Rise [Bruno Mars]

Chapter forty-one

Chapter forty-one

"I was smuggled here."

Jamie sipped her tea. I took petty pleasure in how the blanket wrapped around her turned her into a giant worm. Of course, that perception was influenced by my own feelings of scorn. The scars I received in Hawaii still lived on my skin; I could never forget all the things she had done. So I scowled, leaning on the wall next to the man who brought Jamie here, whose name was Laz, I believed, while Jamie and Bruno discussed on the couch. A fire burned fervently in the fireplace.

"But it starts when you, Ryan, and. . . her-" Jamie swiftly shot me a glance.

"Adrian," Bruno corrected. His body was angled to her. I didn't think he was conscious of it.

Respectfully, she started over, voice hoarse from crying. "Right. It starts when you, Ryan, and Adrian disappeared. Your family says you told them you and Adrian were going on vacation and that they wouldn't hear from you in a week. That wasn't unusual. You were always discreet when it came to romantics."

Bruno told them that? And it was there, a ghost in Jamie's words: she had once experienced these 'discreet romantics'. I chewed the inside of my cheek as Bruno nodded woodenly, encouraging her to continue.

"Well, when the week was over your sisters waited for your call. They tried contacting you but it went straight to voicemail. They texted you and got no response. On the third day, they went to the police, urged by Phil.

They questioned all of us, including me. All we knew was what you told us, but Phil. . . he said some crazy shit. Like, before you left, apparently you told him that if you weren't home in a week, to tell everyone where you are. Which was. . . Canada? Some place that wasn't on the map? No one believed him."

Bruno shut his eyes. "Shit."

"Investigators searched western Canada, where Phil claimed you would be. They looked at every vacation home and everything. Nothing came up. Phil kept talking about a place called Grim and some other off things. . ." Jamie inhaled. "They ruled him mentally unstable. He's in a mental hospital."

Bruno's mouth opened. He couldn't find the words to speak.

"That made the news of your disappearance blow up. Your family and I were trying to keep it a secret but you know how hard that is. Your fans did searches of their own, too. They looked up Adrian. Said it was strange how her mother had no records before the age of twenty, like before that, she never existed. The other thing was your credit card, Bruno. You rented two Jeeps, bought a lot of food and clothes before you left, and some were speculating, maybe you wanted to disappear. Bernie just died and maybe you had had enough. So you ran away with Adrian. But who was that second Jeep for? For her? For Ryan? Nothing made sense.

After a month I was arrested. They thought I did something to both of you, hired men to kidnap you. The world judged me as the jealous ex-girlfriend and this was my revenge." She rolled her eyes then quickly dropped them to her mug. "While I was in a holding cell, a police officer whispered to me that everything Phil said was true, and that there's a world out there that no one knows about. He asked if he could take me there. I. . . agreed. I was so worried about you. . .

Mostly I got here by cargo van. Some medical building was shipping supplies and I was in one of those boxes then a lot of shit happened." Her voice broke and she swiped both of her cheeks. She pulled the blanket tighter around her. "I don't want to talk about it."