Letters to Elle

19 | Wasteland Full of Blood of Secrets

guys, i really hope this wasn't anticlimatic. i sort of rushed. i just really want to get this story finished. probably only one more chapter. (: 

                        NINETEEN

                        WASTELAND FULL OF BLOOD AND SECRETS

                                    ♡♡♡

WHEN I WAKE UP I see Jeremy. He’s tied up to a tree, his restraints keeping him pinned down and attached to an unmovable force. His face scrunches up—in pain? anguish? agony? Or maybe he’s just irritated because he’s tied up to a tree. Struggling, he wiggles around, most likely trying to loosen the ropes, but I can see clearly from here that that’s not going to happen. Plus, Jake (I’m assuming that Jake was the one who tied Jeremy up) was a boy scout, and he learned how to tie a knot that can’t be undone. Easily, anyway.

            I try to take a step forward to help Jeremy in untying the knot, but when I attempt to pull my arms away from my body, I realize that I can’t move my body. I’m tied to the tree along with Jeremy. Panic begins to settle in, and I wonder how we got into this situation in the first place. How I got into this situation. Then the earlier events come to mind, and I remember that Jake drugged me to get me here.

            The betrayal pierces my heart, creating the thump-thump, thump-thump to get faster and faster until I can feel the beads of sweat trailing down my forehead.

            “Oh my god,” I mutter, straining against the ropes just like Jeremy had. Even though I know that it’s no use, I can’t stop trying to escape. “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my—“

            “Wave.” His voice breaks through my anxiety. “Wave.”

            I look up and it’s Jeremy. He’s stopped trying to escape his own bonds, and he’s staring at me. I can’t discern the look on his face, but I can take a wild guess and say that he has given up by now.

            “I’m really sorry,” he says. “About all of this.”

            I shake my head, momentarily putting off trying to get away. “It’s not your fault.”

            “Yeah,” he says, “it is.”

            “Look around.”

            He does.

            “We’re in a forest, Jeremy. And I’m betting that it’s the same forest that’s right next to the cemetery, right?” I try to calm my breathing that begins to speed up. “We’re—we’re in a forest, Jeremy . . . and we’re tied to a tree . . . and it’s just . . . how can it be your fault?”

            He blinks, clearly stunned. “I—I just figured that—“

            “Stop talking to her!” a voice screeches, echoing through the sparse forest. My brother walks into the clearing. When he turns away from me to face Jeremy to yell at him for talking to me, I catch a glimpse of something shiny sticking out of the back of Jake’s jeans. At first, I’m not positive what it is, but then he moves and sun glints off the surface. The shape of a handle wedges it way into my brain.

            A gun, I think to myself, dumbfounded. He brought a gun. Where had he even gotten a gun?

            As if he could feel the heat of my stare in his back, Jake reaches behind him and grabs the gun in his grubby, murderous hands. Pointing the barrel at Jeremy, he shoves it into the boy’s face and yells, “Stop talking to my goddamn sister.” The gun gets closer and closer to Jeremy’s face, and I can see the blatant fear coming off him in waves. “She’s not yours to talk to.”