I shook my head. “W-What are you saying? Bray, we have to go home. There are no other options.”

“I love you, Elias, but I’m not going home with you. I’m not going to jail.”

We were interrupted by a few screams inside the store and then I heard, “Everybody get on the floor!”

It was Caleb’s voice.

And that was how we ended up here. In this moment. Holed up in the back of a convenience store with cops surrounding the building.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Present Day

Elias

Caleb has been holding me, Bray, and five other people inside the store for the past two hours. The store clerk and two customers have been sitting in the candy bar aisle just feet from us. I can smell urine. I think the woman with the brown hair and wearing a long, flowered dress pissed on herself at some point. Bray and I haven’t moved from the wall in the hallway next to the restrooms.

My mind is overloaded with… with a little bit of everything. A part of me wants to feel absolutely numb to all of this, but it’s only a small part. The rest of me is fearful but focused. I have to stay focused to get Bray out of here unharmed. I don’t think Caleb will hurt us. I really don’t. But I’m still afraid of what he might do, how far he will go.

Tate never made it into the store when the cops swarmed the parking lot and jumped out of their cars, drawing their guns. Caleb told us that he had pushed Tate away when Tate tried to follow him inside. He didn’t want Tate to go down with him like this. Whatever that meant.

I still have a bad feeling sitting sour in my stomach. As if what’s already happened isn’t enough, I still feel like the worst is yet to come.

“Bray?” I try again to get her attention.

She doesn’t answer. She appears stoic. Vacant.

I try another approach, with Caleb at least. I feel like Caleb is the one I need to fix first. To keep Bray safe, I have to talk Caleb down. An hour ago, I tried to talk him into giving himself up, but it was useless, as I had a feeling it would be.

I push myself to my feet. The gun in Caleb’s hand is pointed right at me the second he notices.

I raise my hands out at my sides. “It’s just me.” He starts to lower the gun. “I just want to talk.”

“Five more minutes!” an officer’s voice on a loudspeaker calls out. “We’re sending him back in!”

He’s referring to the man—a cop of some sort—Caleb agreed to let in thirty minutes ago. He wanted to hear Caleb’s demands and I’m sure to assess the situation inside for the officers outside. Bray and I stayed by the restrooms, out of sight.

“Talk about what?” Caleb says acidly.

His eye has turned blue and purple over the past two hours, and it’s so swollen the skin is raised nearly an inch over what is normal.

“You say you’re not going to hurt anyone,” I begin, “so just let everyone go. Show them you mean it. You keep these people in here like this, they’re hostages.”

“So fucking what?” he says. The woman in the dress looks up at him but is afraid to meet his eyes. “They’re already gonna charge me with having hostages. Doesn’t matter now.”

“Then let them go. You didn’t intend to have hostages, so let them go. I’ll stay here with you. But let Bray go, too.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Bray finally speaks from behind me.

I turn around to see her looking up at me from her sitting position on the floor. I leave Caleb carefully, backing my way away from him so that I’m not making any sudden movements, and I go straight over and kneel beside Bray.

“You need to get out of here,” I say.

“No. I don’t,” she says simply. “If I go out that door, I go straight to jail. I told you, baby, I’m not going to jail. And I meant it.”

My heart is racing. Time is running out, and all I can think about is what’s going to happen when it does. Every possible scenario has run through my mind like a wide-awake nightmare, each of them ending with Bray facedown in a pool of her own blood.

Five minutes later, the guy in the casual clothes who somehow still reeks of cop reenters the store with his hands raised above his head. And just like before, Caleb keeps the gun trained on him.

“Where is my brother?” Caleb asks.

“He’s still outside waiting for you,” the man says in a calm voice. “He’s worried about you, Caleb. He just wants you to come out of here safely so that you can go home.”

Caleb laughs. “Home? Are you fucking kidding me? You think I’m fucking stupid? I won’t see home for a long time.”

“No, you won’t,” the man says, still with both hands where Caleb can see them at all times. “But you will someday, and the longer you stay in here like this, the worse you make it for yourself, the farther away the prospect of seeing home becomes. What about these people?” He points at the male clerk and the two women sitting in the aisle. “They want to go home. They haven’t done anything to deserve this.”

I wonder why the man didn’t include Bray and me, why he’s acting as though we aren’t sitting here several feet away and as much a part of this as they are.

Just as I think that, the man looks at us, his dark eyes peer at us underneath dark, bushy eyebrows.

“And what about Brayelle Bates and Elias Kline?” he says and my heart stops.

How did they find out so soon? I think to myself, but then it becomes obvious. We’ve been on the news. It wasn’t hard to figure out. But still, his saying our names like that took me by surprise.

Bray has the same reaction. Her eyes grow wide. She looks at me for a split second before giving the man her full attention.

“They still have a chance to go home,” the man goes on, though he’s looking right at us, making sure that we get the message he was sent in here to give. “Everybody knows that they’re scared. But no one is accusing them of murder. Innocent until proven guilty. They want to go home to tell everyone what happened that night on the river, tell their side of the story, to have a chance at life.” He looks at Caleb again. “But you have to let them go home so they can do that.”

“I’m not keeping them here,” he says. “And she doesn’t want to go.”

The man looks at Bray. “Is that true?”

“You’re not in here for me,” Bray says. “I’m the least of anyone’s worries. Leave me out of it.”

“I’m afraid that’s not something I can do,” the man says.

“He’s the one with the gun, you asshole,” she snaps. “Just leave me alone!”

The man turns to me. “And what about you?” he asks. “Are you a part of this?”

“Wait a damn minute!” Caleb shouts. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean? You accusing them of being a part of this?” He points the gun forward at the man. “See, fuck the system! Fuck ‘innocent until proven guilty’! They already think you’re guilty, that you are as much a part of this as I am, even though I’m the one holding the gun to his fucking head. See how the system works? They send innocent people to jail every fucking day while murderers, child molesters, and real rapists are set free because of some stupid goddamn technicality. Fuck you and your system, you piece of shit!”

The man takes two steps back and raises his hands a little higher. He’s getting worried that Caleb might get trigger-happy. So am I.

“No, I’m not accusing them of anything,” the man says in surrender. “But it looks bad on them if they stay in here when they have a chance to be set free. It makes them look even guiltier of Jana McIntyre’s death than they already do.” Then he adds, “And I know about your rape sentence, Caleb. I’ve seen men get sent to jail for rape, men just like you who don’t fit the profile. It happens all the time. You’re not the only one.” He looks at us once more. “And accidents happen all the time, too. Sometimes people run when they’re scared. It’s the worst thing you can do, but it happens. All the time. None of you are alone.”

“Are you saying you believe us?” Caleb asks. “Or is this your way of gaining trust?” He doesn’t give the man a chance to answer. Caleb already has it set in his mind what he believes and nothing this man can say will ever change that. He laughs. “That’s exactly what it is. You come in here wearing your stupid fucking running pants and your stupid fucking running shoes, trying to look like a civilian, when really we all know you’re just another cop trying to fit in with the little people. Gain our trust. Make us believe your bullshit lies.”

“Your brother is outside right now, Caleb,” the man cuts in. “He’s worried. He told me to tell you that he will visit you every single day while you’re locked up. He said that he didn’t mean what he said before, that he never wanted to see you again. He wants you to know that no matter what, he’ll put you first and visit you every day until the day you get out. Because he loves you and nothing can keep him away from his little brother.”

I hear Bray rupture with sobs and I look down at her. It’s as though what the man just said struck a nerve.

Caleb’s eyes are now brimming with tears, too. His mouth is twitching at the corners, his nose wrinkling under the deep setting of his eyebrows as he tries to hold the tears back. But he can’t hold them in and they begin to run down his cheeks in rivulets.

“Is my brother in trouble?” Caleb asks, the gun, still shaking, pointed at the man. “Is he going to face charges for running with me? It wasn’t his fault! He wasn’t even thinking straight when he ran out of that liquor store with me! He had nothing to do with it! He only ran because I was running! He wasn’t thinking straight!”