Page 211 of I Never Stopped Loving You

“What do you mean, don’t be mad?” I demand with tears still streaming down my face.

“I…I texted Jenna when I got here.”

“YOU WHAT?!” I scream. “Why the fuck would you do that?! She can’t know about this…I don’t want her dragged into this. What the hell were you thinking?”

“Willow, stop! She’s stronger than you realize. She can handle this,” he snaps back.

“I’m not doubting that she can handle it. But what the fuck? If this goes south, we’ll all be going to jail.”

“That won’t happen, Willow. This…” He gestures back to the doorway leading to the labyrinth. “This has been going on for a long time. Longer than you know. Trust me, we won’t get caught. We just have to figure out a story we can all stick to.”

“Jeremy? Willow?” Jenna shouts.

“Down here,” Jeremy shouts back before finally tightening the belt tight enough to slow the bleeding. “Fuck, this hurts.”

“No shit. You were sliced open by a fucking knife.”

The cracked-open door at the top of the steps flings open, and Jenna comes rushing down the steps.

“Oh my God, babe. Are you okay?” Jenna asks me, but Jeremy thinks she’s talking to him.

“I’m okay, Wildcat. Thanks for coming so quickly,” he says, reaching for her, but stops when he sees her reaching for me. “Oh…Wrong babe.”

“I’m so sorry, Jenna. I didn’t know he was going to involve you. You shouldn’t be here…”

“Hey,” she snaps, cutting me off. “You are my family, Willow. I love you and I always joked that if you needed help hiding a body, I’d be there in a heartbeat, but I was dead serious.”

She winks at me then smiles. I rush forward, wrapping my arms around her neck and hugging her tightly. I grew up as an only child and didn’t even have cousins. I only had my adopted grandparents. This is the only family connection I’ve had with someone since my grandparents died. She truly feels like a sister to me, and I couldn’t be more grateful to have her in my life.

“Come on. We need to get him upstairs. Willow, can you lift his legs?” Jenna asks as she gets above Noah and loops her arms under his.

“I think my wrist might be sprained, but I can try.”

“I’ll grab one leg, you grab the other. We just need to try to keep him steady. We don’t want the knife shifting more,” Jeremy says.

“I called an ambulance. We need to get him upstairs,” Jenna says as we grab his legs. “Okay…One, two, three, lift.”

All three of us work together to lift him. His head lolls back against Jenna then drops to the side. My heart breaks watching how weak and lifeless his body looks. We silently make our way upstairs and carry him through the dining room and into the front of the house, gently resting him on the floor near the front door.

“Hold on. I need to do something,” Jeremy says as he starts loosening the belt from around his thigh, then pinches the skin around the wound.

“What are you…Jeremy, what the fuck?” Jenna snaps as Jeremy drops the belt to the ground and blood starts flowing from the wound again.

He stands next to Noah letting the blood puddle on the ground near him.

“I’m making it look like he got stabbed up here and not down in that hellhole.”

He continues walking around and starts making it look like there was a struggle. He tosses the new foyer table, smashing it on the floor. Then he knocks over the coat rack and begins to let his blood drip onto the jackets. I get what he means now. We need to make it look like this happened up here.

“What are we going to say?” I finally ask.

“Okay. You and Noah went out for date night. You came home, and the door was open. He came inside, and there was someone in here. There was a struggle, and then the guy stabbed Noah,” Jeremy says as he breaks something else.

“What about me?” I ask.

“You were in the car. Noah wouldn’t have let you come in if he thought you would be in danger.”

“But my wrist?”