Unholy Terrors, page 4
When the second guy moves into the doorway, Widow whips around and swings his baseball bat into the side of the guy’s head with the sound of shattering bone.
“Out the window,” Ash commands, turning to me as Widow slams the bedroom door closed and locks it. “We need to go now.” He tucks the gun back inside his suit jacket, and I wonder if he isn’t out of rounds. Aspen wasted quite a few shots as we struggled for control in the mud.
As I’m turning back to Lem, Ash grabs my arm and drags me forward, shoving me toward the window first.
“Go,” he growls out, and then I’m standing barefoot on the roof while Lemon crawls out behind me. She’s breathing heavily, but she isn’t panicking. Annoying as she might be at times, she’s still a Prescott bitch first and foremost.
Her eyes meet mine briefly, and I can see that she took note of Ash’s concern for me; he pushed me out the window first for a reason.
I don’t waste any more time worrying about fuckboys, climbing down from the roof and using the railing as I suggested as a foothold. Hopping into the dirt, I turn to offer Lem my hand, but she ignores it, kicking off her heels and getting down without any help from me.
My hand sneaks into the back pocket of my jeans, sliding my knife out as I watch the front door.
Something occurs to me then: Lemon said she thought she heard someone open her car door.
My eyes flick that way just in time to see a man climbing out of the Ferrari and lifting a gun in our direction.
“Lucy, down!” I scream, shoving her hard enough that she falls to her side in the dirt. The man’s shot flies clear over her head, burying itself into the wall of the house. He moves around the front of the car like he’s in no hurry.
No hurry and no threat.
He doesn’t see us as dangerous whatsoever.
Widow leaps down from the roof, crashing into the man and knocking him into the side of the Ferrari a split-second before Ash lands beside us. He hauls Lemon to her feet as Widow extricates himself from the man, pushing away from him and swinging his baseball bat into the guy’s stomach.
He looks around for the gun, but there’s no time to look for it. Two other men are emerging from the front door, both of them holding firearms of their own.
“Run.” Ash whispers the word out with the slightest kiss of his posh accent, and then we’re all sprinting into the trees together. There’s no way to get to the Chevelle without putting ourselves directly in the line of fire, so we skip it altogether.
Instead, we head into the darkness, skirting trees and hopping lush clusters of ferns, dripping with dew in the moonlight. Rather than make it easier to see, the light is broken into pieces by the fog, leaving us with this wet, silver sheen that obscures the world and makes it hazy around the edges.
Ash leads the way though I’m not entirely certain he knows where he’s going either.
Not that it matters: we’re all lost here tonight.
When he skids to a stop and puts a finger to his lips, we all struggle to control our breathing.
The woods are silent but for the distant call of an owl.
“Are we safe?” Lem pants, scooting closer to Ash and grabbing onto his arm. He ignores her, dark eyes peering into the fog.
“We need to get back to the Chevelle,” I murmur, rubbing a hand down my face. We just left it there with Aspen’s body in the trunk. If one of those goons were to open it, our entire plan could go down in flames.
Ash might not be able to step into Aspen’s role.
Hell, for all I know, he’s destroyed any chance of that with his actions tonight.
“Let’s just abandon the cars and head for the road,” Lemon whispers, glancing over at me and Widow. “Do either of you have your phones? We could call our crew and get a ride out of here, at the very least. Backup, too, if we need it.”
I move to slide my phone from my back pocket when Widow reaches out and grabs my wrist.
There’s a rustling sound coming from … somewhere.
A man appears in the fog, just a single dark silhouette calmly moving in our direction.
“Take Lemon and go,” Ash tells me, his dark eyes shadowed and impossible to read. He shoves her toward me, and I reach down, wrapping my fingers around her wrist. But when I try to pull her along with me, she yanks back at the last minute and throws herself at him.
“I’m not leaving you,” she declares, and then Widow is snatching my arm and yanking me away from my best friend. In retrospect, I’m damn sure he saved my life. In the moment, all I felt was pure tragedy.
Lemon.
Lucy Bree Hall.
The girl I’ve known since preschool.
As Widow drags me away from Ash and Lem, I see him step in front of her.
“Wait—” he starts, but that’s as far as he gets. Another man moves out of the woods from behind, and grabs Lemon by her hair. She’s dragged backward with a scream, and then a blade flashes silver in the moonlight.
“Lucy!” My voice is a ragged, broken thing, tearing from my throat like the scream of a wounded animal. It’s crazed and primal and entirely useless. The knife slides into her chest even as Ash is turning and slipping a knife of his own from inside his jacket. He attacks the man as Lem stumbles, her blood a brilliant ruby red in a stray shaft of light as it stains her silver dress.
That’s my destiny, I suppose, as the leader of the Crimson Crew.
Living, dressed in, breathing blood.
The first man that we spotted has a gun in his hand, but when Ash redirects his attention from the thug that stabbed Lemon and over to him, he drops it by his side, turns, and then takes off into the woods.
As Ash chases after him, I tear my own hand from Widow’s strong grip and sprint back over to Lemon.
No.
No.
NO!
I’m there to catch her when she falls, like always.
Lemon’s gurgling and choking, little air bubbles popping in the red that surrounds her mouth.
“Scar …” she chokes out as my knife clatters on the forest floor, and I drag her against me, sinking to my knees with my friend’s body in my arms. “It … it hurts.”
“You’ll be fine; you’ll be alright. It’s okay, Lem. I’m here. I’m here. I got you.” But it’s all lies. I have the tongue of a snake. Satan would be proud to hear such sibilant shit slither past my naked lips. But lies can be prettier than truths sometimes, can’t they? And there’s no need to tell a dying person that they’re … that …
“Scarlett!” a voice calls out, and I instinctively duck, curling my body over Lemon’s as another gunshot goes off. A man’s body stumbles and knocks into me before he goes down hard, careening over my back and crashing into the trunk of a nearby tree.
Widow moves up behind him, lifting his bat and bringing it down on the guy over and over again. Too many times to count. Only when the man goes still does he stop and turn back to look at me, panting hard, his eyes a brilliant, impossible gold when the moon kisses them with light.
“Hospital,” I’m saying suddenly, lifting my head up and turning to see Ash sprinting toward me. He sets his own knife beside him as he goes down to one knee.
Our eyes meet over Lemon’s body, and I know we’re both aware that she’s dying.
She’s dying.
“Hospital,” I repeat, and I’m sure I look and sound like a wild woman.
“I couldn’t catch—” Ash starts, but he cuts off his sentence and lets the rest of his unsaid words hang in the air like smoke.
Without my even having to tell him, Widow bends down and collects both my knife and Aspen’s, tucking them into his pockets.
“Help me lift her.” It’s a command, the voice of a general on the battlefield. Don’t look at the blood. Don’t look at the wound. The color of Lemon’s blood is what concerns me. It’s so dark. Why is it so dark? And those bubbles around her lips … Don’t think, Scar. Act. Move. I stand up, and both boys help me lift her.
To be fair, she weighs so little, any one of us could carry her by ourselves. But I don’t want to hurt her. I don’t want to hurt her any more than she’s already hurt.
“This way,” Ash pants, and we move as quickly as we can through the trees and the fog. It’s so damn cold and wet and dark that it seems like we’ll never make it back to the Chevelle, like maybe we’ll get lost in these woods and Lemon will die bathed in moonlight and fog.
Eventually, the porch light appears in the darkness like a beacon and there’s the Chevelle, materializing from the gloom like a hearse.
I climb into the back seat and the boys get Lem settled on my lap.
Even though I nearly took Ash’s head off for suggesting this earlier, I let him take the keys to Bohnes’ car.
“Drive fast,” I breathe out, and he nods, mouth pressed into a grim line.
Taking a corpse to the hospital maybe isn’t the smartest move in the career book of the modern-day criminal, but I’d rather go to jail than lose Lemon.
“Hey,” I whisper, stroking blond hair back from her forehead. Widow watches from the passenger seat while Ash shows off his driving skills, whipping us around corners as fast as physically possible without throwing Lemon and me around in the back seat. “Hey, girl.”
“Scar …” she whispers as hot tears roll down my face. There’s no part of my pessimistic little heart that believes my childhood friend is going to survive this. No part. But sometimes, even when we know the end result is futile, we fight. That’s what makes us human; that’s what tells us we’re still alive.
The moment we stop fighting, that’s when we die. Even if our hearts are still beating, death can come on swift wings, swoop in, and devour us whole.
“Just relax, sweet girl.” I lean down and kiss her forehead, my entire body quivering with adrenaline and fear as I keep her close, hold her to me, cuddle her for what is most certainly the final time.
“I need …” she starts, choking and sputtering, blood spattering my face. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. “I want Aspen.” Lem lets out this horrible, little cry, and I just know we’re running out of time.
We’re not going to make it to the hospital.
Not even close.
Ash jerks the wheel to the left, sending the car careening into the grass beside the dark specter of the woods. He puts the Chevelle in park and takes off his seat belt, turning and leaning his body over the back of the front bench seat.
“I’m right here, baby,” he murmurs, reaching out and taking Lemon’s hand in his.
Even amongst all of this, she’s calling for him, reaching for him.
Not for me.
For a man who didn’t care if she lived or died.
A dead man.
My throat tightens up, but this isn’t a moment for me to be selfish or even rational.
“Asp—” She can’t quite finish his name, but she clings to his hand, her eyes on him and not on me. I tell myself it doesn’t matter. It does. It’s going to royally screw me later, isn’t it? Her last moment and she doesn’t want me, no matter how hard I fought for her, how much I loved her, how desperately I tried to save her from this fate.
“Aspen is a snake, and if you don’t extricate yourself from his coils now, you’re going to find yourself suffocated and bleeding from the eyes.”
Well, maybe not the eyes, but the chest, the mouth … Do people realize that being right all the time sucks? It’s not fun. I don’t open my mouth just to hear myself talk. I warned Lemon for a reason.
So, yeah, I was right.
Yay for me.
Aspen was—thankfully past tense—a goddamn snake.
None of that matters.
When the heart wants something, it’ll turn shadows into sunlight.
“I … love … you so much,” she chokes out, coughing and spasming as Ash pulls her hand to his face, staring down at her so earnestly that for a minute there, my head spins with possibilities. Does he actually care about Lemon? Shit, does he love her? He looks like he loves her.
Consummate liar. Skilled liar. Beautiful liar.
Talented thespian.
I need to be careful with this Ash Kelly.
“I love you, too, Lemon. I’ll be right behind you. You don’t have to face the unknown by yourself. That much I can promise you. Aspen Kelly will be there.” Ash leans even farther over the seat, releasing Lemon’s hand and cupping the side of her face with his elegant fingers. He closes the distance between their mouths and then, as I sit there with my dying best friend on my lap, he kisses her bloodied lips.
She lets out a sigh followed shortly by a shudder and then … that’s it.
It’s over.
Lem makes another horrible sound, and then it’s as if she’s in the grip of a seizure.
Ash draws back, watching the entire thing unfold with an unreadable expression on his face. His beautiful, bow-tie mouth is bloodied and neutral. Widow’s amber eyes are narrowed, but he’s trembling, as if this is as hard for him to watch as it is for me.
There’s a minute or so there at the end where the invisible lines between life and death are blurred. Is the person you love so much still alive? Are they gone? Maybe it’s not too late? What if I’d held tighter to her hand? What if Ash had driven just a little faster? What if I’d come down harder on Lemon, forbidden her from dating Aspen?
What if? What if? What if?
I suddenly find myself on that closed track, and grief bubbles up inside of me.
“Lem …” The word falls from my mouth and then I’m sobbing. I’m hyperventilating and pulling her more tightly against me. Even in her last, she called for him. Not for me. For him. “Lemon!”
The scream rips out of me as I hug her close, rocking back and forth and sobbing dramatically. I mean, I can’t even breathe. There are tears and snot, hiccups and choking, screaming. So much screaming.
I’m mumbling things, but I have no idea what words are coming out of my mouth.
I’m crying so hard that I can’t breathe. Not that it matters. Do I need to breathe? Is air important right now?
“Scarlett …” It’s Widow. His voice is soft and gentle, enough so that it actually breaks me out of my hysterics for the briefest instant. I look up and meet his amber eyes, my gaze sliding over to Ash.
He won’t look at me. His head is turned to the side and his dark eyes are pinched shut.
Right.
We now have two bodies to worry about, and the night isn’t getting any younger.
Sniffling and shaking, I somehow manage to pull my phone from my pocket.
“You can grieve all you want,” Widow says, on his knees in the front seat, watching me with what I think is sympathy. Could be pity. There is a distinct difference between the two, in my opinion. “You don’t have to do that just now. I wasn’t calling your name to stop you. I just want you to know: I’m here if you need me.”
I just stare at him.
I don’t have the emotional energy to process anything that he’s just said.
Instead, I pull up a name on my contacts list.
My Dark Love Bohnes.
He answers on the first ring.
“Yes, my sweet little ruckus?”
I don’t even care that he’s somehow blessed me with a horrible new nickname. The sound of his liquid shadow voice sweeps over me, pushing back the crest of my melancholic wave just enough so that I can keep my head above water. Sure, the foamy sea is still crashing around me, burning my nostrils and throat with salt water. Sure, I’m still breathing in too much liquid, still drowning, but his voice is a life raft, buying me precious time.
“Bohnes, I need you,” I say, and there’s no room for shame or pride to interfere this time.
It’s just a simple fact.
As soon as he hears my voice, his hardens to steel.
“Where are you.” Not even a question. A demand. He’s coming for me.
“We’ll meet you outside of the old elementary school. What I have to say can’t be said over the phone.”
“Are you okay?” he asks me, his voice edged with suspicion and worry. There’s a kiss of frenetic energy there, too, like he’d tear the world in half to get to me. I really do owe him more credit than I give him.
“I’m … alive.” That’s the only response I can think to give that doesn’t sound like a total bullshit lie. Lemon’s dead body is quite literally lying in my lap. Am I okay? Fuck no. I want to die. Never in my life have I wanted to just end things the way I do in that moment. “We’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
I hang up the phone and set it aside, staring down at my friend’s still face. Her eyes are partially open. I don’t like that. I reach out with two fingers and drag them closed.
“Drive, Ash.” My voice is hard, rough, like broken glass and gravel in a garbage disposal. I sound dreadful, and I don’t even care that I accidentally called him Ash out loud. “Now.”
He sits back down in the driver’s seat and starts the Chevelle. Prescott culture demands that I drive the car. How could I possibly let Bohnes see another man in his car? Another fuckboy? I can’t do that to him.
Yet, I can’t move either.
I sit there as he pulls off of the grassy strip and into the street, staring down at Lucy Bree Hall. My friend of thirteen (nearly fourteen) years, dead and gone. Over what?
One thing is clear: those men did not expect Ash to be here.
Oh no, they were waiting for Aspen.
Rage boils up inside of me, stabbing through my bubble of grief. I shed more blood, but it’s all on the inside, drenching and coloring my very soul.
Aspen Kelly, if you weren’t already dead, I would gut you like a fucking fish.
I close my eyes and let the sobs begin again, allowing myself to get hysterical for one of the first times in my entire life.
Scarlett Force, completely and utterly undone.
Scarlett
We arrive at the old elementary school at the same moment Bohnes pulls up, driving my red and black ‘72 De Tomaso Pantera. I don’t expect him to have a passenger. I really don’t expect that passenger to be …
“Alexei,” I breathe, standing on the sidewalk, wet with Lemon’s blood. The reason I chose this spot is because there aren’t cameras. Not on any nearby buildings, not on the old school. There are no neighbors, just a junkyard of derelict school buses across the street and an abandoned building filled with meth and heroin addicts behind us, none of whom would ever make a credible witness.
