Page 76 of (Un)Spoken

“Theo!” I bellowed, moving closer to his office. The first thing I saw was his dark hair, the rest of his body obscured by his high-back chair. My whole body tensed as I moved closer, twisting his chair so he would face me. Theo groaned as he slumped forward, his hand clutching the handle of aknife buried deep in his side. His color was pale, almost ghostly, his breathing labored with each rise of his chest.

“Shit,” I hissed, searching for a pulse. “Theo, can you hear me?”

He grimaced, but no words left his lips.

As a faint thump of his heartbeat hit my fingertips, I exhaled slowly, sending up a silent prayer for it to hold on. I pulled his jacket back to take a better look at his wound. The weapon was small, closer to a kitchen knife than a carving one, but it seemed deep.

“Get the fuck up, Theo,” I hissed as I ripped off my sweater and pressed it around the weapon, trying not to jostle it. Relief rippled through me when he grunted at the impact. Even if he was in rough shape, at least he was breathing. As I continued to apply pressure, I lifted my phone. My fingers shook as I dialed emergency services, refusing to let my eyes leave Theo for even a second.

“911, what’s your emergency?”

“My friend…” The word rushed out of me. “I think he’s been stabbed.”

“Where’s your location?”

“We’re at?—”

But I never got to finish the words before my world went black.

FORTY-FOUR

“It’s fine, it’s going to be fine,” a voice echoed around me, saying the exact words over and over again. It took a minute for the sound to solidify into a feminine voice, one I knew but couldn’t readily place. “It was a break-in, that’s all. No one needs to know anything else. They can’t know anything else.”

My head fucking pounded, making it hard even to open my eyes. But there was some baser part of me, some instinct, that knew I was in danger, even if my mind was scrambling to right itself.

I twisted to my side when I realized my hands and feet were bound. With my hands behind my back, it was impossible to tell how they were held together, but dark green climbing rope was wrapped around my ankles. The bindings made it almost impossible to move more than a few inches. With a solid grunt, I shifted onto my side, squinting to see what was lurking in the dark. It took a few moments for the room to come into focus, the sleek office furniture a familiar sight.

Theo’s office.

At least they hadn’t taken me to a second location. From what I knew from true crime podcasts, I hoped it was a good sign. My ears still rang from the pounding in my skull, but I tried to ignore it, hoping to find some way out of this mess.

But as I twisted my wrists together, checking the ropes for any weakness, a groan came from the other side of the desk.

Theo.

Panic made my stomach twist as I tried to find him, seeing his office chair empty. I shuffled over, inching my knees and elbows into some sort of crawl. As I got to the edge of the desk, a dry, wheezy chuckle came from the other side.

“About time you woke up,” Theo groaned, his voice raspier than I’d ever heard it.

“Shit,” I said, seeing he was weakly holding my sweater to his wound. “How bad is it?”

“Not sure,” Theo answered. “Hurts like hell, but it doesn’t seem like it’s too deep. She got me with this kitchen knife when I caught her going through my computer.”

My eyes jumped up to his, trying to understand. For a moment, my brain refused to believe it, refused to connect the dots. But then, the name jumped into my mind, making all the other noises around me fade out in a dull buzz.

Eloise.

Anger radiated through me, remembering all the times she stood in my home, smiling to my face while plotting my destruction behind the scenes. We’d laughed together, shared coffee more than once. I always tried to look out for her, making sure she was settling into town okay and that Theo was treating her well. I’d never once considered her athreat, not in the months I had known her. Little did I know, she was a snake in the grass, waiting for the perfect moment to strike me down. And now, she was trying to take Theo with me.

“I’m going to kill her,” I grunted, narrowing my eyes at her shadowed figure through the window.

“Not if I get there first,” Theo groaned, shifting to sit up a little more. I tried to reach out to stop him, but my bound hands made it impossible. Even that little movement caused more blood to spill onto the carpet around him. My throat dried up at the sight, unsure how much more Theo could lose before the damage was irreparable.

As he saw me staring at his wound, Theo shook his head. “I’m fine.”

“Yeah, I’m calling bullshit on that,” I hissed. “We need to get out of here and get you to the hospital.”

“I’ve been trying to figure that out,” Theo replied, staring at the window. He sighed as he dropped his head back down to the carpet. “How did you know I was here?”

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