Vaguely, she could hear Adrien talking with someone.
It wasn’t someone Camila knew, because they were already well out of the city limits, and she didn’t know anyone who lived out so far. Maybe it was a relative? She thought curiously. She lifted up and pressed her ear to the trunk lid trying to make out what they were saying.
“Are you lost?” It sounded like a sweet older woman’s voice.
“Yeah, my phone died, can I use yours, Mrs.—”
“Oh, I’ve been a widow for years, you can call me Tansy. I don’t get many visitors out this way. When I saw you pull up, I got curious. Figured you needed help.”
Camila frowned. She wished she could yell to the woman, warn her somehow, but she was afraid of Adrien and what he would do if she made any noise.
“Hello Tansy, it’s nice to meet you.”
Camila could hear the charm he was putting into his voice, but he also sounded stressed to her ears. She could imagine him giving her that charming smile he used when he wanted something. It made her shudder.
“You… you wouldn’t happen to have a spare room, would you? I know it’s a bit forward of me, but it’s been a day and I’m rather exhausted. Not to mention my phone died.”
“What’s a young man like you doing out here at this kind of time? It’s getting a bit late, don’t you think? What about your home?”
Tansy sounded more curious than concerned and Camila wanted to yell at her to run.
“Ah, I actually got thrown out of the house by my brother.”
Camila huffed indignantly and rolled her eyes.
“Our parents died, you see, and they had quite a bit of money. My older brother didn’t want me touching any of the money and made me leave. I only need a place to stay for a bit. I have a small amount of cash on me, I can pay for my stay.”
The story was total bullshit, though it did have a small ring of truth to it. Camila knew that while Samuel had let Adrien use their inheritance freely, he didn’t give him full access to everything. Instead, he’d set up a trust for Adrien. And technically, he had been kicked out of the family home.
“You shouldn’t be having fights with your own family, though.”
Camila heard Tansy say. She could picture a nice older woman, probably plump with graying hair, frowning up at him, because she was probably much shorter than Adrien.
“Did you at least try to talk to your brother? I’m sure the two of you can talk things out instead of separating like this. You should go back home and try, okay?”
“No. I don’t think that will be necessary…”
Camila fretted over the tone of Adrien’s voice. It worried her, because that was how he’d sounded at her apartment. She feared something bad was about to happen. Whoever this Tansy woman was, Adrien was trying to talk her into letting him into her house. Tansy didn’t sound immediately persuaded, in fact she sounded like she was going to refuse. However, whether Tansy consented to it or not, Camila was worried about what Adrien would do.
There was only one thing she could do.
She screamed.
Camila screamed until her throat ached, but she could hardly get much sound out with the gag in her mouth. But she had to warn this poor, kind, trusting woman, to tell her that the person she was talking to wasn’t an innocent person who deserved her sympathy, but a villain who would bring her doom. Camila tried to move, to squirm around enough to make the car bounce at least, but she stopped with a whimper when she shifted on the arm she was lying upon.
She couldn’t do a thing, though. She was about to try screaming again, when she heard a gunshot, muffled because she was in the trunk, but unmistakable. She froze, then felt her heart tremble, then the rest of her body, and her eyes stung with tears that overflowed. She didn’t have to see to know Tansy must be dead. Camila’s heart wept for the woman. Just one more person who had became collateral damage in Adrien’s pursuit of her. Her body spasmed as she tried to cry and breathe at the same time, with the gag still in her mouth and mucus starting to block her nose.
I am so sorry…
She lay there, her body trembling, eyes closed since all she could see was darkness anyway. She wouldn’t mind passing out again right then, but then she felt the car shake. Her eyes snapped open when she realized Adrien must have come back to the car.
No…
The trembling in her body grew, but she didn’t have a way to actually stop him. She heard a pop, then saw a thin line of light. Adrien opened the trunk, and she looked up at him with wide, frightened eyes, thinking back to the dream she had. A prey caught in a predator’s trap.
He reached for her, and she yelped and tried to squirm back, ignoring the pain, but it wasn’t as if she had anywhere to go. He grabbed her arm and dragged her out of the trunk and into the chilling night, ignoring how her lower body thumped onto the ground, and her cries and weak struggling.
Adrien did lift her up a bit so he was dragging her more underneath his arm and not behind him. She looked across his chest, and noticed his left shoulder was bandaged, which was probably why she was under his right arm. The bandage was soaked through with blood.
She wondered briefly what happened, before fear completely consumed her mind.