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I rise up on my knees, pulling the dirty gag out of his mouth and palming the good side of his face.
“What do I do?” I sob.
He inhales, taking a gasp of breath. “Get out of here, Allie. Get out of here now,” he yells.
“I’d stop touching him, if I were you.”
I spin around, falling on my arse with my back against CJ’s knees. “Alex!”
“I didn’t want you to find out like this,” he says, a sardonic expression etched on his face.
He looks like my friend—sounds like him. But something inside him has changed, something in his eyes and his body language. No longer is he slouching, or acting like the goofy boy I’ve come to know. Instead, he stands tall, carrying a confidence he didn’t have before. He no longer has that shy, timid boy persona. Instead, his expression is bored, uncaring and dark. It’s like there’s an imposter inside my friend’s body.
“You touch her, and I’ll fucking kill you,” CJ growls, still struggling in his chair, making the sores on his wrists worse.
“Stop,” I warn him, glancing down at his wrists, but he doesn’t seem to care that he’s hurting himself. He doesn’t glance away from Alex. I turn back around, biting my bottom lip and willing my heart to stop racing.
Alex laughs patronisingly, glancing at CJ like he could take him on and win. And in CJ’s vulnerable position, he could.
I can’t let that happen.
If I want to get us out of this unscathed, then I need to talk to him, calm him down and get him to see reason. If there’s a chance of that. The person in front of me is too far gone; I think my efforts might be a waste.
“Why are you doing this, Alex?”
His head turns in my direction, but his eyes stay on CJ a moment longer, before falling on me. “Because he took what wasn’t his. It runs in the family, so I shouldn’t be surprised.”
“She’s not yours,” CJ snaps.
I reach behind me, putting my hand on his ankle and squeezing.
“What do you mean it runs in the family?”
“My mum’s little sister, my auntie, tempted him when she knew he belonged to my mum. She shouldn’t have. It got her killed, you know. It got her killed. My mum made sure of it, she did,” he rants, pulling at the ends of his hair. “I can’t let him take you from me. I can’t kill you.”
I should be relieved, but I’m not. The fact he’s capable of killing is something I can’t comprehend.
I wipe at my eyes, trying my hardest to keep eye contact with him without flinching. “We were friends, Alex. Best friends. Why would you do this to me? You killed those girls,” I say, my eyes flicking to the side, where a girl, who I presumed is Lilian, is panting in her chair, her entire body trembling. When I turn back to him, my chest tightens in pain. “You killed my baby.”
CJ makes a sound in the back of his throat as he pulls on his restraints.
“I couldn’t let him ruin your life, Allie. You’re too good for that,” he says softly, taking a step towards me. I flinch, shuffling back further against CJ. My entire body is shaking to the point it hurts. The blood pumping through me feels like it’s on fire, I’m that scared.
When Alex’s gaze meets mine, its filled with hurt. “I’d never hurt you, Allie. Never. I did this all for you. I needed to get him out of the way, so we could be alone. I couldn’t kill you. Not you.”
“You did hurt me. You killed my baby,” I scream, feeling tears stream down my face.
CJ struggles again, and I hear the pained sound at the back of his throat. It’s probably killing him that he can’t comfort me, protect me. But it’s my turn to protect him.
“Get me out of these restraints,” CJ snaps, and I hear the emotion in the back of his throat.
“I did it for you,” Alex screams back.
“And the girls? Why did you hurt all those innocent girls? Why did you pretend to care they were missing when all along you had killed them? Why, Alex? Why?”
I gasp, frozen, when he pulls out a knife from his back pocket, using it to scratch his head, and starts pacing back and forth, his eyes never leaving mine.
I glance towards the door, wondering if I can make it before he catches me, or if I’d get help in time before he hurts them.
