Page 18 of Undone
“Nolan! No!” I bucked beneath him. I needed to play on his emotions, so I injected pain into my voice. “You’re hurting me.”
He relented hesitantly, moving slowly, sitting on my tailbone for a moment and giving me just enough space to get into a pushup position. It was a ruse, though—he’d anticipated that I would try to get up. He waited just long enough before wrapping his arm around me again. This time, his grip was more favorable for him. His free arm clutched me to his chest and kept me in place. The hand with the gun was free. The barrel prodded me in the kidney.
We stood up, with Jasper still looking for an opening. There wasn’t one. Nolan had me as a human shield. If he didn’t shoot me, then Jasper would.
“We were supposed to be together,” Nolan hissed into my ear. “We’d be famous. You and me. I’ve known it ever since the night we kissed.”
“The kiss was a mistake!” I blurted out. “There’s nothing like that between us.”
“There is!” Nolan insisted. “It meant everything! It was the beginning of something beautiful. I could sense it in your lips, in your emotions. I didn’t make a move, not back then. I was being patient. All good things come to those who wait. Isn’t that how the saying goes?”
“Nolan, I—”
“For years I’ve been waiting,” Nolan continued, interrupting me. “Years I’ve been planning, getting the right education, getting myself on the crew. Then, what do you do? You go and spread your legs for that brute!” He drew his gun away from me just long enough to gesture at Jasper.
Jasper tensed. His eyes were narrowed and his expression solemn. His finger trembled on the trigger of his gun.
“I’m sorry, Jasper,” I said, “for bringing you into this.”
Jasper shook his head. “You have nothing to apologize for. Nothing delights me like taking down people like Nolan here.”
“Taking me down.” Nolan scoffed. “What’s your plan, hero? I hold all the cards. I’ve won. Cari belongs to me.” To punctuate the idea, Nolan blew my hair and pressed his lips against my neck, biting the skin, suckling. The sensation sent shudders up my spine, and I gagged against the sudden surge of revulsion.
“Cari,” Jasper said. “Do you trust me?”
“What?” I asked. “Yes!”
“No,” he said. “I mean do you trust me?”
To do what, I wondered? “If he’s smart, you’ll get smarter…”
“If he’s strong, I’ll get stronger…” Jasper continued. His voice was dreamy, distant. His gaze seemed like a white-hot laser, focused entirely on the sight on his gun.
“If he has a gun…” I started.
There was an explosion. I didn’t see it, but I heard it, cracking through the woods and shattering the silence of the dark. I’d always thought the whole “your life flashes before your eyes” thing was a cliché, and I guess in a way, it was. My whole life didn’t flash, only certain parts of it. Memories of spending my summers up in Oregon with my grandparents. Of landing the gig for the archaeology show and thinking I was bulletproof. Of first meeting Nolan. Funny what you remember when you’re faced with oblivion.
Who had fired? I didn’t feel anything in my torso, but then again, maybe that’s what feeling shot was like. I always thought it would hurt, but maybe the bullet had gone straight in and straight out. Maybe it had fried all the nerve endings on the way through.
“If he has a gun, I’ll shoot first,” Jasper said.
Nolan’s gun tumbled to the ground at my feet. Looking over my shoulder I could see Nolan’s face. One eye had crossed. His mouth was gaping in an expression of horror. A red dot appeared in his forehead, right between the eyes, and a small stream of blood dribbled down the bridge of his nose. His arms were still around me but the muscles had gone slack and his body weight felt heavy atop me, as though he were using my body as support.
I gave Nolan a push, and he tumbled backward, landing on his back in the dirt and leaves, clouds of dust rising around his prone body.
“Oh man,” I said. My head was swimming. A bullet had just passed within an inch of my skull, and—oh, right, I’d just seen my very first dead body. Sure, I’d seen plenty of skeletons, but I’d never actually seen a dead body—much less, one that had been alive and holding me at gunpoint only a few short seconds earlier.
“Oh man…” I repeated. My knees went weak, and I felt myself falling. Jasper lunged, catching me.
We sank to the ground, and I looked up at Jasper. “I guess you were right,” I said. “Retreating to a cabin in the woods was just the thing to do.”
“I told you I knew what I was doing,” Jasper said with a grin. “I could have done without you coming out and playing hero, though. That made things a bit more difficult.”
“I heard a gunshot,” I said. “I thought something had happened to you.”
“Right…Jackson,” Jasper said, helping me to my feet.
We stood and turned to the cabin. Jackson stood there, clutching his wounded leg and leaning against the doorframe. He held his gun with one hand, a cell phone in the other. “What part of stay in the damn cabin did you not understand, Cari?” he bellowed.
