Southern Heart (Southern 5)

"She won’t leave you," Ethan reminds me. "Not after all this."

I see the truck in front of us pull into a deserted road. The sound of the rocks are hitting the truck as we speed there. Tree branches slap at the windows, and we finally come to a clearing, and I see the truck there in the middle of nowhere.

I don’t wait for the truck to stop before I’m jumping out of the truck and running to the truck that sits idle in the middle of the woods. "Chelsea!” I scream her name, opening the door and seeing that it’s empty.

Jacob and Casey now come over with flashlights, and all we see is blood in the back seat. "Fuck!" I roar out.

I look up at the sky while the phone rings from the truck. I jump forward as I find Chelsea’s phone. An unknown number flashes on the screen. I press the green button and bring the phone to my ear. "Do I have your attention yet?"

Chapter 32

Chelsea

The sound of the truck door opens, and I’m pulled out now. My eyes open halfway as he carries me from my grandmother’s truck to a beat-up blue truck parked in a wooded area. "Let’s see how long it takes for them to find the truck," he says as he opens the door to the beat-up truck. The hinges creak loudly in the silent dark forest. He tosses me on the long bench, my shoulder crying out in pain.

The driver’s door opens now, making the same creaking noise as the other door did. "Let’s get the fuck out of here." He starts the truck, and it rolls over. I close my eyes and pray that it doesn’t start. But after three times, it finally starts up, and I close my eyes as he drives away from the truck. Every single minute, I’m getting farther and farther away from Mayson.

My body jumps every time he goes over a bump, and I float away at some point that I don’t even notice when the truck stops. The creaking of the doors as they open wakes me, but no matter what I do, I can’t open my eyes. I feel my legs being pulled, and then I feel like I’m floating on air. "Mayson!” I scream out in my head, but there are no words that come out. “Mayson,” I say again, but this time, the only thing that comes out is a grumble.

I feel myself hanging, and when I slowly open my eyes, I’m hanging off his shoulder. The pain in my shoulder hits me right away, and I groan again. My eyes close now again, and I fight to keep them open. The sound of twigs snapping under his feet as he walks. My vision is blurry when I open my eyes again, and all I can see is the darkness of the forest. I try to spot anything that would tell me where I am.

The sound of creaking makes me open my eyes again as we walk into a wooden cabin. I look around, spotting a lone cast-iron bed in the corner. The mattress is full of stains and has no covers. He tosses me on the floor like I am a rag doll, and even though I don’t want him to know I’m in pain, I can’t stop the groan that escapes me. "Shut up," he hisses at me as I lie on my side, looking at him. My entire body is crying out in pain. I close my eyes, trying not to focus on the pain. Fight it back, I tell myself as I lie still, not moving.

He walks over to the table and comes back with something black in his hand. He grabs my hands together, and I cry out now in pain from my broken wrist. "Shut the fuck up," he says roughly as he zip-ties my hands together. The pain just soars through me. "Why couldn’t you just shut the fuck up?" he asks, and I just look at him as he squats down in front of me. "Get up," he says, grabbing me by my hair and making me sit up, hitting my head on the wood. I don’t know anything else after that because the darkness takes over. I’m standing in the middle of a forest now, and I’m running one way, and just like that, I’m taken back to where I started. I hear Mayson yelling for me and turn to go toward the sound of his voice, but I can’t find him.

"Do I have your attention now?" I hear the voice in my head, and my eyes slowly open. Everything is coming back to me now. The drive to my house, the plate breaking, Mayson's father getting me. Being shot in my shoulder. I’m sitting in the dark, and the pain is kicking in. I open my eyes, but my head feels like it weighs a hundred pounds as I fall to the right and to the left. It takes everything in me to get my eyes to stay open. I fight away the darkness, knowing I have to survive this. "Now is that any way to talk to your father?"