Series: Webs We Weave Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 147
Estimated words: 145038 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 483(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145038 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 483(@300wpm)
Relief slams into me just watching them. Please reach her. As I jog from behind, darkness encases me the farther Jake distances himself, and I dial Hailey on Rocky’s phone. Over and over.
“Answer,” I beg.
Wind whips my hair, and the line goes to an automated voicemail for the fifth time. I send out an SOS text to Trevor and Nova. I give directions to the storm shelter, using a bocce court and a birdbath as land markers.
I stop calling Hailey when Oliver’s form comes into view. Jake and Rocky are closing in on him, and the flashlight illuminates his anguished, sweaty face; unkempt pieces of maddened, dyed-lighter-brown hair; and bloodied hands. He’s gripping a handle of the storm shelter door. It juts out of the grassy earth at a slight tilt, and Oliver braces his foot on the frame and tries heaving it open with all his strength, all his might.
He grits down, groaning as he pulls, he tugs, but it won’t budge.
The storm shelter is made of steel.
My legs pump beneath me as I run as fast as I can.
“Hailey!” Oliver screams, trying harder, trying, trying, trying. “I’m coming! Hang on! Hang on!” Wind whistles and growls.
I can hear Hailey’s shrieks of terror from within the shelter. My heart catapults to my throat.
Jake and Rocky reach the steel door, and Oliver turns to them in urgent panic, his khaki trench coat in a heap on the grass, his white button-down untucked and sleeves rolled up. His hair so wild. His eyes bloodshot—sweat dripping down his heart-shaped jawline. I’ve never seen my brother look this much of a mess, this ruined. Never.
Not in my whole life.
“Someone is in there with her,” he says, out of breath, and I hear his labored sounds as I roll up to them.
Rocky takes the left handle of the door. Jake takes the right. While Oliver shuffles back, his hands on his thighs, he inhales sharper lungfuls of air.
“Hailey, we’re here!” I call out as Jake and Rocky try to wrench the double doors open together. “We’re getting you out!!”
She cries bloody murder. Like she’s being slowly tortured.
“Don’t you fucking hurt her!” I scream at the top of my lungs. “STOP HURTING HER!” Furious tears cloud my eyes. Take me…I’ll switch with her.
Take me.
Oliver catches my shoulders, drawing me back. My entire insides are decaying, shriveling, withering, and as much as I ache to claw at the metal until my fingers bleed, I don’t get in the way.
Jake’s and Rocky’s muscles flex in intense bands, the exertion all over their faces. They count to three and try again.
“Who’s in there?” I croak to Oliver.
His usual relaxed demeanor is replaced by rattled, distraught urgency. “I don’t know. I don’t know. They locked her in with them.”
“Who?!” Rocky yells back, the steel door clicking but not opening each time they heave. “Goddammit.”
“We’re not getting it open like this,” Jake says.
“Who, Oliver?!” Rocky turns on him.
“I don’t know!” Oliver shouts, talking a mile a minute. “I was on the balcony. Collin—he’d just gone to bed. I was alone. But I saw her—I saw Hailey walking in the grass. Barefoot. She had her service uniform on—but she looked dirty. I called down to her. She didn’t…she didn’t hear me. Then she started running.”
They pull again. It clicks. Not budging against the lock.
I press the heel of my palm to my forehead. Fiery tears threatening to surge once more. “Was she running toward someone?” I ask. “Or was someone chasing her?”
“Toward, maybe.” His face contorts, and he rubs at the sweat lines on his face. “As soon as she started running, I left the balcony to catch her. By that time, she was already trapped in there.”
Hailey shrieks again.
It’s killing all of us.
“Hailey!” Rocky shouts to his sister. “Can you hear me?!”
She’s not responding.
That motherfucker—whoever has her. Whoever is doing this to her…Varrick? He’s not leaving here alive. He’s not. He won’t.
He won’t.
“You can’t pick it. There is no outside lock,” Jake says quickly but calmly to Rocky. “It only locks from within.”
Rocky lets go of the handle.
So does Jake.
“Don’t stop!” Oliver yells. “We have to keep trying! We have to…” He stumbles forward, and I sprint after him as he tries to seize a bloody handle.
The blood, now on Jake’s and Rocky’s hands—it’s from my brother. Blood stains my T-shirt sleeves where he touched my shoulders.
His knuckles are busted open, his palms split raw. How long has he been out here? How long has he been trying to break into the metal to get to her?
“Oliver, it’s steel,” I say, pained. My voice fissures. “Oliver. It’s a storm door!” It’s manufactured to withstand high-speed winds and whizzing objects. Tornadoes.
He reaches the door, just as Hailey wails, “Olly!” He drops to his knees, his face sheet white, and retches into the grass. As he pukes, I crouch behind him, rubbing my brother’s back.