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The voicemail had been left five minutes ago. I was too into stalking her ex-boyfriend that I’d neglected to feel it. If I would’ve answered it…
No, I wouldn’t let myself think about that. Right now, I just had to get back to that house.
When I made it to the student parking lot, I saw it was a lot fulled than the lot had been that Friday night. I made a beeline straight to the inner rows of cars, searching for something that would be easy. Luckily for me, I spotted a car that would work. An older, box-looking thing that’d be a bitch and a half to drive with its wide, square front, but it’d work for me.
I glanced all around to make sure no one was watching as I strolled over to it. I was seconds from jerking my elbow into the driver’s window when I saw the car was unlocked.
Stupid, stupid.
Pulling open the door, I got in. After moving the seat back, I bent over and got to work. I hadn’t exactly hotwired a car lately, so I was a bit rusty. Don’t you worry, though, because soon enough I had her roaring to life.
My foot slammed on the brake pedal as I shifted into reverse to back out of the parking spot. I’d gone with Charlie enough to and from campus that I knew how to get to her house without any directions. I might’ve broken some speed limits as I went, but I didn’t care.
Hindsight, that was stupid of me, because what if a cop caught me and recognized me? Thank fuck no one pulled me over. I got to Charlie’s house in record time, even though I’d argue it still wasn’t fast enough.
Her parents weren’t home, so I pulled right into the driveway, leaving the car idling as I raced to the house. The key to her house was still in my jeans, so I pulled it out and hurriedly unlocked the front door so I could barge inside.
“Charlie?” I yelled her name as I raced up the stairs. My heart hammered in my chest, so hard it practically hurt, but I couldn’t stop. I had to find her.
She wasn’t in the bathroom, and she wasn’t in her room. I almost felt relieved, but then I wondered if, maybe, she’d decided to do it somewhere else. Her car was outside, near the garage, so I knew she had to be here somewhere—and if she wasn’t in the bathroom or her bedroom, there was only one other place she’d be.
I moved fast. Through the hall, down the steps, two at a time. I turned to go toward the back door, pushing outside and heading through the yard, to the back gate. I picked up my pace, practically sprinting, and went straight for that stupid treehouse I’d gotten to know a little too well these past few weeks.
Weeks. That’s all it’d been. Funny how it felt like so much more.
My feet crunched on the dead leaves below, and when I made it to the ladder of the treehouse, I craned my neck back and stared up at the wooden thing. I didn’t see any blood dripping, but I wouldn’t let myself relax until I found her and I knew she was safe and still very much alive.
I went up. I crawled up that stupid ladder faster than I’d ever crawled up it before, even faster than I had Saturday night, when we’d decided to sayfuck itand, you know, fuck. I went up, and once I made it to the treehouse’s floor, I pulled myself in.
On my hands and knees, I spotted Charlie in the far corner of the treehouse. Her knees were drawn into her chest, her feet bare. She wore an oversized t-shirt that swallowed her small, frail frame up completely. Her face was red and puffy, especially around her eyes… eyes that stared wide at me, as if I was the last thing she expected to see.
“Brett?” she whispered my name, unsure.
But I couldn’t be relieved she was all right—not yet. Not while she still clutched a big, sharp knife over her wrist.
Chapter Twenty-Five – Charlie
I was a coward. I couldn’t do it. Iwantedto, but I couldn’t. The absolute last thing I thought I’d hear was someone coming up that ladder, and the very last thing I thought I’d see was Brett’s face as he climbed up.
That’s why I whispered his name so softly, “Brett?” Like I was afraid I’d blink and he’d disappear. My face was wet with tears. I was sure I looked like shit—made sense, since I felt like shit.
My hand still clung to the knife, my other wrist exposed. Maybe that’s why, as he crawled up, his expression hardened the moment his blue gaze fell to the knife. I opened my mouth to ask him what he was doing here, to tell him that my call to him wasn’t me trying to get him to come back, but he spoke first.
“Give me the knife,” Brett said, inching toward me slowly but surely, a single hand outstretched.His voice was so hard it would’ve made me flinch if I wasn’t so shocked.
I let my eyes fall to the knife, just for a split second, and when I glanced up, I saw Brett now knelt less than a foot away. His hand went toward mine as he repeated, “Give me the knife,” though he sounded gentler this time.
His strong hand curled around mine, the one with the knife. He didn’t jerk it out of my grip; he simply pried open my fingers and snaked the knife handle out of my palm. Brett never once broke eye contact with me, not even as he moved his arm away from me and set the knife as far away as he could.
His mouth was a thin line, his jaw set. The intensity in his blue gaze was enough to make me shrink into myself. I didn’t want him to judge me. I… I wished he wouldn’t have come.
“Why did you come back?” I asked in a whisper, a fresh tear cascading down my face. “You shouldn’t have.” I didn’t want him to see me cry, so I angled my face down and squeezed my eyes shut.
Maybe if I willed him away, when I opened my eyes, he’d be gone.
But that’s not what happened. No, instead I felt two strong hands on me, pulling me close, and the next thing I knew, I was being cradled on his lap, against his chest, with his strong arms circling around me so tightly I knew he would never let me go.
“I came for you,” he whispered, his lips brushing against the top of my head with every spoken word. “Like hell was I just going to let you do this. No, Charlie. Fuck no. You’re not supposed to die.”
