Chapter 9

NINE

TAVISH

My head snaps back as I realize how shitty of a job I just did dodging that. It might have something to do with the fact that sweat is causing the spray that’d coated my face to run down into my eyes.

With my eyes burning with renewed vigor, I go in for another strike as tears begin to run down my cheeks.

“Why the fuck did you blind me?” I hiss at Ellis, who is just lounging on the floor like he’s going to take a fucking Sunday afternoon nap.

“Because you abducted me ,” he snarls.

“I swear we’ve gotten over this by now,” I say as I see a blurry image of someone swinging something at me. I dodge a fraction too late and the hit grazes my ear. That’s when I remember that I’m not the only one with a gun. “Ellis, shoot him!”

“I can’t shoot him!” Ellis yells.

“I can shoot him,” the guy who’d given me the code says from where he’s still on the ground. “Just give me the gun.”

He lunges for Ellis who pops up and starts running, but he doesn’t seem to want to run back into the mansion and the only way out is through the door that’s between him and the guy I’m brawling with. He ends up doing a little jig in the hallway while trying to avoid the man coming after him. It really is a good thing the guy has a hole in his leg or I’m afraid he’d have caught up to Ellis by now.

“Don’t you dare. I will kill you,” Ellis threatens, but it’s wildly ineffective as he runs from the man while shouting it.

“Shoot him,” I yell as a cascade of tears falls down my cheeks. Why the fuck did I rub it in? Why did I do that? The burning is so much worse now! It’s like the fucking Niagara Falls coming out of my eyes.

The guy I’m brawling with seems to notice my bandaged shoulder and heads for it as I catch one of his legs and swoop it out from under him. Not expecting the sobbing man to do anything, he staggers and slams into the wall.

“Now! Shoot now!” I urge Ellis.

“What if I kill him? I can’t kill him! Come on, sir. Please. I don’t want to shoot you, but I will! I will!”

There’s absolutely no one here who seems to believe him.

Why the fuck did I get stuck with this guy? Oh right… I brought him here. “Just shoot him in the leg or something. It probably won’t kill him.”

“There’s an artery in the leg!”

“Then shoot him in the dick! I don’t give a shit, just shoot him!”

“FUCK,” Ellis yells as the gun goes off.

The man who’d been chasing him reels back and screams as he holds up his hand. “You shot off my fucking finger!”

Even through the stream of tears, I can see how horrified Ellis looks, like he’d just slaughtered the man’s entire family, not simply removed one of his many fingers. “I’m so sorry. We’ll just like… put that on ice, and then I’m sure someone can reattach it. And it’ll all be good. I promise it’ll be fine. I’m so sorry. I’m really sorry. I just panicked and you were chasing me and wouldn’t stop and I’m sure it’s fine. It’ll be fine. Please be fine.”

“Doesn’t look fine,” I mutter as I watch the demolished finger roll over to me. I grind it into the ground. “Looks a bit flat. Now, Ellis, you suck at this, throw me the gun.”

He’s too busy gaping at me to throw me anything.

“Ellis, the man might have one less pinky, but he still has plenty of ways to murder you. Throw me the gun.”

He finally seems to get the hint that he fucking sucks at this and throws the gun right at me. At first, I worry it’s going to be like one of those stupid action movies where his throw is so bad that he misses me totally and the gun goes right to the guy standing behind me, but no, the toss is pretty damn good.

It’s the fact that he didn’t switch the safety on before throwing that gets me. Kind of like the hole in my shoe. I think we’re all too busy gawking down at my foot as I slowly wiggle my toes to make sure they’re still all there to continue our brawl.

“You made me throw it!” Ellis says, like he could push any of the blame onto me.

“I assumed you’d put the safety on first ,” I hiss as I swing the gun over and aim it at the guy blocking the door. The man puts his hands up and Ellis runs over to me, though I’m not quite sure I’m the person he should run to after he shot at me —even if I was the one who technically hit the trigger when I grabbed the gun.

I shove him out the door before shooting the guy so he can’t follow us. Then before following Ellis, I snatch up the very nice vase these assholes said I couldn’t have!

Joke’s on them. It’s mine now.

Then out the door we go into the fresh night air.

The sky is cloudy, so there’s not much light from the moon, and my eyes are still fucked enough that I’m struggling to see very well.

“For some reason, I can’t see,” I mutter as I stumble over something.

And I realize I’ve just given him the go-ahead to run off without me. Not that I need him. So far, he hasn’t actually helped a significant amount… or really any amount at all. Shockingly, he doesn’t run off. Instead, he grabs my wrist and hauls me after him.

My eyes burn, my shoulder aches, and I feel a bit lightheaded, but I let myself be dragged off by him.

“I don’t know where to go, and you’re bleeding pretty badly,” he says, sounding anxious.

“I’m fine. It’d be nice if I could wash my face off.”

“What are you carrying?”

“My new vase.” I present it to him so he can be jealous that I got a vase out of this and all he got was to be scarred for life.

Ellis keeps pulling me along for a bit before he gives me a shove. “Sit down.”

“We should keep moving.”

“I think we’re far enough. There’s so much shit out here that they’ll struggle to find us. You look super pale. I think you keep aggravating the wound and making it bleed more, so let’s stop for a minute. I want you well aware that I’m only keeping you alive because you’re getting me off this damn island, and then you’re going to apologize to me. Tilt your head back.”

I do and suddenly, I feel him splash water over my eyes. It immediately feels better, but when he stops too soon, I blindly reach for the bottle to pour a bit more on my eyes that I finally succeed in rubbing the spray out of. Since my shirt is coated in spray and blood, I reach out and grab his shirt to rub them dry, which makes him smack me off a bit.

“Where’d you get that?” I ask as I realize he’s holding someone’s phone.

“Off some guy. We need to call the police.”

“No, we don’t. Let me use the phone.”

He seems reluctant to hand it over. “Why the hell would we not call the police?”

“You think the police are just going to drop everything and run over here for you? They probably won’t even believe you. And if they did, how do you suppose they’d even get here? I have people.”

“Well, if your people are anything like the ones who laughed at me in the trunk, I don’t want your people!”

“They’re not like them. They are them,” I explain as I take the phone and realize that it’s locked. “I can’t make a call like this. Did you get the passcode?”

“No because I don’t need it to call the police,” he says, sounding quite proud as he snatches it back and fumbles with the phone. “Why… why can’t I call the police? The option isn’t there. It’s always there.”

“Unless you disable it. Maybe he didn’t want to accidentally call them, you know, being the bad guy and all. Why didn’t you get the passcode?”

“Because I thought I could just call the police without it! I locked the guy in a closet if you want to go back in and get it. I’ll wait out here,” he says, giving me a thumbs-up.

I sigh and bank that idea for later because there’s no damn way the path is clear now that they know we’ve made it out the door.

“Whatever, we can still use it for a flashlight. Aim it at your shoulder,” he says as he starts undoing the makeshift bandage.

“It’s fine, just leave it,” I urge.

Ellis waves at the blood. “Which part of this is fine? Do you think you’re a vampire who is going to just heal from this?”

“Nah, I’m just tough—fucking hell… did you need to stick your finger into it? I’m not that tough! You did that just to torture me, didn’t you?”

“Stop whining.” He checks the wound then opens a plastic bag he’d brought with him before shuffling through it. He pulls out something and starts squirting it on the wound which immediately burns.

“What are you doing? Pouring alcohol into it?”

“No, we do this to little baby kittens and they don’t even flinch. Why are you moving so much? I have to get it clean enough that I can see what I’m working with. I was a bit panicked, so I just grabbed what I could.”

“You’re a rather suspicious guy,” I decide.

He stops what he’s doing to gawk at me. “I’m the suspicious one? I still haven’t heard a very good apology for what you’ve done to me.”

Apologize? What the hell would I apologize for? “I was simply doing my job.”

“But you didn’t even bother to look into me? To make sure I was the killer?”

I grimace a little at that. “He was making me work against the clock and he had a lot of pretty legit-looking proof that it was you. He didn’t know where to find you, so my job was to locate you and bring you to him.”

“Clearly he fudged the proof because I’m definitely not some… serial-killing psychopath.”

“I see that,” I say. “I mean… I saw the way you nearly cried after shooting that guy’s finger off.”

Ellis glances up at me, eyes narrowed. “Please. Don’t make me recall that.”

It makes me sigh. “Fine. I’m sorry that I didn’t look into you deeper.”

“And?”

“I don’t know. That I never offered to feed you, I guess?”

“And?”

I think hard about this. “I thumped your head?—”

He waves at his bloody face.

“I didn’t do all of that. Your face looked significantly better the last time I saw you.”

“Yes, but it’s your damn fault it’s like this!”

I grimace, feeling rather bad about the whole thing. I mean… I really, really did fuck up. But the proof seemed so solid. “Okay! I fucked up! I mean, you can’t seriously think I would listen to every serial killer who claims that they’re innocent, right? You have no idea the shit I’ve seen people do before turning around and playing the victim with ease. People can be really sick and the information I was given about you seemed legit. I’m sorry. I really am. I feel really bad and… what are you doing?”

“Closing up your wound,” he says as he snaps his gloves in place.

“Oh hell no. I’m fine.”

“You’ll be even more ‘fine’ when I close it up.”

“Do you even know what you’re doing? You’re not even a vet, are you?”

“No, but I learned how to suture things in tech school, and I do some sutures here and there. It’s better than bleeding everywhere, isn’t it?”

“I’m not sure about that—fucking hell!” I cry as pain spikes into my shoulder. “What are you doing?”

“Closing the wound, like I said. It’s fine. I’m just lightly ‘thumping’ it, like you lightly thumped my head into the side of a dumpster,” Ellis says, which makes me question if his goal is to torture me at this point. Like he thinks I could possibly deserve it… which… maybe I do.

I grit my teeth and decide I need something to distract myself with while he closes the wound. “So what does he want you for?”

“I… guess something my dad did or knows or something. I really don’t know. Haven’t seen him in hell… twelve years? I don’t know any of the specifics or what this Arthur guy wants. I just want out of here. It’s not like I can even give him what he wants. And when he finds that out, isn’t he going to kill me? I’d really rather not die.”

“He called you by a different name,” I say.

“Yeah… my name was changed when we went through protective services. Anyway, I’m all done. Let’s get it wrapped up, and don’t jerk your arm around unless you want me to stab you some more, which did make me feel oddly better. I mean… do you have any other wounds?” He’s holding the needle like he’d enjoy suturing my mouth shut next.

“Nah, I think that’s good. Nice job,” I tell him, deciding maybe some praise will make him kinder. Not that I was any too kind when I thought he was a killer.

“Okay. I’m really not the best at this, so I hope it’s okay,” he says as he puts the needle away and frets over my arm some more. Despite trying to be “evil,” I’m pretty sure he’s just too damn nice.

“It’ll be fine. I’d have just let it bleed all over,” I admit.

Ellis wraps it up with obvious care. “Now all you need is the cone of shame and you’ll be set to go home.”

“Funny,” I mutter.

He grins, seemingly proud of himself before the grin falls. “I really, really don’t want to die.”

“Makes sense.”

“Do you really think you can get me home?”

“My hope is that if we get far enough from the house, we can get away from the jammer that’s blocking the signal on my phone. They must be using something else that allows their phones to still work.”

“Does it work if they’re on Wi-Fi?”

“This is Cassel’s expertise. Mine is slamming heads into dumpsters. Yours is shooting a man’s pinky off.”

Ellis hesitates before quickly shaking his head. “That is not what I’d like to be known for, thank you very much. I would like to be known for getting off an island and going back home and never having such a weird issue ever again.”

“I say we head as far that way as we can and see if this phone starts working again. If not, I hope you’re a good swimmer.”

His grimace tells me he doesn’t like the idea of heading out to sea.

“Don’t fret. I have shithead on the job.”

“It makes me fret more when the person you have enlisted to save you is someone you seem to verbally chastise.”

“He likes it,” I decide.

“Does anyone like to be called names?”

“This weasel does,” I assure him as I use the tree to stand up. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

And with that, I start walking. I don’t want to waste my phone’s battery life too much, so I only check it for a signal every five minutes or so as we battle brush, weeds, and vines.

“Do you know how to fly a plane?” Ellis asks.

“Yeah, I can fly it, right into the ocean.”

He scowls. “What about a boat?”

“God, the last boat I was on sank. Not my fault, though. One hundred percent that weasel’s fault. I just drank the beer that came with the boat we’d stolen.”

“I’m finding out that there aren’t just good guys and bad guys,” he informs me. “There are two layers of bad guys. You and your crew are in your own layer and those assholes are in another.”

I shrug, not seeing many issues with this. “There are some people out there who are on a whole different level than me. People who force you to climb countless stairs while holding you at knifepoint. People who drag you out on a boat only to threaten to drown you.”

“I’m so confused,” Ellis complains.

“That’s why you’re better off with me.”

“But… these are the people you’re relying on to save you? I’m confused. They sound like they’d get you killed before they’d save you.”

“It’s fine,” I assure him.

“Is it?”