Only With Me (Sugarland Creek #4)

Chapter 29

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Harlow

“ D addy’s going to the hospital, you need to come right away.”

Delilah’s frantic voice has my heart racing.

She never calls me at work so when Ashley told me my sister was on the phone, I had a gut feeling something bad happened.

“Oh my God.” I suck in my breath. “Is he okay?”

“I dunno, the ambulance took him ten minutes ago. Mama found him unconscious.”

My worst nightmare has come to life.

“I’ll be there as soon as possible,” I tell her, then inform Ashley I have to go.

“Drive safe, lemme know how it goes!” she calls out as I rush toward the back door.

With my bag over my shoulder, I sprint toward my truck.

I hate that I haven’t talked to Waylon in three days, but my plan was to call him after my shift and ask to come over. I’d rather talk in person but my dad takes priority above all else, so that’s gonna have to wait.

Before I can open the door, someone calls out my name. “Harlow!”

Spinning around, my mouth opens. “ Emery ? What’re you doin’?”

He’s been lurking around the store every day this week I’ve been here. I don’t know how he knows my schedule or if he’s stalking it every day until I show up, but it’s starting to get creepy.

His face splits into a mischievous smirk. “I came to get you.”

“Wha—” Something hard hits me from behind before I fall to my knees.

“Dude, I think I hit her too hard.”

“Nah, she deserved it.”

My eyes struggle to open, but I can tell I’m no longer in the parking lot at work. I’m on something hard. And cold.

My limbs are fighting to move as if I’m paralyzed.

Throbbing pain in my head makes me feel like I need to throw up.

But all I can think about is my dad. I should be at his bedside, not here. I didn’t even get all the details on what happened and have no idea how he’s doing.

“Do you think she’s gonna wake up?”

“Just give her a little kick and she will.”

I recognize Emery’s voice and then he bellows out the evilest laugh I’ve ever heard.

The other sounds familiar, but I can’t place him. Both sound terrifying.

Boots step closer and then a kick to my ribs has me groaning out loud.

“See, told ya. She’s fine,” Emery says.

“Now what?”

“Now…we do what we came here to do.” Emery chuckles darkly.

The other one cackles. “Karma’s a bitch.”

My eyes flutter open to a recognizable face leaning down in front of me.

“Kenny?” I snarl.

“Hello, Harlow.” He grins, then slides his tongue across his top lip.

“Don’t touch me,” I hiss.

“Aw, c’mon. Don’t be like that.”

Jake’s younger brother is five years older than me but everyone knows everyone in our small town, even if I never went to school with him, I’ve seen him at rodeo events with Jake.

But I have no idea what him and Emery want with me.

“Lemme go,” I demand. “I haveta get to the hospital to see my dad.”

“That’s not gonna happen…” Emery grabs a metal baseball bat and spins it around in his hand. “Not until you pay.”

“For not wantin’ to go on a second date with you?” I hardly get out the words because the blood rushing through my skull makes me dizzy with stars.

“Oh you wish, sweetheart.”

Emery smacks the bat into my thigh, and I release a blood-curdling scream that makes the throbbing in my head even worse.

“Every second lookin’ at you was torture.”

He presses the bottom of his boot against the spot on my leg he just bruised. And then another hit lands on my hip.

“Aaahhh…” I groan, reaching down where the pain settles. “Please, stop.”

“Should we tell her why she’s here?” Kenny taunts, crouching down to make eye contact with me. “Are you feelin’ a little deja vu?”

Emery lifts the bat again, but this time, he slams it into my ribcage.

All the air gets sucked out of my lungs, and I gasp, struggling to breathe.

“It’s a shame Henry couldn’t be here for our little reunion. He was my brother, you little rat ,” Emery says.

I swallow hard at the name of my previous attacker— Henry Gibbons .

Brothers?

“What’d ya think, Kenny? We can still have fun with just the two of us, right?”

“Mm-hmm. I think he’ll appreciate the dedication. We’ve waited years for this moment,” he responds.

That’s when it hits me.

Emery must’ve recognized my face and name on the CowboyMatch app and then tried to lure me in by acting interested and wanting to get to know me in person. No wonder he was so persistent and asked a million questions about me.

Fucking psychopath.

It’s no coincidence he messaged me after Henry’s parole was denied.

Emery probably didn’t anticipate me rejecting a second date and that’s when he resorted to stalking me. Who knows what he would’ve done to me if I’d willingly dated him and he’d gotten me alone?

The thought sends a shiver of nerves down my spine.

And Kenny? All these years he was right under my nose, and I had no idea he was one of the three. There’s no way Jake knew…he couldn’t have.

A truck engine roars outside, grabbing their attention. Kenny picks up some kind of large weapon and holds it up when noises come from the otherside of the door.

God, please let it be the sheriff or someone with a loaded gun.

I try to shift my body so I can look over my shoulder but the pain is too much.

“Go check out who’s here,” Emery tells Kenny.

When he walks around me, I try pulling myself up.

“And where do you think you’re going?” Emery stomps on my ankle, and I hiss at the pain.

“Let me go,” I sneer.

Commotion outside grabs Emery’s attention and then I hear popping sounds.

“Stay here,” he demands.

When he goes to step over me, I lift my leg as high as I can and make him trip. His knees bend before they collide with the ground and when he tries to catch himself, he loses his grip on the bat.

It bounces and rolls, landing a foot away from me. With as much strength as I can produce, I roll over and reach for it. Before I can grab it, Kenny stands over me and stomps on my wrist.

“And whaddya think you’re gonna do with that, you little bitch?”

I think about the countless book plots Natalie’s told me over the years. The girls who get murdered in those stories always do something stupid before their throats get ripped out. If I become one of them, Natalie will summon me from the dead just to kill me again for being so stupid.

When more popping noises echo outside, Emery’s attention goes to the door. Without hesitation, I reach over with my other hand and grab the bat. Before he can stop me, I swing the bat between his legs.

I hear his high-pitched shriek before his knees buckle and then he collapses on his side with his back to me. Part of him lands on my arm, but I fight through the pain to slide out from under him.

When I attempt to stand, the dizziness and throbbing almost knock me down again, but I refuse to give up when I’m this close.

Crawling toward the bat that dropped between his legs, I hiss through the pain that’s radiating through my body until I wrap my hand around it. Even as I struggle to breathe, a surge of adrenaline fuels just enough strength to lift the bat over my head.

“You can tell Henry I’m not thirteen anymore!” Then I slam it down against his rib cage—once, twice, three times—until I hear them crack.

Drained of energy, the weight of my injuries are too much to hold myself up, and I fall to the ground next to him.

The last sounds I hear are the metal bat rolling away and someone screaming my name.