Jessie Humphries - Killing Ruby Rose

“I don’t know how, but yeah,” I said.

He blinked a few times and rubbed his eyes like he was trying to unsee something. “Where’s Alana?”

“I’m right here,” she said, snarling. He turned to see her standing with her arms crossed, clearly not as over the moon as I was to see him awake. “If your buddies think this is some hilarious prank, they’re wrong!”

“Prank?” he asked, not to her, but to me. I knew what he was really asking, She doesn’t know?

“Alana thinks we were roofied and dropped off here by your jock-head friends as a joke,” I said with bulging eyes. Don’t tell her that I’m a raging sociopathic teen serial killer!

“Oh.” Liam let out a huge huff of breath. “ Ohhhh ,” he said again, but this time with a scowl as he held his sides. Then I remembered those kicks to his unprotected ribs.

“Do we need to get you to the hospital?” I asked.

“Hospital?” Alana’s voice raised an octave. “What kind of friends are these guys? Is this some kind of hazing crap?”

“No, no hospital,” Liam said, slowing his breathing.

He turned his back to Alana long enough for me to mouth to him, “I don’t know what to tell her.” My instincts warned me not to divulge anything she didn’t need to know. Her loyalty to me could only go so far. Plus, I didn’t want to scar her any worse than necessary. Maybe, for her own sake, the less she knew, the better. Like he could read my mind, Liam nodded.

“No, this is a football injury,” he lied. “I must have been lying on it wrong. It’s a bruise from last week’s game.”

I wasn’t sure why he was playing along. I couldn’t understand this guy. Always protecting me. I didn’t even need to explain, and he was going along with my insanity.

“Well, can you walk?” Alana asked. “We need to find a way out of here. Maybe I can get home before my parents get up and decide to ground me for the rest of my life.”

“Yeah, I can walk.” He clenched his jaw and stood up with a swift grace. “I finished a game once with a dislocated shoulder. This is nothing.”

“I’d be impressed if I hadn’t just been drugged, kidnapped, and left to die on a cliff by your team of varsity a-holes,” Alana said as she stalked away from the cliff’s edge, presumably looking for a way to get out of here.

As soon as she turned her back, I whispered to Liam, “Thanks for lying.”

“She really didn’t see anything?” he whispered back, with a shaken look like he hadn’t missed a thing.

“I guess not,” I said softly, watching Alana. “Unless she’s blocking it out because it’s too awful.” My shoulders bowed, remembering all over again what I had done.

“It was the same guy, Ruby,” Liam whispered, taking my hand. Goose bumps raised all the way up my arm. “The one I saw watching you at the art fair. He drugged you with whatever was on that cloth at the warehouse. But he was dressed differently, like a special ops guy or something. Like Jason Bourne. Dressed in all black. I wasn’t sure at first because he wore some kind of helmet, but right before he drugged me I saw his face.”

I wobbled a little, as though a California tremor had just shaken below me. He steadied me as best he could and said:

“He looked me right in the eyes. He didn’t say anything, but it was weird. He wasn’t…” Liam paused and his eyes glassed over like maybe he wasn’t really awake.

“He wasn’t what?” I snapped my fingers in front of his face.

“He wasn’t evil looking,” Liam said with a question mark all over his expression. “His eyes were…I don’t know…not intent on killing me. Not intent on killing you. It was weird.”

I couldn’t comprehend this. The motives of this Mr. D. S. evaded me time and time again.

“I think we should go to the police—” Liam said before I interrupted with my knee-jerk reaction to hearing “police.”

“NO.”

“Ruby, hear me out,” he said.

“No. I don’t know what I am going to do,” I said, pulling away my hand. Not because I didn’t desperately want his help, but because I felt guilty. I never should have involved him in this. He had a future. People who loved him and would be devastated if he was locked up for the rest of his life for two counts of conspiracy to commit murder, two counts of obstruction of justice, and who knows how many counts of seriously poor judgment for fraternizing with the known criminal Ruby Rose.

“Don’t pull that on me,” he said, taking my hand again, and this time tilting my chin up so I was forced to look him in the eyes. Those resilient eyes now turning a clear pale blue—almost the color of the horizon behind him. “We’re in this together.”

“No, we’re not,” I said, not pulling away, just clarifying. “ You didn’t do anything. You didn’t pull the trigger. You didn’t help me get away. You are not responsible for anything. This is my problem, not yours.”

“I’d have pulled the trigger if I’d had the chance!” His voice raised above a whisper.

“Shhh,” I quieted him. “Yeah, well, you didn’t have to.”

For a long minute, he stared at me. I’d tried to warn him. I’d tried to keep him away. Sheesh, I’d practically broken his wrist telling him to keep his distance.

“No one should have to go through this alone,” he said, not backing down. “Whoever is doing this to you, to us , isn’t going to stop. He’s playing some sick, twisted, bullshit game with you, and you need my help.” Suddenly, against my will, I was in his arms again. And I wasn’t at all comfortable there at the moment. Last time I’d been there, I was drugged, caged like an animal, forced to kill two men, and dumped on a cliff.

I wanted to pull away. But I didn’t.

“Sorry to interrupt your little moment ,” Alana called down from above, “but you might want to see this.”

My guts fell like I’d just hit an unexpected drop on a roller coaster. What was it—a dead body? Evidence of what I’d done? My heart beat unnaturally fast as I scaled the cliff’s steep face.

I almost burst when I saw him.

“Big Black!” My knight in shining armor. My SUV.

“At least those a-holes left us a ride,” Alana said. “Now get in and drive me home before life as I know it is over.”

“How in the…” Liam said behind me.

“I don’t know,” I responded, only to him. “Whoever this guy is, I guess he doesn’t want me dead.”

“Just traumatized for life.” He feigned a smile. “C’mon, let’s get out of here.” He tried to lead me over to the passenger side door.

“I don’t think so,” I said. “I’m driving.”

The drive home was sore and silent. After briefly discussing the last thing we each remembered at the party, which was basically nothing—except for Alana being told that I needed her upstairs—we let Mary Poppins guide us back to familiar territory. Turned out, we were only twenty miles down the coast, and it was going to take us about a half hour to get home. But the dread that filled the car was palpable. Dread that bodies would be found, parents would go ballistic, and lives would be ruined—any minute.

I figured no one wanted to speculate about what happened to us. No one wanted to discuss the looks on our parents’ faces when we walked in and got the whole I’m relieved you’re alive, but now I’m going to kill you speech.

I kept looking over to Alana in the passenger seat with her raw wrists, wondering what she really knew. Maybe some part of her subconscious had absorbed the gunshots, the sprays of blood, the smell of death. Maybe she was choosing repose over the truth—only postponing the twisted memories or dreams of me slaughtering two men. At least I had a good referral for a psychotherapist.