It’s been a hellish few days, but there’s been sightings of Sophie in San Diego today.
Antonio and I nearly collapsed in giddy relief, but Severyn and her team warned us not to get our hopes up while they checked if the sightings were real or planted. Their warnings were for a reason because they discovered they were indeed planted footage of Sophie—very good plants.
The reminder that we’re dealing with an extraordinary hacker—or hackers—was a slap in the face. After that, I’m physically here but not completely coherent as I try not to spiral.
But then Nexin barged in with a triumphant look, announcing that he had finally gotten into Sophie’s phone. This re-fanned the wind in my sails until they started talking about the contact Sophie was communicating with—a guy named Creed—and they put together some pieces of the puzzle and deduced it was Creed Santoro.
Nausea nearly makes me projectile vomit.
Last year, I dated a guy who was an organized crime fanatic. He told me all about who ruled California: the Santoro family, the Italian mafia. He mentioned the three brothers’ names: Massimo, Vito, and Creed.
This is too much. Plus, I’m cold and clammy, my stomach is crampy and rolling. I want to scream because a stomach flu is the last thing I need.
I force back the vomit, swallowing multiple times as I finally chime into the conversation. My stomach flu will make a dramatic entrance soon, so I don’t have much time.
“It makes sense. If Soph fell in love with this Creed guy and found out who his family was, it would’ve gutted her.” I look at Antonio, who looks worse than me. “It did gut her. She’s been like a shell these past four months.”
Antonio drags a hand over his face. “But why did she run? Did this Creed guy suddenly get sick of her telling him no?”
That nearly sends me over the edge with panic. Kidnapped? Forced against her will?
But Sophie wouldn’t have fallen in love with a villain. The possibility that makes the most sense is that her mysterious love is helping her, keeping her safe from an actual threat.
Beads of sweat coat my face and run down my spine. “Creed or his family planted the fake sightings of Sophie,” I surmise, gripping onto the idea that Creed and his family might not be as bad as feared.
“Ollie, are you okay?” Ryn asks, concerned.
I continue without processing what she says, trying to coordinate the chaotic possibilities and thoughts into something rational. “To force whoever is a threat to Sophie to act. That means they’re on our side.” Oh, please, please be on our side. “We could work with them,” I reason.
“Absolutely not,” Antonio nearly spits. “They’re criminals—”
Bile pushes into my throat as my stomach cramps again, but suddenly, I’m full of absolute conviction that this is the explanation. Creed isn’t a threat to Sophie; he is the complete opposite. “Who are trying to keep Sophie safe. That doesn’t matter.”
“How can you say that?” Antonio demands.
“Antonio,” Miguel murmurs.
Desperation and anger surge within me. I try to ignore a vicious cramp, my mouth salivating with a warning that the contents of my stomach will soon be spewing over everything. I need to get to my dorm before this stomach flu hits me in full force. But I need Antonio not to block this very real lead just because of moral viewpoints.
“Fuck that and your high-handed opinions, Antonio,” I say with more heat than necessary, but my desperation trumps my guilt. “Maybe that’s why Sophie hid this for so long.”
He rears back like I slapped him. “That’s not fair.”
I know, but I’m desperate, and I’m a dick. “She kept it from me, too, so I’m just as much to blame.”
“No one’s to blame here,” Tag insists.
I heave, choking back a toxic combination of fear, guilt, and bile, and clamp my hand over my mouth. “I’m going to be sick.”
Rolf suddenly is in front of me—how that huge mountain of a man moves so quickly and agilely, I’ll never understand—holding an empty ice bucket and touching my forehead. “She’s burning up.”
My body bucks as I retch, but nothing comes up. “I need to go home.”
My brain blocks out whatever they say, and it takes a Herculean effort to concentrate on controlling my stomach, which I know is a losing battle. Between the panic about getting sick and about Sophie, it finally processes what Rolf says.
“I can take Ollie and stay with her.”
“No,” I choke out, horrified. “You can’t stay. It’s a one-room deal. I don’t want you in there while I’m hurling my guts out or needing to run to the bathroom, so I don’t shit myself.”
Rolf helps me stand. “I’ll take up a post outside to watch your building and be on site if you need.”
“It’s that, or you stay here,” Antonio says with no room for arguing.
I’m not the one in danger here. I want to scream, but my body is betraying me.
I swallow repeatedly before turning to Rolf. “I need to go. Now.”
The rush out of the hotel is a blur. When Rolf helps me into his SUV, I mumble, “I should just catch a cab. The team needs your help; I can’t get you sick.”
He gently pushes me into the front seat. “I have the immunity of an ox.”
“I don’t know what that means. Like, are you bulletproof against germs, or do you get everything?”
Rolf smirks and shuts my door. I close my eyes, lying my seat back, willing myself not to puke in his vehicle.
“Drive fast, big guy,” I call him big guy, like Nexin always does, and he half-grunts and half-laughs.
I keep my eyes shut as we start moving. “Where are you from?” I ask, trying to focus on something other than my swirling guts.
“Lots of places.”
“A man of few words.”
“I was born and raised in Germany. Most recently, I lived in Boston and Montana.”
“Montana?” I frown.
“Worked on a cattle ranch for six months.”
I burst out laughing, keeping my eyes closed. “You? A ranch hand?”
“Yep.”
The guy is huge—not fat or anything—but a tower of broad muscle.
“Did you rustle those cattle by their sheer fear of you?”
He rumbles a laugh.
“Doctor. Security personnel. Ranch hand. That’s quite the resume,” I list off what I’ve learned about him in the past few days.
He’s quiet, but I can almost hear his smirk. Even if I wanted to pry for more details, I couldn’t because another wave of cramping contractions hits me. I struggle to breathe.
“Try to breathe through it,” he says as we turn a corner. “Holding your breath and tensing will make it worse.”
“What, are you my freaking Lamaze coach?” I grouse, then groan as another wave hits me. “Good god, remind me never to have a kid.” Another wave of nausea floods my mouth with saliva. “Drive faster.”
We don’t chat anymore, and when Rolf parks and opens the door to help me out, I see he’s parked illegally in the service truck spot behind my building.
“I can make it from here.”
“Don’t be stubborn.” He holds my elbow and steadies me. I’m weak and shivering so bad my teeth will probably clatter.
I get my keys out, and we enter the back door at the end of the building where my room is. This entrance doesn’t have an elevator, and I’m sweating profusely by the time I get up the stairs. I get my keys in the door to my dorm room and push in.
Sophie isn’t there—not that I truly expected her to be—but that reminder makes my knees almost buckle.
Rolf helps me to my bed and then checks the closets. Next, he checks that the window is shut and locked, before he turns to me. “Drink fluids and make sure you lock your door when I leave. I’ll be outside the building; call if you need anything.”
“Rolf…” I swallow thickly. “I need you to go because I’m for sure going to hurl now.”
He holds up his big hands. “Alright, a guy can take a hint.”
I laugh, then groan, waving my hand frantically at him to go. He leaves, and I lock the door behind him, then race to the waste bin.
I groan and curl into a fetal position. It’s black in my room, but I don’t know what time it is. I’m soaked from sweating and recall that after I had put my contaminated waste bin out in the hall, I crawled under my electric blanket. I feel a bit better so the sweat is also partly due to my fever breaking.
I stumble out of bed and strip down to my T-shirt and panties. My sheets are wet from my overheating. I’ll get another chill if I try to sleep in my bed with wet bedding, and I have zero energy to change it right now.
I stumble over to Sophie’s bed, pull down her blankets, and climb in. My head pounds. I need some painkillers and something to drink, but I don’t have the energy to get up, so I close my eyes and let sleep pull me under again.
Sometime later, or shortly after, maybe, as I have no sense of time, something startles me awake.
I’m disoriented when I see the window above my head until I slowly remember that I’m sleeping in Sophie’s bed. My head is still pounding, but I feel a bit better and decide to get up for water because my mouth feels like the Sahara desert has blown in while I slept.
I roll over, then freeze. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up, and my breathing quickens.
Before I can move or scream, a weight lands on me, pinning me to the bed, and a hand clamps over my mouth. I buck and fight, but I’m drained and weak from my stomach flu, and the weight doesn’t budge.
A man chuckles in my ear and says something I don’t understand because he’s speaking Spanish. He pulls the blanket off me, and I renew my struggles and muffled screams.
I try to bite his hand, but it’s pressed so hard over my face that I can’t clamp down on any flesh. His other hand gropes under my shirt, and my terror-filled brain registers he’s wearing tight leather gloves.
So, he doesn’t leave any fingerprints.
I buck, struggle, and scream into his palm, and tears leak out from my eyes.
He continues to talk in Spanish, and he squeezes my breast hard and twists it, making pain rupture in my tender flesh, and I cry harder. I brace my heels into the mattress to try and push him off, but that only grinds his hips into mine and his erection presses between my legs. I cry harder and fight him, but I’m losing strength.
Some of his Spanish words are getting through, and although I can’t understand it all, I catch a few things.
Padre… Pago…
Father… Payment…
“Eres mi juguete, Sophie.” He licks my neck and up my face.
My heart stammers. He thinks I’m Sophie.
I shake my head, renewing my struggles. His hand squeezes my other breast just as painfully, and when he dives his hand between my legs and starts to unzip his pants, I sob and twist my head. I dislodge his hand from my mouth, but he slams it back before I can get my scream loose.
A cold, sharp blade presses against my throat, and he hisses in Spanish, “Cállate, perra.”
I’m not sure what he’s saying, but I get the jist when he presses the knife firmer into my throat, and a hiss of pain tells me he broke the skin. He takes his hand away from my mouth, keeping the knife pressing into my throat, and starts undoing his pants again.
“Please, I’m not Sophie,” I choke out. I have no idea if this will save me from being raped.
“¿Qué?” he seethes, heaving on top of me.
“Please, I’m her roommate. Just go, I won’t tell anyone.”
His free hand grips my hair, feeling my curls rather than Sophie’s silky locks.
“Where is she?” he hisses in English. His breath is rank and rancid, making my stomach turn again. I can feel blood trickle down my neck.
“I don’t know,” I cry. “Please don’t hurt me.”
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know.’ Fear makes it hard to get the words out. ‘I haven’t seen or heard from her since Friday.”
He lets loose a string of rapid curses in Spanish, and his weight on top of me eases. When the knife pulls away from my neck, I choke out a sob.
But then his hand falls over my mouth again, and he looms over me, illuminated by the moonlight. His face is pocked and scarred, his eyes cruel.
His hand raises with the knife, and I scream and twist, but he holds me as he stabs me in the chest. And smiles.
Then he rips the knife out.
White, hot, blinding pain fills my chest and radiates down my arm. I know I’m not having a heart attack, though; it’s much, much worse. Coughing up blood, I fall out of the bed and onto the floor.
Somehow, I know my attacker is gone now. I don’t have much time as I feel my body turn cold and numb, and it’s a struggle to keep my eyes open. I need to get to my phone.
I half-crawl and half-stumble to my desk, blood flowing from my stab wound, and I fall to my knees at my desk. I reach up, blindly trying to find my phone until my hand clutches it. I sob, and my hands shake as I try to unlock it.
Blood coats my hands. The screen is the only illumination I have, but I get it unlocked.
I’ll get one phone call. Like I’m in prison and allowed my one phone call.
This is my sentence; a life sentence by the amount of blood I’m losing, the gurgling sounds I’m making, and the blood I’m coughing up.
I’m not calling 911, though. Desperately, I want to talk to Antonio and Miguel one last time for some unknown reason. Instead, I hit Rolf’s number, hoping he might catch the man who attacked me so that can help Sophie.
Sophie is the only thing that matters. I know my chest wound is fatal and I don’t stand a chance, but I can help my friend before the blackness closing in on me takes over.
“Ollie,” Rolf answers, sounding like he’s running, but the sound is fading in my ears. “I’m on my way—”
Somehow, he knows, and he’s coming to help.
But it’s too late.
I try to talk, to give him information that could help Sophie, but I only gurgle on the blood. I bear down with every ounce of fading strength I have left.
“Ollie, stay with me! I’m just about to your room.”
“He’s… gone,” I gasp through the burning pain and the cold in my body. “He… thought… was Sophie.”
“Ollie!” Rolf shouts, but he sounds even farther away than before.
Bye, Killjoy. Tears spill down my cheeks. Love you a lot.
Then the darkness and cold washes everything away.
