The Past
Hunter age twenty-one
Isabel age twenty
Taylor and Rex sit tensely on the edge of my couch, while I pace the living room floor. I look down at my phone in my hand and clutch my fist until it bleeds. Omar sent a picture of Isabel passed out in the cage my mother spent years torturing me in. She’s defenseless in her Cinderella white gown and hunched over. He sent that picture to my phone with four words.
Come Alone.
No weapons.
“I have to go to her. We’re wasting time.” My gaze flickers to Rex. He stares down at my gun in his shaking hands and swallows hard. “Rex, you have to be brave. I need you to come in five minutes after I go in. You don’t have to kill your father, Rex. I need you to debilitate him. When you shoot, aim for his knees or anywhere below his waist. I need him weakened. Do you understand?”
He nods slightly. “Yeah. It still sucks that this is even going on. God, he could be hacking away at Max and Isabel now.”
“Don’t think like that, Rex,” Taylor says, with a determined absolute. “Think about Max and Isabel alive and how happy they’ll be once this whole thing is over.”
“I’m going,” I declare, snatching my truck keys off the table. “Isabel isn’t going to lose a fucking hair in this process. Have a steady hand, Rex. I believe in you.” Without turning back, I run to my truck and press the accelerator, speeding through the dark woods.
I can’t keep Isabel waiting.
I didn’t come this far to have her dead because of me.
I will save Isabel.
I will make sure she’s breathing in my arms when this passes.
Miles and miles of dark road stretch in my rearview mirrors until I’m park in front of the enormous southern Victorian house shadowed pale grey in the light of the moon. I’m greeted by its mammoth black spiky wrought-iron gates that are here to keep something in rather then something out.
Breathing ruggedly, I force my heavy limbs to move around the house to the back of the wooded area where my worst nightmares have played out. Vomit burns the back of my throat when the rustic barn’s shadow looms over me like a warning before it snatches my soul out.
Gathering all my courage, I push through the door and my eyes go straight to Isabel. She looks too beautiful to be in this type of situation. She’s a snowflake tossed in the lake of fire. I’m a boy of fire that could never love the girl of ice.
“Glad to know you followed directions,” Omar says too close for comfort.
I’m so engrossed in Isabel that I never hear him creep behind me.
Excruciating pain explodes in the back of my skull.
My knees buckle and I collapse to the ground.
No.
It can’t end like this.
It just can’t…
Blackness.
***
Someone touches my face. This touch is not a loving touch. It’s an assessing touch. Why is someone touching my face? Where am I?
I shake my head to clear it and groan out in pain. It hurts. It throbs in a fast tempo that has my brain seized. The pain is sharp and biting, but the burn is far worse. Blinking back against the darkness, I try to fight the sleep that wants to claim me.
“Wake, my boy,” a masculine voice demands.
My eyelids close and my head falls.
Someone strikes my cheek. The aching sting spreads, causing my eyes to water. “I said wake, Hunter. Isabel needs you now.”
Panic sets in, pumping adrenaline through my veins. My eyes fly open, my senses returning. But I can’t move. My arms are bound and my legs are tied to the chair. He has me gagged with a rag, the duct tape slapped across my mouth. Another chair is back to back with mine. Turning my head slightly, I notice Max tied in the exact why. But he’s bleeding from his temple and he is completely out of it.
I can’t speak.
I can’t move.
I pray to God that Rex interferes.
My jaw tenses as Omar smiles down at me. “It’s time, Hunter. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.” He picks up a white bucket off the ground and dumps it over Isabel. She jolts awake, gasping for breath.
He whispers something to her too low for me to hear.
The pounding in my head has my attention divided, but I’m extremely focused on Isabel when her green-hazel eyes are centered on me. I don’t listen to anything Omar says, and I wish Isabel doesn’t either. But I can tell she does from the misery in her pretty eyes. He tells her about Tyler and Rex.
He tells her everything.
I stare at her, wanting to tell her how much I love her, how much I want her in my life, how much it has killed me to let her go when I wanted to hold on forever.
She pleads with him.
Isabel should never beg him for anything.
He doesn’t deserve the breath she’s wasting on him.
She looks at me and then at Max when Omar begins to stroke his son’s bloody matted hair. Max makes a muffled sound and Omar smiles evilly at him. He welcomes Max back to reality when he picks up a plastic jug and dumps it over Isabel’s head.
It’s gasoline.
He plans to burn her.
He plans for Isabel to burn. Omar pulls a gun from his pants, carelessly waving it at me and Max. He asks her to choose and she tells him to fuck off.
How badly I want to kiss her right now.
Come on Rex.
There’s a sudden BOOM and shattering noise. If I blinked I would have missed it. A bullet tears a hole into Omar’s leg. He twirls and drops to the group. The gun is flung over by the cage and Isabel picks it up. Taylor runs to me and cuts me free and then Max. Omar digs into his pocket and throws a silver key to Taylor. It stops at my feet.
I grab it, unlocking the cage door.
Isabel isn’t home anymore. Someone else takes over as she stalks Omar with the gun aimed to kill in her hands. Max screams for Isabel to stop, but I hold him back. I hold Max back so she can end this for all of us, especially Tyler.
Max’s body goes limp when Isabel pulls the trigger.
She empties a full clip into him.
Isabel drops the gun and takes a step back.
Max and I drag his body out.
We all stand outside the barn. I ask Rex for a lighter. He tosses it to me and I flick it until a brilliant flame appears. I throw it into the thing that has threatened my happiness since the beginning.
I burn down the thing that wanted to end us all.
***
Two weeks later
Isabel’s engaged. I look down at the glittering ring that claims her finger. Max has a hold on her now. Then I glance at the three platinum rings on my thumb. Isabel has claimed me as well. I touch her hair and her face while she sleeps. Max is working extra late tonight. He shouldn’t leave Isabel unprotected like this. Anything could just walk through the door…
“You left me,” she whispers to me in her sleep.
“Should I be waiting for you?” I ask, staring down at the girl I will forever love.
She rolls over, leaning her face into my palm. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
My thump slides across her pink bottom lip. “I’ll be waiting until I turn blue, Isabel. I’ll wait for you.”
“I’ve been hoping you wouldn’t go,” she says softly. “I have been waiting for you. I’ll be waiting until I turn blue.”
Gingerly pressing my forehead to her temple, I close my stinging eyes. “Forever, Isabel.”
“Forever, Hunter,” she whispers back.