, mostly mine. I was afraid to look at what he had carved into my chest but he shouted for me to open my eyes and I met my body’s image. I focused on the damage he’d done. My eyes zeroed in on his artwork. Right underneath my left collarbone, carved in the flesh, was the letter ‘E’.
“You’ll take him to the grave with you Julia,” he said, bringing his hand to the ‘E’ from over my shoulder and pressing the raw wound, causing even more blood to stream down my skin and soak through my bra. I shouted at the agony of it but the tears never came.
I didn’t know if he meant Elliott’s initial or if he literally meant Elliott himself, but I didn’t want to find out, to be honest. I only wanted Elliott never to come anywhere near us. He was my everything and didn’t deserve to see me like this. I looked like death warmed over. My hair was plastered to my skin from all the blood and the E was bleeding profusely all over the floor and counter top.
“Enough,” he said before tearing me through the bedroom and into the laundry room. He made me grab my now dry clothes from the dryer and put them back on. My ‘E’ bled through my shirt, soaked into my clothing and dripped into my jeans.
He pushed me from the laundry room and tossed me onto the pine planks of the living room. He tied me once more but didn’t tape my mouth shut, for which I was grateful, but it didn’t last long because he went into the bedroom and I heard the tearing of some fabric. He came out with strips of what looked like a sheet and gagged me by tying it tight behind my ahead and across my mouth. I could barely breathe.
“I’ll be back Julia. Just need to take care of these knife wounds. Can’t very well flee West Virginia if I’m bleeding a trailed path that leads to my hiding place, can I? Leaves a nasty trail. I’ll have enough trouble as it is hiding yours.”
He turned for his parents’ bathroom, dripping life over every inch of the floor, painting glassy crimson proof of the promise of my own impending trail. I turned from my side to my back and quietly sobbed, praying that I could stop the salt water flow before he got out of his shower.
Please, I silently prayed, Please God, let my death be a peaceful one.
Chapter Ten
My Calling
“Let’s go,” Matt said.
I followed him to his car and placed my hand on my chest at the pain under my left collarbone before signaling to head towards my house and he revved his engine. I needed him to come with me to Blackwater Falls but his old Camaro couldn’t make the trek. He had no chains on his tires and we were going into some crazy weather and it wasn’t likely to make it up the obscure dirt road to Jesse’s parents’ cabin.
I needed to get to my truck, not just for the truck though, for several baseball bats setting underneath my seat as well.
The car ride to my house felt like an eternity. We were understandably quiet. The fact that I couldn’t speak more than one or two words together wasn’t helping much either. I could also tell Matt didn’t want to cause me any unnecessary pain or maybe he was taking my ‘no questions asked’ demand a bit too literally. It was probably the fact that he already knew where we were going and was debating on whether or not it was worth our friendship to take me back to the hospital and spare both our lives or even Jesse’s.
Jesse. Jesse, the most deranged person I’ve ever known of in my entire life and whom I had no idea had it in him to be so. Jesse, someone I don’t even think Marisa or even Taylor knew was capable of such monstrosity.
When Matt killed the engine, he sat in the driver’s seat while I removed my seat belt and began to exit the car. He didn’t so much as blink and I hesitated at the door’s handle, sat back again only to nod in realization that Matt had no intention of coming with me. I didn’t blame him. He did the most he was willing to do and I could tell he was struggling with the words to say. I grabbed his shoulder, squeezed, and smiled the best crooked smile I could through the pain to let him know it was okay and bolted into the winter’s night.
I struggled through the falling snow to my truck and put it in neutral to push back onto the road without waking my mom or sister. The next thing I knew Matt was beside me helping me push her onto the road. I hopped into the cab, waved my thank you, and watched Matt hug his arms through my rear view. Poor Matt. I could only imagine what he was thinking but there was one thing I knew for certain. His eyes were the most worried I’d ever seen them. It instantly aged him.
The four and a half hour drive to Blackwater Falls left room for me to imagine the worst scenarios possible. I made a mental checklist of all the things I was going to need if I was forced to go out into the woods to find Jules. I prayed that he was keeping her at the cabin but feared that since the police had already been there I would find the same thing they did, nothing.
The pang of hurt settled inside my chest at the thought of what Jesse might have done to Jules while I was out and I found my foot laying harder on the gas. I absently placed my hand over the place on my chest I knew Julia was hurting the worst.
The roads were barely visible through the thick fog of snow tossing and turning around me. It wasn’t sticking and that was very good news to me. I hadn’t even needed to wait long for my windshield to defrost. My heart, on the other hand was another story, frozen solid knowing Jules was so close yet so very far away from me.
Four hours passed sluggishly before I found myself at the obscure turn off that was the Thomas’ private drive to their small vacation home but in Jesse’s case it was more his own private hideaway from the law.
I was lucky to find it at all, not only because of the weather, but also because I’d only been there twice before. I turned onto the drive and slowly snaked the truck through two miles of blizzard. The truck slipped and skidded a few times in a dangerous ice dance but when I finally reached the cabin my earlier prediction struck home. It was dark, not a single light on.
I hid the truck in an alcove of trees I was confident wouldn’t hinder a hasty retreat and slipped out. I circled the cabin with my bat in hand looking for any signs of their whereabouts. I found Jesse’s car parked in the back next to the firewood. I was hoping since the police had come and left at that point that Jesse would feel comfortable coming back to the cabin but it was a false hope, just one I was so wishing was true.
I walked through his screened porch and shook the snow from my boots and body. I pressed my ear against the door and heard nothing. I checked the handle and it was unlocked. I hesitated, thinking it was a trap, but saw no smoke coming from the chimney and was fairly sure he wouldn’t have been inside without one, the cold was that bitter.
I stepped inside and the cabin felt as icy cold as it was outside. If they had been there it had to have been hours before because the fireplace was completely void of any warmth. I could tell there had been a recent fire though, no more than a day old, probably less gauging the time frame he was working under.
My jaw throbbed as the pain medication wore off but I did notice my strength was returning with more potency as the pain grew worse. It was worth the trade off. I needed all the strength I could assemble. God only knew how long it was going to take for me to find Jules and then I was probably going to have to fight Jesse once I came upon them.
I circled the entire living room searching, begging for a clue of any kind that could lead me to my Jules but it was too dark. I wasn’t about to turn on a light near any windows just in case he was nearby and watching for me.
My back against the wall, I scaled the one nearest the master bedroom and opened the door to the room but didn’t step in, waiting for the possibility that he could be hiding with Jules in the room. I glanced around the room, I threw open the closet doors, peered underneath the bed but no one was there.
I turned to leave the room and noticed I hadn’t checked the bathroom, no windows in there. I approached this door as I had the master’s and waited before entering. When I stepped inside, I flipped on the light, nearly vomiting from the scene before me. It was covered in blood, lots and lots of sickeningly rusted blood. It was clotted and had been there for hours.
Obviously, the police hadn’t had a warrant to enter the Thomas home or they’d have corded off the room as evidence, or maybe Jesse came after they had.
