He covered the scrapes with bandages and sat across from me on the table.
My fingers were still trembling as I took hold of his hand. “I don’t know if I’ve ever been that scared in my life and then I saw you and—” My voice broke. “Everything was better the second I landed in your arms.”
He leaned over and kissed me. My eyes were feeling heavy from the whiskey. I rested my head back and closed them. In a few seconds, I’d floated into that weird state of twilight sleep filled with images of the day that made it seem you were still awake. My body tensed and I was trapped, my legs were pinned and a pair of eyes peered down at me. The eyes glowed at me from the bookstore window, and I heard his voice again. I jolted awake.
Jem was covering me with a blanket from the bed. “You all right?”
He gazed at me with intense brown eyes, only they were set in the face of a young boy, a younger Jem. ‘You all right’. The words had sparked a distant memory.
He sat on the couch next to me. “Tash? What’s wrong?”
I reached up and touched his face, a face I knew so well. “This will sound strange, Jem. But just now, the way you looked down at me and the question you asked—it feels as if we’ve met before, back when we were kids.”
He took a deep breath. Then he lifted his face to me. “That’s because we met once—sixteen years ago.”
Chapter 28
Jem
Tashlyn was pale as she sat up on the couch. She trembled once and pulled the blanket tighter around her. She’d had a rough night and even though I had a lot to tell her, there were still so many parts missing. I needed her to tell me what she knew first. I wanted it to come back to her naturally and when she was ready to absorb it. I wasn’t completely sure tonight was the right time.
I put my arm around her shoulder, and she melted against me. “Tell me, Jem. Tell me what happened. When did we meet?”
“There’s a historical landmark down below Phantom Curve.”
“Yes, I saw the marker when I traveled down there.”
“Right. It’s a wooden shelter that some fur trappers built there a few hundred years ago. It kept them safe when the weather got brutal.”
I could feel her body tensing beneath my arm, and she tugged the blanket shut tighter.
“I’ve been inside of it,” she said weakly. “It was dark and terrifying and . . . cold. I remember it was really cold.” She grew quiet and sat forward, out from under my arm. She stared out the front window of my house. The light was on in my dad’s bedroom, but the house was quiet.
Then she turned to face me. Her cheeks were pale white, and her eyes were glassy. “You let me out. There was a big hatch door and it lifted. I was sure whatever monster had trapped me inside was coming back to kill me. Then there was this face.” She touched my cheek. “You asked if I was all right. You lent me your hand, and I pulled myself out. Then you told me to run. ‘Run away from this place’. And I did. Just like tonight, as fast as my feet could carry me. But who put me inside the shelter?”
I shook my head. “To tell you the truth, all these years I thought my brother had done it for fun. He did some crazy shit when he was young. But it wasn’t him. That’s why I need you to remember anything you can about this ‘pussycat’ man. I think he knows how you ended up in the shelter.” I swallowed to relieve the bitterness in my throat. “No doubt Everly has told you about the missing girls.”
She nodded. Then it seemed to dawn on her why I’d brought it up. “I was going to be one of them.”
“I think so.”
She crawled back into my lap, and I wrapped my arms around her.
“You saved my life back then.” She cuddled against me. “You seem to be really good at that.”
“So far I’ve kept a good record, and I want to keep it that way. I know you want to push what happened tonight out of your mind, but I need you to think. Is there anything you can tell me that would help?”
She was quiet in my arms for a long time, and I thought she’d drifted back to sleep. But then moisture dampened my shirt. She was crying.
“Tash? What is it? Did you remember something?”
“His eyes, the ones I saw in the window, I’d seen them before.” Her body shook with a sob. “He was staring at me through the cracked windshield of my dad’s truck. I’d been sleeping in the compartment behind the seats when I felt as if I was falling. I must have still been limp with sleep when the truck rolled. That must have been why I wasn’t hurt.” She sniffled a few times and buried her face into my shirt.
“Anything else? What color were his eyes?”
She shook her head but didn’t pull her face from my shirt. It was as if she was hiding from something, a terrible memory, it seemed.
“What was he doing outside your dad’s truck?”
A long shuddering breath came and more tears followed. “He was hitting my dad in the head with a rock. There was no fire. My dad had survived the accident, but that man killed him.”
She shrank down in my arms. I’d released her from the trappers’ shelter, not even understanding the danger she was in. All the grim truths about this town would soon be on full display. For all these years, the ugly shit had been buried, until now, until Tashlyn walked into town. And that was why someone was trying to kill her.
“God, I’m so sorry, baby. I knew this town had a lot of closet skeletons. I just didn’t know how many. You don’t need to think about it anymore tonight.”
She buried herself tighter against me as if she couldn’t get close enough. “The way he says ‘pussycat’.” Her words were muffled against my chest. “Cat always sounds funny. Like he has an accent. It sounds long and flat. Like a—”
“Like a splat.” I finished for her.
She lifted her face to look at me. Her nose was pink from crying. “Yes.”
I nodded and wrapped my arms tighter. It was Draven. Fucking Draven. But there was no way he’d been controlling my dad all these years. There was more to it, and I knew just who to ask.
Chapter 29
Tashlyn
Jem had given me strict instructions to stay close to Everly all Saturday morning until he returned from his errand. He’d insisted I was safe as long as Everly was near. I wasn’t completely sure why he was so confident about it, but I’d told Everly I was bored and would help her stock shelves this morning.
My knees were sore. I’d made up a lame story for Everly about tripping on the way to the mailbox. Jem had told me not to say anything more to her until he got things figured out. My one clue about the way the man talked had been all Jem needed. His name was Draven, and Jem hadn’t seemed too surprised to find out he was behind the attacks. I’d seen Draven once in Gregor’s Market on my first night in town. Everly’s uncle had basically shooed him out of the store that night. Just thinking about the man produced a cold knot in my stomach. I crossed my arms around me.
“Are you cold? You could borrow my coat,” Everly said. “The storeroom gets pretty chilly.”
“Nope, I’m good.”
Everly looked pointedly down at my knees. “Except that you’re walking like a hundred-year-old woman with those knees. I still can’t believe you fell that hard.”
“Oh, you can believe it. I’m clumsy as heck.”
We strolled along the sidewalk to the store. The scenery was like an oil painting, beautiful and serene. But I knew behind the picturesque landscape, the worst kind of evil lay waiting for its next victim. It had been several years since the last accident at Phantom Curve, but I wondered how long until the next death. I knew now that my dad hadn’t veered off the road. He’d been forced to pull over by thieves and murderers. His truck was filled with valuable cargo—alcohol. And my dad had died because of it. If he’d been transporting something less valuable, he might still be alive today.