Stranded with My Stepbrother Chapter 61

-Jacey-

It was when the smoke detector went off that I realized something was wrong.

I sat up in bed and blinked at the darkness. Caleb wasn’t home yet, and I’d decided to take a little nap before he arrived just in case he was in the mood for rigorous after dinner activities.

Confused, I went to the door, but the handle was hot. My third grade fire safety knowledge came rushing back to me all at once, and I knew not to open the door. Smoke began pouring up from under the bottom of the door, however. Panicking, I reached for one of Caleb’s sweaters and rolled it up on the carpet to block the incoming smoke.

Then I backed to the window. I tried to open it, thinking I could at least get the smoke out of the room and maybe be in position if a firefighter came up looking for me. But the window wouldn’t budge. I realized, belatedly, it was nailed shut. Apparently Mr. Masterson hadn’t wanted either Caleb or me pulling a Spiderman and trying to crawl along the building ledge to another residence.

This left me well and truly trapped.

Over the crackle of flames and creak of things being consumed and weakened by fire, I heard yelling.

“Fuck, we have to go in and get her!” I recognized one of my guards’ voices.

“Fuck that, man. I don’t get paid enough to be barbecued. You want to go get her? You go right ahead. I’m outta here,” the other guard said.

There was a pause, then the first guard agreed. “Whatever. She’s probably dead already anyway.”

I realized then I was on my own. “Oh God.”

My third grade happy skit about fire safety did not cover this. What if no one came? What if the firefighters couldn’t get to me?!

I looked at the closed windows and picked up a chair, beating it against the glass. But it bounced right off as though it were bulletproof or something.

“Help!” I called, pounding my fists on the window. I tried turning the light on in the bedroom, but the wires must have melted or something because nothing happened. “Please.”

Smoke began filtering into the room despite the sweater, around the edges of the door, and I plastered myself to the wall, trying to stay away from it.

I was so focused on the smoke that I didn’t see the man in black until he knocked on my window.

Jumping, I turned to look. The man was on nylon rappelling rope and was dressed entirely in black, including the mask over his face.

He looked more like a thief than a rescuer, but I wasn’t going to be a choosy beggar. The man waved for me to move away from the window.

I skirted along the wall as far away as the opposite wall would let me.

The man stuck something squishy to the window, then moved away himself. There was a loud pop, and then the window shattered.

“Come on,” he said, gesturing me over to the exploded window.

As we were on the seventh floor, I knew I was going to have to be brave. I pulled on a pair of tennis shoes, then ran over in my pajamas—consisting of Caleb’s boxers and a T-shirt—and held out my arms to my savior.

He pulled me up onto the windowsill, which was not ideal, given the glass, and quickly hooked me into a harness connected to his. “Hang on,” he ordered.

I wrapped myself around his torso, and we went rappelling down the building. I squeezed my eyes shut so I wouldn’t do anything stupid like scream. This seemed like Darren’s plans at work, and I didn’t want to ruin them by drawing attention to us.

“You’re a very brave girl,” the man said when we finally hit the pavement. He unclipped me, then detached himself from the rope and dragged me into the alley around the back of the building.

At one end, a black sedan was waiting.

“Get in and go. Go!” he told me, giving me a push in that direction.

I scrambled through the alley and launched myself into the sedan, my head bumping someone’s thigh. Given that thigh was wearing expensive pants, I began to worry that I was being tricked and had just gone through this whole ordeal only to find Masterson was playing another one of his sick games.

However, when I looked up, I saw Jake, the guy from the funeral.

“Hi,” he said, his expression as bewildered as I felt.

“Hi,” I replied.

“So, apparently Masterson wants to kill me. I’m getting the impression he’s not terribly fond of you,” Jake said.

“You’d be right.” We both swayed as the sedan took off, careening through the streets of Minneapolis until we hit the highway and became just another nondescript vehicle in the Minnesota night.

The partition was up between us and whoever was driving, so it was impossible to see exactly who was taking us where.

“Were you picked up by the FBI?” I asked.

“Yeah. You?” Jake replied.

“I’m guessing so? We didn’t have a lot of time for introductions,” I explained.

“From the way the fire engines were racing to the building, and how scuffed up your legs are, I kind of got that impression,” Jake said.

I looked down at my legs and winced. “I suppose I should make sure I don’t have glass stuck in any of this mess.”

“Sometimes you’re not supposed to pull it out,” Jake warned.

“I’ll be careful.” I sat up and began picking at my legs. Luckily, there wasn’t a lot of glass at all.

Jake handed me a handkerchief to put the few pieces of glass there were into it. I disposed of the glass, then set the handkerchief aside. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” Jake was about to say something else, but then we skidded to a stop, making both of us roll forward and knock our heads on the partition.

“Ouch,” Jake groaned.

The door on Jake’s side opened, and I recognized one of my day guards. “Jake, no! Don’t go with him! He’s—!”

“Very good at keeping secrets,” the day guard winked and pulled out a badge, tossing it to me. “You have no idea what a pain in the ass it was to work for Masterson all this time. Or maybe you would.”

“Oh my God, you could have told me!” I huffed, tossing his badge back at him.

The FBI agent caught it in the air. “You don’t do that when you’re undercover. Six years. Finally get to go home and see my family.”

“Where are we?” Jake asked.

“We’re at your safehouse, kid. I’m taking Jacey here to a different one,” the FBI agent said. “Darren will be by soon to see if there’s any useful information you have about Masterson, but we know she has some so we’ve got to get her off and prepped.”

“Will there be a trial soon?” I responded hopefully.

“It’ll still be a while. Compiling all the evidence and everything. But this time, we’re not letting you out of our sight,” the FBI agent said. “Now, come on out, Jake. We’ve got to get you tucked away so I can take Jacey where she needs to go.”

Jake got out of the car and followed the FBI agent in the direction of a house I saw just in the distance. Only they veered off to the right suddenly.

“What…?” I murmured, getting out of the car myself and tiptoeing after them.

“What did I do?” I could hear Jake babbling. “Tell me what I did!”

“You ruined Mr. Masterson’s funeral,” the FBI agent said flatly as I approached. I saw, as I peeked my head out from behind a tree, that he was holding a gun in the moonlight.

To Jake’s credit, he lifted his chin and gave the FBI agent a derisive look. “It was Will’s funeral.”

“Yeah, you let that comfort you on your way to hell.” The FBI agent put the gun to Jake’s temple.

“I’ll see you there,” Jake replied.

I screamed. “NO!!!”

The FBI agent turned, and Jake took the opportunity to grab for the gun. A shot went off and Jake groaned.

“Fucking hell,” the FBI agent said. He turned and pointed the gun in my direction while Jake curled on the ground, holding his stomach.

I turned and ran.

Another shot went off, and a bullet clipped my arm, spinning me around and making me slam into a tree.

The FBI agent loomed over me moments later. “You’re lucky Masterson wants you alive.”

I gripped my arm, my head spinning from colliding with the tree, and began to back away.

“Where do you think you’re going?” the FBI agent snickered. “It’s not like there’s anywhere out here for you to go. That house? Masterson’s.”

Not willing to give up, I continued backing away.

The FBI agent moved forward like lightning and gripped my shirt. “You don’t learn, do you?”

“And you’re an idiot, Nelson,” Darren’s familiar voice snapped. I turned to see his gun leveled on Nelson, and five other agents with him. “Or did you forget our cars have GPS tracking?”

Nelson pushed me in front of him. “You won’t risk her life.”

“You’re right.” Darren cocked his head.

There was a loud shot behind us, and then Nelson crumpled to the ground.

“Darren,” I choked, going to him. He tucked me into his side. “Darren, you have to go help Jake.”

“We’ve got paramedics there already. Don’t worry.” Darren’s jaw worked as he looked down at Nelson’s dead body. “Traitor.”

I shuddered. “Can you take me to Caleb?”

“Most certainly.” Darren kept his arm around me and walked me away from the terrible scene. I knew Nelson’s sightless eyes would haunt me until the day I died.

“She needs to be checked out, too. It looks like one of those bullets grazed her, and she’s got a nice goose egg starting on her forehead,” one of the other agents said, holstering his weapon.

“I don’t trust hospitals right now. Have Wade come to the safehouse with a kit. I think she’s okay, and I want to know if we absolutely have to take her in,” Darren replied. He looked over my head in the direction of the house and scowled. “That bastard.”

I followed his line of sight and saw Mr. Masterson standing at the house’s tall windows, staring at all the activity out on his property. We were just close enough to see him smirk and raise a glass, toasting us.

“Permission to ram that single-malt scotch right up his ass, sir?” one of Darren’s agents asked.

“We’ve got him now. There’s no wiggling out of this one.” Darren raised a middle finger back at Mr. Masterson.

“Come on, boss. Let’s get her to the real safehouse,” another agent said, corralling Darren and me and herding us toward the dark SUVs parked out on the street. He gave a cursory glance at my injuries. “Bullet wound’s just a graze. You are going to want Wade to check her for a concussion.”

“Noted.”

Darren sat next to me as we drove all through the rest of the night. In the morning, we came upon a cottage by a lake and the SUV entourage stopped.

“Caleb’s in there,” Darren informed me. “Is Wade here?”

“He’s waiting inside,” another agent said.

We got out of the SUV and walked up to the cottage. The door burst open and a frantic-looking Caleb came bolting out. “Jacey, are you okay?! What’s all this blood?!”

“I’ll tell you in a bit, Caleb. I have to see a doctor now. Or a medic or somebody,” I replied, trying with my tone to calm him down.

Caleb wasn’t having it. “Why does she look like she’s been through a warzone?”

“Masterson,” Darren grunted.

It was all he needed to say. “I’m going to kill him,” Caleb said.