Page 28 of Deadly Obsession

TWENTY-TWO

SERA

“James!” I screamed as I practically fell into the room and dove onto his body.

I had no idea if I was doing the right thing but I’d heard everything he’d said, and I believed in him. Lola was his friend too. He wouldn’t have killed her! No one was thinking right, least of all Brian I was sure. The guy was in love with her.

James struggled in my arms, trying desperately to tell me something beneath the duct tape, but all I heard was mumbling.

“It’s going to be okay,” I said softly as my tears dropped onto his face.

Then I lowered my head to his chest and reached my hands around to his, slipping the item I’d taken from his nightstand into his fingers.

I felt his body calm, likely recognizing the familiar weight and shape of his switchblade.

The chances of me getting Brian to let James go was definitely outweighed by the likelihood of Brian’s grief overcoming him and causing him to execute James before we had a chance to figure out what happened.

Even if James somehow did do it, I couldn’t bear the thought of him being killed. He very well could be telling the truth. Perhaps there was some crazy cult in these mountains targeting young adults. It had been done in so many films; it could definitely be the case here.

“Sera! Get off him. He’s a monster!” Brian yelled from behind me as he gripped both of my arms so firmly I was certain to bruise.

“Brian, you’re hurting me! Let him go!” I shouted in harmony with the somehow louder and more primal scream James made from beneath his duct-taped mouth.

His features had become horrifying in a way that restarted my brain. Veins bulging through red skin as if they could tear through his restraints, his eyes so dark it was as if all the pigment was gone.

I continued to struggle to get out of Brian’s hold, but his grip was firm as he lifted me up.

Something kicked against the inside of my foot and forced me to separate my legs.

James seemed to kip beneath me, the action followed by a crunching noise, and suddenly Brian was collapsing onto my back, screaming in pain directly into my ear.

All three of us were now piled uncomfortably on top of one another, me on top of James and Brian flailing on my back.

With a quick heave, I sent him flopping off and he sat up, his hands gripping his knee, which seemed to bend backwards while his leg twisted off to the side. My jaw dropped at the realization. James had knocked my leg out of the way and kicked Brian’s knee with so much force that he’d broken it.

Oh my God, what the fuck had I gotten myself into?

I couldn’t help but glance back and forth between the two men repeatedly. James looked like a caged beast, like something not of this world. It scared me.

“Brian!” Danielle called out just as she and Jade filed into the room, making the space feel more confined. The girls went to help Brian up before Jade broke off, grabbing and tugging me away from James. This time, I didn’t fight it .

After all, did I really know James well enough to confidently argue that he would have never killed Lola?

I couldn’t say that I did.

A couple of hours later, and we’d all finally settled into the living room after going off in pairs to grab our phones and other comforts. The power was still out.

“Sera, I’m sorry but you have no idea what that man is truly capable of. None of us do.” Brian winced as he spoke.

None of us had any medical training beyond CPR it seemed, but apparently Jade was confident that she’d seen enough war movies to know that he needed a splint to keep his leg from moving and risking the broken bones around his knee slicing an artery.

Therefore, she’d taken the handles off the mop and broom she’d found in the closet and duct taped them along the outside of his thigh. No one protested.

“Look, I wasn’t going to say anything, but there’s something you ladies don’t know about him. Robert didn’t have a family emergency. James beat the bloody hell out of him.” Brian paused, grimacing as he tried to adjust himself on the couch.

“What!” Jade and Danielle called out in unison.

I said nothing. I was speechless and only half listening, as my mind kept replaying the events of the entire vacation.

We’d made so many lovely memories, but then they all kept getting chased away by the image of James’s face in the pantry.

So much pent-up emotion that scared me to my core. Rage and a feral, menacing intensity.

“It’s true. He’d claimed that Robert had tried to drug Lyndsey.

Roofies. When I came inside, James was on the verge of killing him.

Ended up saying he was going to make Robert leave and instructed me to keep it a secret so as not to ruin the trip for you girls.

At first, I believed him. Always thought James was on the up-and-up.

Now, though…” Brian paused, his brows furrowing as he shuffled towards the shotgun propped up beside Danielle’s chair.

“Now you’re thinking James actually killed Robert,” Jade said, and began to cry again. She’d had a crush on Robert. Frankly, she had a crush on everyone . But Robert seemed to be the only one to encourage her, which made it harder on the girl.

“Oh, Jade, darling, I’m sure Robert is totally fine. He was in the live chat, remember? He can’t be dead!” Danielle said, as she leaned over to wrap an arm around her friend.

“Yes, that’s true, isn’t it? Surely he’s alive.

Forgive me. I’m just trying to take this all in still.

What I do know is that man is not coming out of that pantry so long as I live.

Or at the very least until the constable gets here,” Brian said in the weakest attempt to sound confident and comforting I’d ever heard.

I pushed up and made my way towards the kitchen, only to have Brian immediately protest.

“Sera, don’t you dare!” he yelled, and I turned in time to watch him attempt to get up from the couch and fail.

“Easy, Brian. I’m grabbing something for Jade from the kitchen.”

Stepping over to the refrigerator, I opened the freezer door and grabbed a tub of Ben & Jerry’s “Totally Nuts” ice cream.

It was one of Jade’s favorites. It looked delicious, but I was deathly allergic to nuts.

Then, because I knew she was so obsessed with having us believe she was sticking to her diet, I grabbed one of her kombucha bottles before I made my way back to her with a dishcloth, a spoon, and the treats.

“Hey, Jade, it’s kinda melted and runny but it’s still cold. I know ice cream really calms my nerves.” I offered her a smile, and Danielle gave me a nod as she pulled back with Jade’s approval.

“Ah, well. Yes, I suppose, in such stressful times, it’s justified, right?” She sat up and wiped the tears from her eyes before reaching out and accepting the dessert and drink.

I leaned in and kissed her forehead. “This is all going to get cleared up. The power will be back on before we know it and we can get the constables out here to…” My words trailed off.

What the fuck were we going to tell them?

Hey, that’s our friend out there. Two of our other friends are unaccounted for, and my boyfriend is tied up in the closet because we think he did it?

Oh, my days.

Moving over to the sofa chair, I dropped down and curled into a ball, pulling my oversized Mustang hoodie over my knees and feet and disappearing inside it.

My mind was going to overheat and explode at this rate.

The gears were all turning way too fast. How did I end up in a far worse mess than the one I was hoping to escape?

I dug out my phone and pulled up a photo of me holding Alex in my lap at the zoo. I would give anything to be home, holding him right now.

“Thanks, Sera.” Jade broke me out of my daydream. She had the tub of ice cream between her legs and the bottle of kombucha in one hand, her spoon in the other. “This really did the trick. I feel so calm right now. Almost happy even.”

Her words were surprising and out of place, but one look at her face told me she wasn’t lying. Jade was grinning from ear-to-ear, her voice light and sleepy. She must have been in a state of shock.

“I’m glad they brought you some comfort. Everything’s going to be okay.” I smiled back at her from my hoodie cocoon.

“Yeah, of course things will be!” Danielle affirmed. “Sorry, guys, but should we like, go cover Lola up? I mean, she’s just lying out there… exposed. ”

“You’re right. It’s the decent thing to do. I’ll just— fuck all !” Brian grunted while attempting to get up from the couch.

“Will you stop fucking moving!” Danielle scolded him. She stood and pulled a blanket off the mattress on the ground. “Sera will go with me. We’ll be right back. We’ll take this with us.” She grabbed the shotgun and tossed the blanket in my direction.

“Right, of course. Be right back.” Grasping the blanket in my hand, I followed Danielle outside and over to Lola’s body.

It took everything in me not to get sick. Jade and Danielle had described what had been done to our friend, but there weren’t words for how horrible this truly was.

“Try not to look. Let’s just place the blanket out over her and get back,” Danielle said, setting the shotgun against the truck tire and stepping around to the other side of Lola’s body. The smell infiltrated my nose, the unpleasant odor of death nauseating me.

“Was she religious? Should we say something?” I asked as we stared down at the blanket-covered lump on the ground.

“I don’t think she was, but it couldn’t hurt, right?” Danielle stepped back to my side and took my hand in hers. “Dear Lord, please?—”

A loud scream erupted from inside. “Girls! Help!” Brian.

Danielle dropped my hand, lunged for the shotgun, and sprinted towards the cabin with me following close behind her. The front door slammed against the wall as we entered.

Part of me expected to walk in and find James with that mad look in his eyes, beating Brian with his bare hands. What we saw instead was Brian on the floor, crawling towards Jade. Her skin turning a light shade of blue and her pupils like pinholes.

“What happened?” I yelled. “Jade!” Danielle and I rushed to her side.

“It sounds like she’s choking!” Danielle screamed, and she wasn’t wrong .

Jade’s breathing was eerily slow, and she was making gurgling sounds. Danielle quickly jumped up onto the back of the couch, leaned down, and wrapped her arms around Jade’s chest. Making a fist while attempting to give her the Heimlich maneuver.

“Jade! Stay awake, girl!” I patted her cheeks as I watched her eyes glaze over just before they shut completely.

“She’s limp! Is she out?” Danielle asked, still furiously pumping at Jade’s chest.

“Yes, she’s out! Jade! Stay with us!” Brian yelled.

I reached for Jade’s neck, placing two fingers over her carotid artery. Danielle paused and looked to me. Her eyes wide. I shook my head.

“She’s gone.” The words barely made it out of my mouth. Two people were dead. Two of my friends were dead. Jade’s body twitched once as it surely purged itself. Then she was still.

“It was like she was choking.” Danielle slowly pulled away to start wiping the tears from her eyes. “Maybe an allergic reaction?”

“She’s been eating ice cream since we got here.

No, it’s more like she was poisoned.” Brian punched the floor beneath him.

“We need to get out of here. Go get help. Sera, do you know where James’s keys are?

We can untangle Lola from the truck and drive down the mountain.

” His eyes were focused and filled with determination.

I nodded once, stood, and ran upstairs to where I knew James liked to hang his keys.

By the time I returned, they were both outside.

Brian sprawled out in the tray of the truck, and Danielle using the blanket to remove Lola’s corpse from the tow hitch as carefully as possible.

I quickly dashed off to help her, gently lowering Lola to the ground and leaving her there beneath the blanket.

“Come on, ladies. We need to be quick about it,” Brian called out, tapping his hand on the body of the truck .

“Sera, I’ll drive. Get in,” Danielle said.

I nodded and turned on my heel to run to the passenger side, my body colliding with Danielle’s. The force knocking me back a step as my feet tripped on something squishy. “Fuck! Gross!” I pushed myself off the truck and circled back around.

I made it one step before Danielle grabbed my shoulders. “You’re in America, Sera. Right side!” she shouted, giving me a small push in the opposite direction.

“Why can’t you Americans drive like everyone else!” I hissed in frustration as I climbed into my seat, feeling very off balance.

With that, Danielle started the engine and we sped down the driveway. Towards what we hoped would be safety.