Read The Unofficial Zack Warren Fan Club Online
Authors: J.C. Isabella
The Unofficial Zack Warren Fan Club (28 page)
“Good, I’ll take you, and on the way you can tell me why you’re crying.” He squeezed my hand a little harder than necessary. I pushed away my apprehension. Max was a big guy. Probably didn’t know his strength.
“Thanks, this is really nice of you.” I said, letting him lead me downstairs through the throng of people to the front door. Kyle certainly knew how to throw a party.
Someone grabbed my arm, keeping me from going out the door. “Chloe, what are you doing?”
I turned to see Kyle. “I’m going.”
“With Max?”
“Yeah, so?” Max made an irritated sound and tugged me down the front steps into the yard.
Kyle followed us, “Chloe, I thought you were with Zack. He told me you guys were together.”
“We were.” I had to run a little to keep up with Max’s quickening strides. “He told me to find a ride, and that’s exactly what I’m doing.”
Kyle dug his fingers into his puff of hair, exasperated. “Let me drive you!”
Max unlocked his car and opened the door for me.
“If you see Zack,” I said to Kyle, “tell him that I’m sorry. I never, ever, wanted to hurt him, and he doesn’t have to worry. I’ll be okay. Maybe he will listen to you. You said you’d talk to him if he ever found out.”
Max shut the door after I was in, and when I looked up Kyle bolted for the house.
“He’s a freak.” Max said as he started the car. “Probably doesn’t know you and Zack are over.”
I buckled my seatbelt. “Zack and I haven’t broken up. We had an argument and needed some time apart.” I stared out the window, trying to hide how nervous I was. On the verge of panicking. I never should have gotten in the car with Max because I was upset. I should have listened to Kyle. Hell, I should have listened to my gut. “How did you know Zack and I were together?”
“I could tell.”
“Right…wait, this is the wrong way.”
“It’s a shortcut.”
The winding street emptied out at the retention pond. A dead end. “Uh, the sign back there says differently.”
“Don’t worry.”
“Take me back, Max.”
“I will.”
“Now!”
“Hey, I’m just trying to cheer you up.” He reached out and patted my leg. “Cool it, have some fun.”
I shoved his hand away, tugging my dress down to cover my knees. “Lets go back to the party. We can have fun there.”
“Why?” he took a sharp turn that had me gripping the seat. “So you can run to your boyfriend and tattle on me?”
Yes, that’s exactly what I wanted to do. “No, I’d just like to dance with you, make Zack jealous.”
“You’re not a good liar.”
No, I am. I just needed a little more time to make myself as convincing as possible. Also, I’d never had to lie and control my terror.
“Why are you taking me here?” I demanded, seeing that the road was ending, blocked off by metal railing and a ditch. “Why are you doing this?”
He jerked the car to a stop and cut the ignition, “I’m doing what I want to do.”
“What does that mean?” I asked, unclipping my seatbelt. Very slowly, I turned in my seat, hiding my fingers as I searched for the lock. I pulled the leaver until I felt it pop up. But I didn’t open the door, not yet. I had to wait for the right moment, and then I’d run.
“Your boyfriend thinks he has the right to order me around.” He said.
“Zack can be a little overbearing, but he means well.”
Max laughed, leaning toward me. “He told me I wasn’t allowed anywhere near you. Coach suspended me from the team because I asked you out. And now the little fucker is in the big leagues. He thinks he’s so much better than me.”
I gulped. “I’m sure he had a good reason. He didn’t really mean to hurt you, Max.”
“I don’t care what his reason was, I saw you first.” Max licked his lips, fisting his hand in my hair and jerking me closer. “And since I saw Zack dump you back at the party, that means what he said doesn’t matter anymore. Game on!”
His lips crushed mine with bruising force. Terror ripped through me. I hit him with my purse and scratched for his eyes. He pushed me back against the door, trying to pin me down. I managed to grip the handle. The door swung open. I tumbled out of the car, down into the ditch. Not bothering to look back, I shoved to my feet and ran.
Chapter 30
Zack
“Move.” I pushed a scrawny kid out of the bathroom line and pounded on the door. “Open up.”
The water shut off and the door swung inward. I didn’t hesitate and slipped in, locking it behind me.
“Whoa, Zack. What are you doing?” Lana asked, trying to get past me. “If Kyle finds out—”
“I want the truth.”
“Oh, that.” She crossed her arms, leaning her hip against the counter. “You’ll never believe me.”
“Try me…I heard you and Chloe arguing. I was right outside.” I didn’t catch every word because of the noise from the party, but what I heard was enough to keep me around.
“Of course you were.” She didn’t flinch, didn’t get defensive. Normally Lana fought back when she was trying to hide something.
“I can’t wrap my head around it. The Chloe I know would never have such a creepy obsession.”
Lana sighed. “You’re right. We were kids, and we had a crush on you. It was a game, but I made into more than what it was.”
“She should have told me before we got together.”
“She really cares about you Zack. She tried to stop me, to protect you.” Lana rubbed her arms. “This is all my fault. It got out of hand. I was just having fun. I didn’t see the big deal. But Chloe saw it as an invasion of your privacy.”
I felt terrible for yelling at Chloe, and I knew Lana spoke the truth. Chloe didn’t have a conniving bone in her body. I was just so shocked I reacted. It’s not every day you find out you have your won fan club. “Where is she?”
Lana tensed, “Zack, she’s heartbroken. This is all me. You want to be mad at someone, be mad at me.”
“I know,” I said, and smiled. “I want to apologize to her. Honestly, I can’t find it in me to be mad. Creeped out, really creeped out, Lana. But I’m not mad at anyone.”
“Chloe was in Kyle’s room, last I checked.”
I bolted out of the bathroom and down the hall. I was too late. She wasn’t in the bedroom. I checked every room, every bathroom, but no Chloe. I went back into the hall, thinking she was downstairs. I’d find her. Tell her I was sorry. Before I could make it out of the hall though, I ran into Kyle.
“Zack, you are the biggest mother fucking jerk!” he grabbed the front of my shirt and slammed me against the wall.
“What are you talking about?” I pushed him off me. “Lana and I were just talking.”
Kyle shook his head, voice cracking, “L-Lana? I’m talking about Chloe. She was crying.”
Shit, strike three for me. “Where’d she go?”
He didn’t answer and rubbed his jaw.
“Kyle?”
“Max has her.”
My head spun. I went numb as if I’d suddenly been submerged in ice-cold water. “No.”
“I tried to stop her, but she said you told her to find a ride with someone else.”
“I’m going after her.”
He shook his head. “Chloe said you don’t have to worry about her.”
“What?” I wasn’t big on crying, never had been. But my throat tightened, and my eyes grew warm. Chloe was the only person I ever worried about outside of my family. Since the first day I met her she was always on my mind, even at eleven years old or thirteen, or on school field trips…like the one in the third grade. I remembered. We went to the aquarium. That place was huge. It was cool, and although I was caught up in seeing man-eating sharks, I kept my eye on Chloe. Worried she might get lost or talk to a stranger. I knew she was important, but it took me a while to realize she was important to me. That she was special to me. That she was mine. I was supposed to protect her. I knew that then, as a kid.
And now, as a man, I’d let her down.
“Chloe said that she never wanted to hurt you. That’s she’s sorry.” Kyle groaned, “I should have tried harder to stop her.”
“Where?” I demanded. “Where did Max take her?”
“Home, or the dorms. I don’t know. They left out the front door. They’re long gone by now.”
I tore through the packed bodies in the hall, not bothering with the landing or stairs and vaulted over the banister, dropping onto the makeshift dance floor. People leapt out of my way. Nothing would slow me down. In the front yard I searched for the blue Honda Max drove. But Kyle was right. I was too late.
I dialed Chloe’s cell and climbed into the truck. Her phone rang and rang. Then, finally, she answered.
“Zack?”
“Chloe, where are you?”
“I don’t know.” She sounded out of breath. “We went the wrong way. Max said he knew a shortcut. But it was a dead-end, a ditch.”
I knew exactly where they were, and backed the truck around, out of the driveway. Kyle and Lana regularly parked at the end of the road to hook up when their parents were home. Honestly, it didn’t sound all that hot. More like uncomfortable and awkward. “I’m coming.”
“It’s really dark.” She whispered. “I can’t see anything.”
“I’ll be there soon, just stay on the phone with me.”
“Okay…and I’m really sorry. I never wanted to hurt you.” The phone garbled, her voice wavering over the line like the connection was bad.
“Forget about it. I don’t care about that, I care about you.” I asked to distract her, “I was thinking, you want to go out tomorrow night?”
Silence.
“Chloe?”
Nothing.
I tried her phone again. It went to voicemail.
Cursing that son of a bitch Max, I floored the truck down the road. It narrowed, winding to a ditch and a dead-end. Parked beside the sign was the little blue Honda.
I slammed on the breaks and left the truck lights running, knowing that the battery wouldn’t drain in the time it took me to find Chloe. Grabbing a flashlight I kept in the glove compartment, I made for the Honda. “Chloe?”
The Honda was empty, I discovered, but I’d find her. I stood in the middle of the street, just listening, watching. Heard the sound of water trickling in the ditch, crickets, and a faraway car horn. I kept my temper in check, emotions level enough to concentrate. I put aside fear and anger and took a good look at my surroundings.
The Honda was running, passenger side door open. The driver’s side was closed. The ditch sat at a steep angle, going up into a pipe. It would be too steep for Chloe to run left. And I would have seen her if she’d escaped back down the road. The rest of the area was fenced off. It wouldn’t be hard for me to scale, but Chloe couldn’t clear an eight-foot chain length in a dress and heels.
I flicked on the flashlight and pointed it up. The rusted teeth on the top of that sucker looked ragged enough to slice my legs to ribbons. So I took the easiest route, the way Chloe would have gone, and jumped in the ditch. Sour smelling water soaked my jeans, up to my thighs. I went right, into the marsh off the side of the road. It was dark, very quiet. I didn’t get far when my flashlight illuminated Chloe’s purse floating in the shallow water. Knowing I was going in the right direction now, I tossed it onto the bank and made a mental note to come back for it.
“Chloe?” I called.
The ditch angled up again, gradually. When I lit up the ground I saw chunks of grass had been trampled, plus a bush that looked like it had been used to help something…our someone get enough leverage to yank themselves out of the ditch. I climbed out of the muck, grabbing onto a tree, heading into the woods. Chloe went this way, I was sure of it. The fence was off to my left, so I kept to the right, taking what seemed to be the clearest path, my flashlight keeping the area lit. Something white caught my eye ten feet ahead. Shiny. Small. I let the beam of the flashlight fall on a shoe. A sexy little heel. Then there was a sound. A rustling and a distinct sniffle. I zeroed in on a bush. More specifically, on the muddy foot sticking out of it.
Bingo.
I crouched, moving the branches aside. She was pressed back against the tree, arms holding her knees to her chest.
“Baker?”
“Zack!” she leapt at me, knocking me backwards onto the ground. The flashlight flew out of my hand, but I didn’t care. I wound my arms around her, drowning in relief. Everything was going to be fine now. Chloe was safe with me. “You found me.”
“I’ll always find you Chloe. That’s a promise.”
“I’m s-sorry. So, s-so sorry.” She cried the kind of tears that terrified and amazed me, and although I wanted to comfort her, I pulled her to her feet.
“Shh.” I heard a twig snap.
“What?”
Shaking my head, I covered her mouth with my hand, knowing we’d probably been found. I toed the flashlight with my shoe, extinguishing it, hoping the darkness would cloak us.