AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Yes, it wasn’t the easiest thing, stringing her up like this,” Brett was busy saying.
“I assume you had to do it somewhere else, because I don’t see a mess around her,” I remarked, wiggling the rib as best I could. It had started to move a little, but not enough. Not enough for me to yank it from where it connected to the spine. Just needed a little more…
Brett’s eyes had flicked to my mom’s face, then fell to my hand on her collarbone. “I did it here, over tarps so it wouldn’t make too much of a mess. I wanted all of the focus to be on her—”
“What’d you do with the organs?”
He started to explain what he did with them, but I stopped listening the moment the rib came free. With it in my hand, I whirled on him as fast as I could, spinning and stabbing him with it in his abdomen.
It was like he saw it coming, because at the same time, Brett lifted the syringe and stuck it in the base of my neck. He injected me with whatever was in it the same moment I stabbed him with the rib.
“You bitch,” he let go of the syringe, leaving it poking it out of my neck as he stumbled back. The rib I’d jammed into his upper abdomen stuck out, its red-colored bone shielded from the light with his body. He pulled it out with a grimace, and immediately fresh blood bloomed around the hole in his shirt.
I took a step forward and yanked the syringe out of my neck. After double-checking that it was indeed empty, that he’d stuck me with all of it, whatever it was, I threw it to the floor and went after Brett. If I could get that bone again, I could stab him over and over until he was dead. And then…
Then…
It grew harder to think straight, and my legs turned to rubber. My knees gave out after I failed to walk in a straight line toward Brett. I fell to the ground, not feeling the impact on my knees at all, and I watched as Brett collapsed back. He’d let go of the rib, now too busy trying to staunch the bleeding from the wound. He lay on his back, eyes on the wound instead of me.
Every time I blinked, it was like my eyelids had turned to stone. Whatever this shit was, it acted fast.
God, I was getting drugged way too often in Eastcreek. Being such a small town, you’d figure… what would you figure? You’d figure something. I didn’t know where I was going with that.
I lay down on my side, staring at Brett all the while. I reached a hand out toward him, but there were too many hands between us. No, wait. I meant feet. Yeah, feet—er, space? Too much space between us.
It grew harder and harder to think, and as I rolled onto my back, mimicking Brett’s position, I stared at the roof of the barn. I’d fallen down right under the spot where the roof had caved in a long time ago, so I could see the stars in the sky, tiny little white dots, flecks of worlds far from here.
I breathed out one more time, and then, when my eyes closed again, they didn’t open.
Chapter Eighteen – Alistair
I got there as quickly as I could, and I broke as many speed laws as I could to get there as swiftly as possible. If I didn’t make it in time…
No, I would. I was confident someone like Brett would want to talk, and that Brianna would drag things out as much as she could. Although, on the flip side, she did tend to say whatever was on her mind without thinking of the consequences, so she might piss him off and make him react.
If he hurt her, I’d be the last thing he ever saw.
Her location was a blinking dot on my phone. Rick’s tracking had proved useless; her phone had been dropped at the school, probably by Brett himself. I’d been nearby, but I couldn’t park nearby. My car tended to stand out amongst the crowd. They had a little bit of a head start on me, but with so many people at the school still, the roads were empty, and I could speed however fast I needed to.
Rick was with Gareth as a failsafe. I assumed Brett would go after Brianna, but I also wanted to make sure he didn’t go after Gareth inside the station. We had all our bases covered tonight.
Speaking of Gareth, I’d have to thank him for turning a bit obsessive when it came to Brianna. When he told me he’d bugged her shoes when she had pushed back against him and started to talk to Neo… let’s just say it made tonight’s goal a lot more attainable.
I checked my phone. I was getting close. I slowed when I reached a dirt driveway of sorts, and right when I was about to pull in, another car pulled out in a rush—small and black, but those were the only details I could make out, because the damned car flashed its brights at me. On purpose, probably.
I couldn’t see who was driving the car, but if I had one guess, I’d say it was Brett. Based on the blinking dot on my phone, Brianna was still up ahead. I could go after Brett, but what if he’d left her? What if… what if I’d been too slow?
As I pulled into the driveway, I dialed Rick, and he picked up on the first ring. “Rick, I just passed Brett on the road. He’s driving a small black car. Don’t know the make or the model, but he’s driving south on Finick Street. See if you can intercept him.”
“I’m on it. Did you find—”
“Not yet.” I hung up on him, dropping my phone to my lap as I drove along the dirt pathway. Eventually, after a long while, the path opened up to an old field and an even older-looking barn. As I rolled to a stop, I could see a bit of light emanating from inside the barn, and my headlights illuminated a bright red handprint on the barn door.
Blood.
Once my car was in park, I flew out of it, rushing to get inside the barn and see for myself. Was that blood Brianna’s? It was all I could think. I’d never felt so frantic before, never felt my heart beating with such horrid anticipation in all my life.
A battery-powered light illuminated the inside of the old barn, and a rotten stench filled my nose. I lifted an arm, covering my nose somewhat as my eyes spotted the reason for the stench deeper in the barn.
