Never Gonna Tell (19 page)

“How do you mean?” He cocks his head to the side.

“Even when no one was watching, you’d do things. Threaten teachers like Mr. Shaw for example.”

“I had to. My uncle needed to trust me. Besides, Mr. Shaw has a bad coke habit and is thousands in debt to support it. That laid-back attitude he has? Yeah, he’s just too high to care most of the time.”

“Well, what about the captain of the wrestling team, Davis McMillian? Why did you stuff him in the dumpster for two class periods?”

Marco grips the steering wheel tighter. “That jerk deserved every second of that. If I could have left him in longer, I would have.”

I scrunch up my face. “What? Why?”

“I overheard him in the locker room, chatting it up with some of his buddies. He was bragging about how much easier it is to get laid when the girl doesn’t put up a fight—because he gets them drunk until they pass out and then he can do whatever he wants. As many times as he wants.” He puts on his blinker before changing lanes.

My mouth drops. “That dick!”

“It gets worse,” Marco interjects. “He said that he’d done it before, and the twat was actually giving pointers to the rest of his twat friends about how to make the girl think it was her fault, that she was all willing and just passed out in the middle.

“I wanted to do worse, but my uncle had money on his next match so I couldn’t do any permanent damage.” He cracks his knuckles. “I checked, but no girls ever filed a complaint against him, and he never gave up any of the girls’ names to his friends.”

I’m shaking, I’m so mad. “I swear to God, when we get back I’m going to expose that S.O.B. for the whole world to see.”

“Speaking of exposing crimes to the world…” Marco winks at me, and I turn in my seat, rubbing my hands greedily for his gossip.

“You have to tell me. The not knowing has been killing me. Why did Hunter’s dad owe money to your family?”

“It’s a very long story, but basically he needed money to buy an experimental drug from Finland when his wife was dying of cancer. It was a last-ditch effort, but because it wasn’t FDA-approved, their insurance wouldn’t pay for it. And he was desperate.

“When he couldn’t pay my uncle back, Nicky started blackmailing him into doing things for him. It started out small, but escalated to having Hunter rig football games. The last straw was when Nicky demanded Daniel help rig an election to get an associate of my uncle’s elected. That way, Nicky could have another politician in his pocket. Daniel’s late wife was on the board and had access to the voting machines. After her death, Nicky wanted him to use that pull to get in and rig it, promising that if anything went awry, they could blame Hunter’s mom, and since she was dead, there’d be no way to prove she didn’t.

“My uncle wanted him to run his late wife’s name through the mud, all because he borrowed some money to try to save her life.”

“I knew Nicky was an evil man, but this! This is heartless and cruel and—”

A sudden jolt cuts me off. My head flies forward into the dashboard, and I bang my head, blood trickling down my forehead. I’m dazed for a moment as I try to figure out what just happened, but I don’t have time to process, and it happens again. Someone is rear-ending us, the second attempt sending up into a tailspin.

“Reagan! Hold on, we’re going to crash!” Marco turns the wheel forcefully, trying to correct, but we’re going too fast. My hands fly forward, clawing for the dashboard as we’re hit a third time, this time from the side. This isn’t an accident. Someone is aiming for our car. I grip my seatbelt and squeeze my eyes shut, now dizzy from spinning.

“Marco!” I scream, but he doesn’t respond.

Burning rubber fills my nose as he brakes hard, trying desperately to stop the car. I glance out the window to try to get a look at who is responsible, but I can only see a black blur before we are sent careening into the guardrail. The car flips upside down, and we roll several times down an embankment.

When we finally come to a stop, we’re upside down. Somehow, thankfully, I’m still alive. My head is throbbing, and I can’t see out of one eye. Warm blood pools and drips onto the window in front of me, which is shattered. I do a quick inventory, making sure I still have all of my limbs and that I can move them. My right arm is twisted in an awkward position and is pinned. I wiggle my fingers, thankful that I can move them, but searing pain radiates down my arm when I try to free it, and I scream out in pain.

I take a few slow, deep breaths as tears fall openly, praying that the pain will ease up. After a few minutes, it lessens enough that I don’t want to pass out. I am not going to be able to get out of here on my own, and Marco hasn’t budged since we crashed. I turn my head, careful not to move anything else, and check on him.

“Marco?” I cry. “Are you okay? Oh please dear God, be okay.”

He doesn’t respond.

“Marco! Marco, please.”

Fighting through the nausea and dizziness, I reach my free arm forward and grab him, trying to feel for a pulse. He’s unconscious, blood pouring out of a very large cut above his eye. The airbag has deployed, but he’s not moving, and I can’t get a good enough grip on his wrist to feel for a pulse.

Bracing myself for the pain I know is coming, I use my good arm to release the seat belt, sending me crashing onto the roof of the car with a thud. White-hot pain shoots through my entire body. It’s more pain than I’ve ever experienced, and it’s more than I can take. I can feel I’m going to be sick. I turn my head just in time to vomit, the motion bringing another wave of dizziness.

Outside, I hear the telltale crunch of footsteps coming closer. Is it help? Or is it the same people who tried to kill us?

“Marco, you’ve got to wake up. You’ve got to be alive,” I beg, the world around me beginning to blur and fade. “Be alive,” I whisper as darkness overtakes me, the world around me fading away.

NOTHING BUT BLACKNESS surrounds me. I can’t move. Why can’t I move? A shiver runs through me, both from fear and the cold ground below me. The air is stale and smells like the earth as I try to take a deep breath, and I instantly know I’m inside of something or maybe under something. “Hello?” I call, my voice shaking and barely above a whisper. No one answers. I try again a little louder as I fight back tears. The only sound I hear is my heart pounding in my tightened chest, the noise filling my head.
Thump, thump. Thump, thump. Thump, thump.

I blink, my eyes adjusting to the darkness, but still I can’t see a thing. Pain radiates through my arm and head, but my fear is stronger. What happened? Closing my eyes, I concentrate on the last thing that I remember. The accident. Voices.
Oh God, have I been kidnapped?
The air around me grows thick and heavy. Sweat trickles down my face. My clammy hand trembles like a leaf in the wind as I stretch forward, feeling for something—anything. “Calm down,” I command my nerves. “It’s going to be okay.” But even I don’t believe my lies.

My left hand has been wrapped in an Ace bandage, and the blood from my forehead is no longer caked in my eye. Does this mean they want to keep me alive? What are they going to do with me? I move, just an inch, to test out my arm. The pain is still throbbing, but it’s manageable enough to try to get out from … wherever I am.

Taking another stale breath, I reach my right hand out and it connects with something hard and scratchy. Wood? It’s all around me, maybe a foot or so away. I push against it as hard as I can with one hand, but it doesn’t budge.

I’m trapped. I can’t move and I want to scream. It’s bubbling up inside but I quash it back down. Screaming will only let them know I’m awake. That I’m alive. Panic begs to take over, to take control, but I need to get out of here before that happens. I want to take a deep breath, but can’t. There isn’t any to fill my lungs.
But there has to be air coming from somewhere, or I’d be dead by now
, I remind myself.
And that’s all I need.
I focus on keeping my breathing even, counting each breath and ignoring the burning in my lungs. After thirty exhales, I reach up again, trailing the tips of my fingers along the wood, hoping to find a handle or knob, but there is only a large, flat, solid piece of wood.

This is it. My worst fear is coming to pass. Everything I worked for, everything I sacrificed, was for naught. My mom and dad’s faces pop into my mind as tears well in my eyes. I was so stupid. So foolish to think that I was doing the right thing. Now look where that’s gotten me.

I’m going to die tonight. I’m sure of that now. All because I vowed that I was never gonna tell.

Marco’s face flashes in my mind. The terrified look on his face when he realized we were going to crash. What happened to him? Did they kill him? Did he die in the accident?

A door slams somewhere above me, followed by heavy footsteps and muffled voices. “Bring her out of there. He wants to talk to her.”

The voice is coming from above wherever I am and is hushed, but I still recognize it as Marco’s dad, Frank. I make one final effort to free myself, but to no avail. The only thing left to do is hope for a quick death.

A lock clicks seconds before I hear the telltale squeak of a door in desperate need of some WD-40. Heavy footsteps approach and within seconds the wood above me is lifted away. I shield my eyes from the sudden brightness as meaty arms grip me around the waist and heave me out of the ground.

“Gently! She’s injured, you big oaf!” the beady-eyed one chastises.
Well, that’s promising
, I think.
Maybe they won’t kill me after all
. “I don’t want to have to clean blood out of the carpet again. It stains like a bitch.”

Or maybe they will
.

I struggle to find my footing as they plop me down on worn area rug. It’s only after my eyes have had a few moments to adjust that I have the opportunity to look around the small room. There’s a twin bed in the corner against a wall, but the sheets have been stripped from the mattress. A small nightstand holds an AM/FM clock radio that looks straight out of the fifties, and a wooden rocking chair has been placed on an opposite wall.

The hole they pulled me out of is in the dead center of the room and reminds me of maybe a tornado shelter. Two men I’ve never seen before are replacing the sheet of plywood that covers the underground crawlspace where I had been kept.

Thank god it wasn’t a coffin
, I think.
I don’t think I could have mentally handled being buried in a coffin.

After replacing the plywood, they smooth out the large area rug covering the handle before the larger of the two men scoops me up once more, tossing me over his shoulder. I wince in pain as my bad arm bangs against his broad body, and I bite my lip to keep from crying out. As much as I want to ask where I am and where they’re taking me—
what
they’re planning to do with me—I need to be smart about this. I need information, any information at all, and I won’t get it by asking a thousand questions. That never works. Sometimes it’s better to sit back and wait to see what happens next than to show your cards. Not that I have any cards to play right now, so keeping quiet and hoping someone other than myself screws up is my only option.

Bouncing along, I take in my surroundings, hoping for a clue as to where I am, or better yet, a way to escape. The big oaf is taking me down a narrow, wood-paneled hallway that is plastered with dead animals that have been stuffed and mounted to the walls. A hunting cabin, perhaps? While it’s bigger than the one-bedroom cabin Marco and I had holed up in, it’s still smaller than the average house. Maybe some sort of villa or chateau?
Does Tennessee even have those? Am I even in Tennessee?

Turning the corner, we arrive in what I can only assume is the living room. It too is wood paneled and has even larger animal heads mounted. A twelve-point buck head and what I think is a panther hang above an oversized beige leather sectional. Various other armchairs have been scattered throughout the room. Straight across, above a grandiose fireplace, hangs the head of a large black bear. The glow of the crackling fire illuminates the space. I scan the room hoping to spot Marco, but he isn’t anywhere to be found. His dad and Uncle Nicky, however, are. And judging by the scowls on their faces, they aren’t happy to see me.

“Set her down here,” Frank instructs, pointing to the bearskin rug in front of the fireplace.

The man who is carrying me plops me down, and I fall onto my bad arm. “Ow!” I howl in pain, curling into a tight ball and cradling my arm as my eyes water.

“You really are good for nothing, aren’t you, Travis?” Nicky chides. “For Christ sake, I give you one job and you can’t even do that.” Nicky points down at me. “What good is she if she passes out again? I need to talk to her.”

“Sorry, boss,” Travis replies, hanging his head before backing out of the room quickly.

Nicky sits in one of the high-backed chairs and faces me. “So sorry about that, my dear.” He smiles, and it’s one of the creepiest smiles I’ve ever seen. “We haven’t been formally introduced. I’m Nicholas Calotta. And you must be Marco’s little girlfriend. Reagan, isn’t it?”

He extends his hand, but I don’t make a move to shake it. My injured arm throbs too much to imagine offering it up to the monster before me. “Where is Marco?” I ask. “Is he okay?”