The Secrets We Keep

The Fiftieth Chapter

Hayden

I'm cold. I'm sore. And I'm starving. 

My limbs feel stiff as I pull over the thin blanket on the floor. I don't know where I am. All I know is that I feel like I'm swaying back and forth, back and forth. Maybe it's my brain playing tricks on me. But, what I'm really thinking is that I'm on a boat. 

The wooden room I'm in sways again and I'm sure that's what this feeling is. I've felt it before when my parents took Damien and me out to the harbor once. We went out onto the water, and let our fingers trail through the waves conjured by the boat's movements, but when it was steady, still in the water, it felt like this: Back and forth, back and forth. 

Thinking about my brother hurts. I don't know how he is. The last I knew, he was in critical condition. I close my eyes. If he's dead, then the last real words we'd exchanged were in anger as I defended a terrible person. 

I sigh as I open my eyes again, staring at the same wooden planks I've been staring at for hours. I defended Nathan and a few days later, he tried to kill my brother. And now he's left me in this room. I don't know what he intends to do with me here. I haven't seen him since I woke up and I wouldn't put it past him to leave me here until I starve to death. One less person who knows what he did. 

But as I'm contemplating all the ways I could die trapped in this room with the impossible lock (trust me, I've tried everything with that thing), I hear a sound from above. 

 I stand up and the blanket flutters to the floor as the sound of footsteps gets closer and louder. I race to the other side of the room and stand with my body pressed against the wall by the door. 

A noise rattles in the lock as someone slots the key in and the moment it's open, I grab hold of the open door and swing it closed again with as much force as I can muster. It crashes into something solid and I hear a satisfying thump. 

"Fuck!" I hear Nathan yell. Before the door can slam closed again, I grab hold of it and wrench it open to find him lying on the floor. 

I try to jump over his body to get passed but he reaches up and grabs my ankle before I get too far. 

"Let go," I scream, kicking at his body until his hand loosens and then I scramble up and start running low down the wooden paneled passageway. 

"Don't run, Hayden," I hear Nathan call after me but I don't listen as I press down on the door handle at the end. But once I'm out of this room and stumbling into the next, a lightly furnished living room, I feel his arms come around me. 

I yell as he takes me by the arm and shoves me into the nearest wall, rattling picture frames there in the process but before I can push back at him, I feel something cold press against the exposed part of my stomach. 

My eyes widen as I look down and see Nathan's pressed a gun to my abdomen. 

I start laughing out of nerves as he tightens his hold on me, the hand not pointing the gun, keeping my shoulder pressed harshly against the wall. 

"You did not just pull a gun on me," I spit, and I watch as several emotions pass through his eyes but as much as I'm sure I see some hesitance in there, he doesn't budge once. And considering he just about beat my head in to get me unconscious, I'm not sure he won't pull the trigger. 

"I told you I don't want to hurt you, but you can't keep running," he says through gritted teeth, tightening his hold on my arm. 

"Fuck you, you fucking psycho," I say. "You better fucking shoot me, because if I get free again, I'm not just going to run away, I'm going to kill you."