“I’m also betting he knew you were going to be waiting in there to catch him.”
So that was what Taylor was checking on. She wasn’t looking for Jules. Jesse must have seen the camera and had her check the house for the main feed. I’m such an idiot, I thought.
“He took your cameras, and your laptop, thinking that he’d gotten rid of any evidence. I don’t think he realized you were feeding it to my computer offsite as well. What a fool. It was very smart thinking on your part. It was enough to get a warrant son. This morning Sam tried to arrest Jesse but,” he hesitated. I could tell he didn’t want to continue but I knew what he was about to say anyway. “He can’t be found, but don’t worry! Sam will get him!
“And Elliott? I’m sorry I didn’t believe you before.”
He continued talking, jabbering on and on in nervousness, trying to make me feel better but all I wanted was to hear that Jules was okay. I at least knew that Jesse hadn’t gotten to her but I needed so much more. I needed to hear that she was as perfect as the day she had to flee Bramwell. No, that she was better. I knew where Jesse was going. Jules would know it too. He was going to his parents’ cabin in Blackwater Falls. I knew him all too well. That’s where he went after he did anything that could land him in jail. It’s where he hid until the dust from the trouble he always caused settled.
The ambulance finally came around. The paramedics tried to ask me questions. They told me to blink once for yes, twice for no and I tried to answer as best I could but it was truly difficult when their questions seemed to lead in the wrong direction.
I wanted to scream out, let them know what he had done. I was desperate for one of them to inspect my neck for a puncture wound but lost hope when they placed the neck brace around my throat. This had an unexpected effect and I started choking on the air with each breath, trying to scream from the pain. They removed the brace and used a much smaller one, one that wouldn’t touch my broken jaw but would at least offer some sort of support in case my neck was broken.
On the count of three, they slid me onto a backboard, then easily lifted me onto a gurney, not a small feat for a two hundred pound plus victim. I laid flat and as they rolled me past the school I noticed that Jesse had spray painted and vandalized the school, no doubt, in an attempt to frame me for the job.
I had a distinct feeling that my fingerprints would be on all the paint cans. On the wall it read, ‘Jesse Thomas is a psycho’ and ‘Jesse Thomas is going to die’. He had mutilated all the plant life in his wake and broken several windows as well. One of the medics removed something from my arm and glanced at his fellow paramedic. He held up a ribbon of rubber.
For the longest time I sat in the ambulance wondering where I’d seen something like that before. It was what the nurse at my doctor’s office would use when taking blood, when she needed to find a vein. But why? I screamed in my head. For what reason? He injected whatever it was that did this to me in my neck? What if he gave me something else? I thought. What was he doing? He was too smart to make so many mistakes. Then, I heard the medics.
“Son, can you tell me what drugs you took?”
He studied my confused expression.
“The syringe?” He asked. “What was in the syringe at the scene?”
Syringe? I thought. I knew it.
“Nothing,” I managed to just barely slur out. “Kill,” I mumbled.
“What?” He asked, furrowing his eyebrows and pitching his ear toward my lips.
“Jesse....tried.....kill.......me,” I finally muddled. I took a deep breath and said the only thing I could possibly say, “Pain.”
He nodded. It was so painful to speak and with every word, every roll of the tongue I fought back the bile rising in my throat. I had never been in so much pain and could barely voice it. I passed out so many times I lost count and every time I woke I wished I would black out again.
I woke, this time with no pain. I heard machines beeping, liquid dripping and the shallow breathing of my family. I pried my eyelids open and looked around. Jules wasn’t there. I knew if she wasn’t there I couldn’t have been out for that long. I lifted my arms and found that although they felt like jelly I could indeed lift them and that relieved some of my anxiety. I tried to speak but couldn’t. My jaw was wired shut.
“Elliott?” My mom said softly, eyes red from hours of crying. “Elliott, you’ve had to have surgery on your jaw son. It went well but your jaw had to be wired shut. If you want to communicate with us you’ll need to write down what you want to say, okay?”
I squinted my eyes and nodded in agreement. She brought over a pen and pad. I couldn’t hold them so she put the pen in my hand and held the pad steady for me while I wrote.
Jules?
She hesitated, clearing her throat, and looked over to my father. My dad came up and squeezed my hand.
“She was here yesterday son,” Yesterday?! I could tell he was leaving something out.
I pointed to Julia’s name and waited.
“Well, now Elliott, I don’t know if I...........well, I’m just not sure how to tell you this but after she left the hospital yesterday I saw her to her car and told her to go straight to her house where her mom and dad were waiting because we still haven’t caught Jesse yet.”
He paused for a long time, long enough for me to feel the tears slide down my temples. He didn’t need to say it, I knew. She never made it home, right dad? Just say it! She never made it home! I screamed ‘no’ through wired teeth. I didn’t give him a chance to continue. I began ripping out anything attached to me and tried to sit up. I could hear Maddy’s muffled sobs as she buried herself into my grandmother’s stomach.
My Uncle Danny helped my dad restrain me against the hospital bed. If I hadn’t had been so weak from the drugs I know I could have broken through them, nothing would have stopped me from getting to Jules but I could barely hold a pen let alone fight off two grown men.
They waited until I calmed down. All I could see were watery faces staring down on me in pity. I scrambled for the pen and paper and tried to write down everything I wanted to know. My mom helped me once more.
How long?
“Julia was here from the second she got into town until I had to order her several times to go home and get some sleep and something to eat. She repeatedly refused me but I eventually convinced her that you wouldn’t be up for hours......”
I underlined the words ‘how long’ and waited impatiently. I wasn’t interested in the back story.
“Eight hours,” Danny said.
Eight hours. Eight hours away from her being safe in my sight or enduring whatever hideous plan Jesse had for her. Only eight. I felt like vomiting but knew that wouldn’t have been an option with my jaw wired shut and shut my eyes for a moment instead to catch my breath.
Why aren’t you looking for her?
“We’ve searched everywhere Elliott. She’s not here son. We found her car running on Main with the door open. We think she’s alive because there was evidence of a struggle and it looks like he took her away in his car Elliott. He’s taken her somewhere. We’ve notified all the necessary authorities and they are all doing everything they can,” Danny said, before pausing. He leaned in and focused on my eyes, “Is there any place you can possibly think that he would have taken her? Anything you could give us would be helpful Elliott.”
I nodded and wrote, Blackwater Falls.
Someone must have called for a nurse then. I didn’t complain until I saw the syringe in her hand. I began to protest but it was no use. I couldn’t stop her and my dad and Uncle Danny had me by the arms.
As I drifted off to sleep, I thought of nothing but Jules. All I could ever want in the entire world was being threatened and I was handicapped by the very thing Jesse tried to kill me with. I fell asleep angry hoping the rage would burn the drugs faster so I could wake and tear out of the hospital with a vengeance.
I dreamt of Jules from the second my eyes closed to the second I woke. She inundated my thou
ghts and I woke to blood boiling when I realized where she was. I opened my eyes and checked around the almost quiet room.
I immediately grabbed my chest, just below my left collarbone. It was an instant excruciating misery and throbbed terribly. I frantically pulled the hospital gown from my body but found nothing there. Impulsively, I rubbed the area trying to remove the torment.
I had no idea the time but it looked late, only my dad was in the room with me. It was definitely late in the night because my dad was snoring steadily and I barely heard a peep outside my room. I heard a nurse tell someone to get some sleep before she closed their door and I waited for her footsteps to dim before I began removing anything that would have kept me tied to that insipid bed.
When I was positive there was nothing still attached, I slipped from underneath the covers and grabbed the bag full of the clothes I came in. I tossed everything on as quickly as I possibly could and crept from the room as quietly as possible.
Before I left, I noticed the pen and paper and tossed it in my back pocket. I was grateful to the last person who had come and left the room because the door was cracked open an inch or so and I escaped without so much as a sound. I knew I had precious little time to get away because my heart monitor stopped beeping and I could already hear the nurses’ speedy steps heading the direction of my room.
I had no idea how I was going to get to my truck but I didn’t care. I was working down my list and wasn’t going to worry about everything at once. One step at a time, I kept telling myself. I turned the corner and was almost found out. I peered back around that same corner and saw someone, people, I never expected. My entire team, including Matthew Tanen, sleeping along several chairs. I took a closer look at everyone sleeping in the waiting room and figured Matt was my only chance because he was closest.
I quietly snuck up to him and pulled at his sleeve. He startled awake and I had to restrain his booming voice with my hand. Several of my family members stirred but thankfully never woke and when I thought Matt had a grip on himself I pulled him toward a hidden hallway.
“What the hell are you doing out here Gray?” He asked.
Matt, I scribbled as legibly but as fast as I could, Remember that time you said you owed me because I wouldn’t let you cheat off my paper in Chemistry and instead stayed with you all night and helped you study?
“Yeeeesss,” he said reluctantly.
I’m calling in that favor, I wrote. I need your help and I don’t want you to ask questions.
Matt was the kind of loyal friend that knew when to let things go when you wanted it dropped and he agreed without hesitation. We ran toward the double doors and I had a fleeting thought towards the pain in my chest. That’s when it hit me, hard.
Oh my God! Julia!
Chapter Nine
From The Other Side
“Jules, can you breathe alright?” He asked, knuckles tight on the steering wheel.
I nodded my head, barely acknowledging him, not that I could talk anyway, with all the duct tape he had plastered to my mouth. I learned my lesson early on in this little abduction that if I didn’t answer promptly I paid dearly with a slap to the face.
“What was that?” He asked, cupping his ear, feigning he missed what I never said and laughing maniacally. Jeez, who is this guy?
“Psycho,” I mumbled through tape.
My saliva and the heat from my breath softened the glue on the tape and was beginning to chafe the skin around my mouth.
We were heading northeast toward Blackwater Falls from the little I was able to see. I was hogtied and on my back and every few minutes, when I could gather the strength, I would strain to peek over the dash in attempt to get my bearings.
He never tried to stop me. I don’t think he thought it would be an issue because I don’t think he planned on letting me live long enough to do anything about it and although that may have frightened me I refused to give up and refused to let him know how terrified I really was. Peeking over the dash didn’t get me much but I knew the little information I could get might help Elliott find me if I could eventually get to a phone.
I prayed like hell that we were going to his parents’ cabin because at least I could get warm there. My feet were ice cold and I could barely feel my hands. My clothes were soaked from the melted snow that soaked into my jeans and coat when he had dragged me by my hair from my car to his.
I was coming home, more like being forced home, from the hospital where Elliott laid unconscious from his recent surgery for some, I’ll admit it, much needed shut eye. I promised Mark and pinky swore Maddy to go straight home, never stopping anywhere, never opening my door for any reason and to call once I reached home since Danny couldn’t escort me as he was on duty and called in to handle a domestic dispute somewhere in Bluefield. Also, Mark couldn’t leave Maddy by herself because we were the only ones left after everyone else went to eat, sick of the disgusting hospital food.
So Mark walked me out to Carmen and made me promise to ring him when I physically stepped foot inside The Perry House and locked the door behind me, ‘not in the driveway, not on the porch, actually inside the house’.
For foolish reasons, I thought it best not to wake my dad and make him come escort me home because I thought if trouble arose that I would be able to drive away from the problem.
I mean, there was no way Jesse would come back to Bramwell, right? Not when everyone and their dog was looking for him. It turned out to be the dopiest thing I could have ever thought to do. People didn’t just ‘drive’ away from Jesse Thomas, especially when I was one of the ‘people’ whom he wanted.
I was so close to home, I could smell it and had calmed down enough turn up The Dear Hunter’s ‘Mustard Gas’. “Look to the sky...” I sang as I crossed the intersection at Main where it turns into Brick and in that moment, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Jesse’s Mustang come from out of nowhere. I inhaled sharply just as he stopped short in front of me, barely missing my front bumper.
At the sight of his Mustang, instant panic ran icy through my veins. An awful sense of dread took over my body confirming I should have trusted my own instincts and stayed at the hospital.
My thoughts were consumed with the thoughts that the love of my life was unconscious, on a hospital bed, totally unable to come to my rescue. I knew that Elliott would never be able to forgive himself if something happened to me and he hadn’t been there to stop it.
That meant I was going to fight tooth and nail to make sure it didn’t happen, so I could tell him myself, give my eyeteeth to stop it if I had to. Hurting me would hurt Elliott and there was no way in hell I was going to let that come to pass. I was a Jacobs after all and everyone knows that the Jacobs possess warrior hearts. I just prayed to God mine would beat furiously enough to weather the foulness that more than likely laid in my immediate future.
I suffered a building, wretched hysteria while Jesse sauntered from his vehicle at a confident, lazy pace, his face hardly visible through the blizzard swarming around us. I threw Carmen into reverse, resting my right hand on the back of the passenger seat to brace myself as I looked out my foggy rear window, crystallized ice preventing me from seeing anything. I slammed the gas and blindly attempted to steer the car a decent enough distance to throw it back into drive and get out of there, but there was a sheet of ice beneath me at least two inches thick and my tires lost any traction from the all too eager spinning. I’d driven in ice my entire life and knew the last thing I was supposed to do was press the gas like I did but I panicked, desperation oozing from every pore and effectively ending any chance of thinking soundly.
Growing up, I remembered watching television shows or reading articles about people involved in some form of tragedy or another. I would shake my head back and forth as I read their stories, chiding them for their stupid mistakes with a click of my tongue for their seemingly nonexistent desire for self-preservation.
‘I just froze’, they’d always say and I would chock up their lack of
action or mere escape from death as someone who barely fit into the ‘survivors of the fittest’ category.
Premature judgment, I humbly admit. Obviously, I no longer judge those people so unfairly. I swallowed that misconception that day followed by the bitter pill of regret mixed with a bit of my own blood.
I repeatedly tried to gain control of Carmen but she failed me, for the first time ever, and before I knew it, I heard and felt shattered glass spill down the side of the car and onto my lap. Glass scraped the side of my face and I brought my hands up to protect my eyes. I struggled to scream but I’m just not a screamer. The few occasions I’ve needed to, I open my mouth but nothing ever comes out. I think it’s because my voice is too deep. I just can’t get to the high octaves without it coming out in scratches.
Elliott forced me to keep a crowbar underneath my passenger seat. I remember throwing a fit, I can’t stand being coddled which Elliott had understandably done a lot of lately, but I’d never been so grateful for his overprotective meddling than in that moment.
I leaned over, thrusting my arm underneath the passenger seat sweeping my hand back and forth for the steel bar. I felt around the floor board for it and caught the cold steel by the tip just as Jesse stretched through the newly shattered window, grabbed my hair to yank me back and I lost any grip I had.
I winced in pain before pulling myself forward and frantically felt around for the bar once more. I could see Jesse reach for me again as my fingers wrapped around the base. I brought it out and swung as hard as I could toward Jesse. He raised his left arm and the bar met the bone of his forearm with a sickening thud.
It wasn’t hard enough to break it but it was hard enough to stun him. He stumbled back from the car, bringing his hurt arm protectively toward his chest. He bent over in pain and I used the time as a distraction to unbuckle myself and throw open the door, ‘Mustard Gas’ spilled into the air and I sprinted in the direction of my home.