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CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

B lack spots sparked at the edges of his vision. Don’t pass out.

Shaking with pain, Jacob tried to control his breaths. The stitches on his stomach were soaked red. Wet.

He slumped against the wall, hands tied behind his back.

Sweat beaded on his face and down his spine.

His body flushed with heat.

No way could he get up, let alone walk. He barely managed to keep himself upright. But he wasn’t going to leave Mona, and he didn’t have the strength to get them both out of here.

The room had been cleared of furniture. Living area, kitchen, and dining. Whatever might have once been here had been removed. The inside white, painted that color. Primer on the drywall, but this was no renovation. Floor. Ceiling. Walls. The only color difference was the ancient chrome stove.

Mona lay too far for him to reach her. She was out cold and had been ever since Hank dragged her in from the car. She had a cut above her eyebrow and blood at the corner of her mouth.

Blinds on the window were down. He could see trees outside between the slats, lit by an exterior light. Jacob had no idea what time it was.

All he knew was that reality was about to hit him like a train. There would be no escaping it when he acknowledged the fact this was so similar to what happened before.

Him injured, though he’d only been beaten by Ivan Damen while he was unconscious from the shot that incapacitated them on homecoming night. Addie had been in a similar state, though he’d had a concussion after the fact. He didn’t know if she’d suffered the same because they hadn’t talked much after the hospital.

He’d tried, but too quickly they’d argued. Too much pain between them. Stirred up by her mother. It had ended in them parting ways and never reconciling.

Until now.

Jacob sniffed back the burn of tears.

He knew she’d rather be here than her sister. Did she know? Addie would search until she found them. He prayed it wouldn’t be too late when she did.

Russ was hurt.

Mona was here.

The door opened, and Jacob knew he couldn’t avoid the obvious any longer.

“Hank.” The name was a groan from his lips. Jacob coughed. The movement caused a spasm in his gut that tore through him like a laser. A tear rolled down his face.

“Shut up.” Hank shook his hands and paced, not looking at Jacob or Mona.

Jacob didn’t want to put it together. He didn’t want to realize how blind he’d been, how stupid. He’d trusted Hank. Maybe some sense of self-preservation had him hold back and keep the relationship the way it had always been. Or it was normal because they were two guys. But Jacob had never shared the real stuff with Hank, who had enough going on as a detective.

He’d told himself Hank didn’t need his drama. That they didn’t need to rehash what’d happened to him continually.

He’d ignored any sign of instability in his friend. Kept things surface level. Held back. Used the friendship as a lifeline and let the status quo stay as it was for years. He pretended he did the right thing, as though what they had when they hung out was about supporting Hank over Becca’s death.

Jacob knew what this place was.

“This is what you do when you’re ‘hunting’?”

Hank glanced over, anger flaring in his eyes.

“This is your cabin, right?” It wasn’t the original ones, as those had been renovated. “You told me you were going to buy the ones where we were held, but that you got outbid. I figured you wanted to burn them all down. But that wasn’t it, was it?”

Someone there that night, one of the survivors, had been Ivan Damen’s protégé. Jacob knew it wasn’t him or Addie, and Becca had died.

“Tell me how Becca died.”

Hank strode to the wall and kicked a hole in the drywall. Jacob thought it was only a random outburst until he saw behind the sheetrock.

“If you’re going to recreate what happened, I’d think you need Addie.”

“Next best thing,” Hank muttered as he pulled drywall away, exposing a duct normally covered by a vent. The kind of vent that insects had poured out of when Jacob had been trapped with Addie.

They’d both suffered hundreds of bug bites, tied to chairs in the center of the room. After they passed out, they’d woken up untied. No bugs in sight. As soon as both were fully awake, Ivan Damen had pumped music through speakers in the top corners of the wall. So loud it gave them hearing damage even with their hands over their ears.

Until they nearly went mad with the fear.

Maybe that was what’d happened to Hank. Instead of the outcome Jacob and Addie had reached, Hank might have made a deal with the devil to get himself out.

Who knew how he’d reacted? People made emotional decisions under duress. Torture victims said whatever their captors wanted them to say just to make the pain stop.

It could be that Hank was simply a victim like Jacob and Addie—and Becca—who had succumbed to the will of his captor. Damen could’ve messed with his head, just in a different way than he’d done with Jacob.

Hank had been twisted.

“I’m sorry he hurt you.”

Hank whirled around and threw something. Jacob braced. Pain tore through his abdomen, and a knife embedded in the wall beside him.

He didn’t even have the strength to reach for it.

“Why are you doing this? We’re friends. Mona is a kid just like we were.” Hank didn’t even look like he was paying attention. “You’re going to destroy her life, just like ours were?”

Jacob looked at the knife.

His hands were behind his back. He couldn’t even reach over to grab it.

Hank didn’t look at him. He just stalked over and pulled the knife from the wall.

“Is this because she knows too much about Celia and Austin?”

Hank had to know the police wouldn’t be able to ignore something like this. He was never going to get away with it.

“You want them to find you. Catch you.”

Hank stared at the blade.

Jacob figured he’d be dead in a minute, regardless. “It’s not too late. You don’t have to make this worse than it already is, Hank. We’re friends. I’ll speak for you. No one knows what we went through except us. That’s extenuating circumstances.”

“You don’t know what I’ve done. You wouldn’t understand.”

“Tell me. Talk to me.” Maybe they’d have the first real conversation of their decade’s long friendship. Shame washed over him. “I’m sorry I never saw it.”

“Now you know what I am.” Hank lifted his gaze, the knife in front of him. “What I’ve done. All the people I’ve killed? You wouldn’t understand, Jake. You’re not like me.”

Jacob’s head swam from the pain. His entire body flushed, damp with sweat. But he had to try. “That’s what you think? You’re so different?”

Maybe he could get Hank to understand they weren’t that far apart, no matter what Hank had done—especially if it got his friend to hold off on whatever this was long enough for Addie to find them.

“Damen told you to kill Becca and then yourself, right?” Jacob’s mind wanted to hang on to that thought, but he pushed on. “I’m sorry if you believed you had no choice. He wore me down as well. He didn’t let up with the torture. That’s what happened to us, Hank. We were tortured . Whatever that turned you into, it isn’t on you.”

His actions were his responsibility—Jacob believed that. But the truth was Ivan Damen had some of the blame if Hank had been broken to such an extent that he carried out what their captor wanted.

Hank huffed. “As if you know.”

“The same thing happened to me.”

Jacob needed him to understand what he’d never told anyone. Maybe that was the reason he’d held himself back from Hank. He hadn’t wanted to admit the truth to himself, let alone tell anyone else what had come over him.

“I know how it feels because I had to face the same thing. To consider what I was prepared to do just to make it stop. That doesn’t make you less. Or evil. Not like Damen.”

Unless Hank went through with the same thing, using Jacob and Mona—and maybe Addie—as his victims.

“You don’t have to do this.”

Hank crouched.

Jacob’s entire body clenched.

He lifted the knife and touched the blade to Jacob’s cheek, scoring a line down that burned.

Jacob felt blood trail down and drip from his chin. He gritted his teeth. “Hank, don’t do this. You’ve done enough. Don’t make things worse.”

“You think we’re the same,” Hank said. “But you have no idea.”

“You’re a cop.” And yet, it was clear that his impression of his “friend” wasn’t close to the truth. “Just tell me.”

The longer he talked, the more chance Addie had of finding them. The more time she had to mount a rescue.

“Talk to me.” As Jacob spoke, the cut on his cheek opened. The skin stung.

The last thing Jacob wanted to do was go through that ordeal again, all because of a man who was supposed to be his best friend. Hank knew what they’d been through, and now he wanted others to suffer in the same way. But Jacob had already been there. He didn’t need to feel it.

Mona didn’t need to.

“The time for talking is over,” Hank said. “You have no clue. But you’re not completely useless. Someone needs to take the fall.”

“You’re gonna make it look like it was me?”

“All of it.” Hank shot him a dismissive look. “I’ve been trying to stop you for years. I finally managed to, but too late to bring you to justice.”

“You’re the one who put my print on Celia’s body.”

Hank said nothing.

“So now you’re gonna kill me?” Jacob felt like his heart was going to give out. He didn’t know if it was shame or the heartbreak of finally seeing reality.

“Murder-suicide.” Hank’s voice had no inflection. No emotion. “There was nothing I could do. After you confessed to Mona’s murder and everyone else’s, you took your life.”

Jacob gritted his teeth. It wasn’t just blood rolling down his face. “You think Addie is gonna believe that?”

“She knew all about it. She’ll tell me that before she dies.”

“I want to see her.” Jacob said, “You and I have been friends a long time. Give me that at least. You want to get away with all this, pin it on me? Fine. But I want to tell her goodbye.”

Hank straightened from his crouch and stepped back.

He walked to the door and outside. Slammed it behind him so the whole cabin shook. Jacob heard a lock click into place.

Mona blinked her eyes open and sat up. “We can agree he’s completely crazy, right?”

Jacob nearly started full-on crying he was so relieved at seeing her awake. At not being alone. Even if it was Addie’s sister, and he couldn’t protect her in this condition.

He didn’t even know if he could stand. Right now, it seemed like she might be able to protect herself.

She bent her legs and stood. “How about we figure out how to get out of here?”

Jacob agreed. “I don’t want to know what happens if we stay.”

Mona got to her feet. He saw a wince of pain cross her face, but she pushed it aside. The way Russ taught her to. The way Addie would.

“I’m glad you’re all right.”

Mona looked him over and winced. “This isn’t going to be fun.”

“But it’ll be over.”

One way or another.