Sloth (Sinful Secrets #1) (48 page)

It’s definitely him. And I’m a stalker freak, because I’m tailing him. I wasn’t going to. It started with an innocent U-turn. Why go to his house if he’s not there? But then I saw his car pull over on the roadside. So I dimmed my lights and stopped a hundred yards or so behind him. When he got back in and turned onto another road, a more rural road, I just... kept following.

What do I want?

No idea.

Through the woods, I follow him. Along a winding road pinned in by fields. Beside the fence line, cows cluster. Bright moonlight stripes the long fields, casts crooked shadows through an orchard of pecan trees.

Pine-needles shimmer with moon dust. Kellan’s inky car glints as he swerves a little to the right.

I picture her head between his thighs and press the brakes a little, halfway hoping that he’ll see me in his rear-view mirror.

My eyes trace his silhouette. I can’t see hers...

I picture her pink lips around his dick. The way his legs flex, right foot heavy on the pedal. The Escalade surges forward as if my narrative is true. I see a creek off to my left, glinting in between the trees. The road squiggles, and Kellan’s Escalade dips into the left lane for half a heartbeat. I touch the brakes again, a mime of what I wish he’d do, but Kellan flies around the bend.

I punch the pedal. “Slow down, Kell...”

Next time I sight him, he is riding with the car’s right side on the shoulder.

My head feels hot. My pulse picks up. I reach into my lap, to call who? The road curves sharply right and Kellan runs again into the left lane.

Fuck.

I top out at 75 mph and press the brakes out of sheer fear. But Kellan doesn’t.

Kellan disappears around another wooded bend.

I come around it... see a bridge. The sheen of moonlight on its metal rails. The glow is blotted—for one second.
The rails are blotted by his car
. I hear the Escalade punch through the guardrail with an awful screech. I watch in horror as it tumbles toward the water.

I RUN DOWN THE SHOULDER
, I slip, I tumble down the hill that skirts the murky swampland. I scramble up just feet from the dark water, which splays about as wide as a skating rink.

The Escalade is near the middle of the reed-laced marsh, nose-down in the water... pointed a little left, toward me. It’s still moving, sinking ever so slowly into the muck. The waterline spills over the windshield. As I gape at it, the right side of the Escalade sinks down a few feet.

“Oh Jesus, God, fuck fuck!”

I jerk my shoes off, yank my pants off, and splash into the chilly sludge. I’m screaming, waving my arms above my head. I flop forward, belly-first, and try to freestyle, but the weeds are too thick. My arched feet fumble for the muddy bottom. I kick hard, but my feet touch nothing, so I’m swimming, gasping.

I hear a low glug-glug and see the car tilt even further downward on the front end. Fear cuts like a knife. Adrenaline makes my arms and legs move faster. My thigh bumps something hard. I shriek—fuck just a log. I’m almost there. Oh fuck, Kellan—what if he’s not even in the car?

Treading water, I try to look around. The night bears down around me, dark and textured. I surge forward.

“Buckle up for safety, Cleo...”

Please be in there!

Oh God, I can barely see the driver’s side door. There’s a door behind the driver’s door... the back door, I can open that. My throat constricts as I stroke closer to the car. It looks so large and dark. Over the stink of swamp I smell burned rubber, maybe even smoke.

I try the back door handle. How surreal to pull the handle up and brace my foot against the car’s body and tug. It won’t open!

I groan and pull harder, and the door opens! But the water that rushes into the Escalade somehow sucks it shut again.

“FUCK!”

I pull again, and when the door cracks open, causing a cascade of water to spill into the car, I keep pulling.

There is no doubt—not even any doubt inside my mind that I will get to Kellan—so I tug as hard as I can on the door and thrust my body at the gap between the door and door frame. My forehead smacks on something. I let out a sob and then I’m in the car! Water! It’s up to my boobs, but in the front seat...

“Kellan,” I sob. Fuck, the front is underwater almost. Is his face submerged? I jerk the door shut to stop it flowing in. My limbs are clumsy, my heart pumping as I splash between the front seats. Oh, his face... It’s not submerged, his head lolls leftward and there’s blood—

“Kellan! Wake up!” I grab his face before I realize
don’t do that; the neck
, and “KELLAN.... please!” The car jolts as it sinks further still, and I scream. The seatbelt! Got to get the seatbelt! Don’t look at his face! I reach into the tarry water and I feel and...
there
! My clumsy fingers press against it... tiny, cool, metallic... it comes undone. I’m panting as I work the belt off of him. I try. It’s hard. He’s big. He isn’t moving.

What if—

No.

I slap his cheek. His eyes open, blinking blood... His head is bleeding.

“Wake up! Damnit, fuckshit, wake the fuck up... Come on!” I grab his right arm, tugging violently. I jerk him toward the back of the car and realize instantly that he will have to move himself. “Come on, you have to swim!”

There’s water to our necks now; Kellan’s head is tilted back. “Kellan, please!” I start to sob. He blinks twice, slow and dazed. His eyes roll... his eyes find mine.

“Come on, baby... Come on, we have to swim!”

I grab his arm, clawing his bicep as I tug him toward the back seat. “MOVE YOUR LEGS!”

He groans... his body twists... and then he slams against me. We move in a tangle to the back seat.

“Cleo...” He grabs me, looking confused. “What—”

“Shhh, I’m opening the door now, kick against the seat and push yourself out of the car.” The Escalade lurches leftward now. I sob and tell myself to shut the fuck up.

“Right now, Kell! I’m opening the door now, come on! Get in front of me...” I push his broad back forward, putting him in front of me, so I can push him out. I reach around him to push the door open. Stupid. I can’t push because he’s in my way—but Kellan pushes. He pushes the door, and I push him, and together we get the thing open.

Water pours in, so fast I almost don’t catch a last breath before the car is nearly full.

I push Kellan again, and he disappears into the murk.

The second I swim out behind him is the longest of my life. When I break the surface I find him treading water, moaning with his head tipped back.

I nudge his shoulder. He fumbles and chokes. I push his chin up. “Swim!” Rich boy—can swim. “Toward the shore!” I hit him and he gasps.

“My shoulder...” Water laps around his head. His face is pained. I grab a breath of air and sink and shove him with both arms. Resurface.

“Fuck...” I give his back a shove, but I can’t move him. He’s too fucking heavy.

Fuck... That slimy—
duh, the ground!
That’s the
ground
under my feet! “Kellan...”

I just barely get my arm around his neck before his eyes roll back into his head. My feet are mired in mud... I try to swim, to kick against the awful slimy ground. I cry as I struggle... then it’s shallow; I can stand completely but I can’t lift him. I struggle to the shore with him, pulling his torso out onto the mud. He’s bleeding... from his nose? His mouth?

I look around for help, but I don’t have my phone. I start to cry. I touch his head, his bloody face.

“Oh God! What do I do?” I wrap my hand around his mouth, feeling for breath. There it is, a little bit...

I’m running toward my car when I hear sirens.

“YES, I
REALIZE
NO VISITORS
right now, but I just want an update.” I smack my fist against the front of the looming counter in the Emory University Hospital ER and bite my tongue so I don’t cuss this fucking woman out.

My hair is damp from sticking my head in the bathroom sink, the crevices of my fingernails are stained with Kellan’s blood, I’m wearing scrubs and paper shoes and my head aches—and no one will tell me shit.

“I’ve called a doctor, and we’re waiting on her, ma’am,” bitchy receptionist explains. Bitchily.

I glare at the yellow smiley faces on her hot pink scrubs and whirl around to sit back down.

The ambulance ride was awful. I mean... I’m glad one came, of course. Apparently a fisherman heard the wreck and called 9-1-1, which is a good thing, but the ride itself? Traumatic.

The EMTs pulled two Fentanyl patches off Kellan’s bare shoulder, which explained his blue lips, but after they got an oxygen mask on his busted face, they couldn’t figure out why he was bleeding so much from his nose and mouth. They wrapped his left arm against his bruised chest and I held his right hand until someone stole it from me to stick an IV into him.

They kept talking about overdoses and something called “narcan,” which I’ve since learned can help people who overdose on opiates. I said I was his girlfriend and they started asking me the basic questions like his age. I got his hand again, the fingers curled and cold, the wide, cool palm swathed in tape, an IV line curling around our joined hands, and as I stroked his fingers, I realized I know almost nothing about Kellan. I don’t even know his real, true, legal last name.

I explained what I do know to the EMTs and told them that I thought he might use a doctor at Emory, and someone, somehow, sometime confirmed that we were headed here.

The ride was long. My eyes swept up and down him as I folded his big hand between my warmer palms. I could see the awful, awful bruising on the left side of his ribcage as they tucked his arm against it... strapped it down and then they covered up his pretty abs, his perfect arms and shoulders.

The blanket was gray... and underneath the plastic mask his face was gray. The female ENT kept pulling the mask off and wiping his face with this white cloth thing, but it didn’t work. His nose and mouth kept bleeding. The few times his eyes would open, he looked hurt and scared and looked around until his gaze found me, and I would touch his hair and rub his shoulder as his body shook.

There was a neck brace on him, I noticed. When did that happen. His body was hidden under blankets but I watched his feet... stripped of their Keen sandals. His toes would curl as the EMTs shown
light into his eyes and pulled the blanket back to stick a needle in... his thigh? He jerked. Their voices moved too loud and fast. The crackle of the radio... my mouth kissing his fingertips.

The male EMT prodded the inside of his left elbow and nodded at the female. “Lots of tracks there,” he said, covering the arm again.

“Track marks, like from shooting up?
Needle
marks?” I wailed.

The female EMT screwed up her face. He gave me a
no shit
look, and I started to cry. I never really stopped, just tried to keep it quiet as they labored over him, and Kellan’s eyes opened and shut and I said sweet things to him.

By the time we reached the ER drop off, Kellan’s face was snow white. The female EMTs told me to “stay put,” Kellan was in shock and needed blood. I had to let go of his poor, cold hand and stop myself from running with them as they spirited his cot into the ER.