Total pages in book: 136
Estimated words: 131821 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 659(@200wpm)___ 527(@250wpm)___ 439(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131821 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 659(@200wpm)___ 527(@250wpm)___ 439(@300wpm)
“You called…him?” He speaks the words so low, I almost miss them. With a slight shake of his head, he stumbles back a step.
“Mase.”
He looks away.
“Mason.”
He shuffles farther away, and acid bubbles burst in my gut. When his cleats meet the sand, he starts to run.
I jerk forward, a barbed wire wrapping around and puncturing my lungs. Panic sets in, and I launch myself toward the stairs “Mason!” I scream.
But he doesn’t answer.
He’s gone now, too.
I fall to my ass and cry until I pass out.
Just like I did on this very same night exactly one year ago today.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Payton
Before, July
Numb.
I feel…nothing.
“There’s been an accident.”
Nate’s voice plays on repeat in my head, over and over, and it doesn’t stop. Not on the three-hour drive to the hospital, not in the elevator on the way up to the fourth floor.
Not when my brother whispers words I don’t hear in my ear, and not when Mason bends and puts himself eye level with me. His are sloped, lips moving, but if he’s speaking, I have no knowledge of it.
“There’s been an accident.”
“There’s been an accident.”
“There’s been an accident.”
A hand settles on my shoulder, but I pull away.
I can’t feel. If I feel, the numbness will go away. If the numbness goes away, the worry will come and ruin everything. That’s what Mom always said to me, right? Worrying is a worthless emotion that does nothing but destroy and prevent. Be cold, and you’ll get further in life.
It’s probably bullshit, much like every other word that trips from her poisonous tongue.
At some point, we arrived at the hospital, though I have no recollection of getting out of the vehicle. All I know is I’m standing at the start of a short hallway, three giant, crimson letters painted onto a pair of double doors glaring back at me that read ICU.
We’ve been called to the intensive care unit.
I’m so stuck in my own head, I don’t realize I’ve yet to step from the elevator until the doors begin to hide the ominous acronym. Darting forward, I stop it with my shoe, then slip out, realizing the others are all huddled at the end, a woman with brown hair I’ve never met now with them.
My steps are slow, and with each one taken, the numbness begins to crumble. Little by little, my taut muscles reveal themselves, the ache between my shoulder blades deep and uncomfortable.
My body is rigid, my jaw clenched tight.
“Mom?” Ari shouts, and I jolt at the sudden sound.
Everyone turns to find two women running down the hall. They have to be someone’s mothers.
My thought is proven right when one wraps her arms around Nate, the other Ari, and that’s when their sobs reach me.
My arm shoots out, and I grip onto my brother’s wrist. In my periphery, I watch his head turn my way, but I couldn’t look away from the women if I tried.
This is off.
Something is wrong.
They’re crying, yes, but there’s a hint of something in their eyes.
Hope.
They have hope.
Kenra’s mom and aunt…have hope.
Nate pulls back and looks down at his mother. “Ma?”
Tears slip from her eyes, and she swallows. “They said they lost control of the car, flipped it into a ditch.”
“No,” Parker rasps, and warm liquid coats my nails where they’re pressed against his skin.
My brother starts to say something, but Nate cuts him off with a scream.
“Mom!” Nate shouts, scared for his sister. “Is Kenra okay?”
“Yes, sweetheart,” she whispers. “She’s okay.” She glances this way, toward Parker. “But we’re not in the clear yet. She’s unconscious. They’re running tests.”
Relief fills the hall, the others dropping against the wall and clutching their chests, but the woman’s words have the opposite effect on me.
Dread, cold and vivid, courses through me, and my limbs begin to shake.
“You!”
The shrill voice is one I could never mistake, and every vein in my body goes cold.
I can’t look, don’t dare to, and my heart pounds in unison with every click of heels against the floor.
Her shadow falls over me, and there’s suddenly no hiding. Her eyes stab at mine, the hatred within them hard to miss.
“Excuse me, miss. I—”
Mason’s voice cuts off in the exact moment a cold, cosmetic hand whips across my face so hard, I can feel the imprint left behind like the heat of a branding iron pressed into my skin.
I don’t flinch nor look away, but everyone else? They flip the fuck out.
They scream and shout, and when I pull my head forward, moisture pricking my eyes from the sting, I find Nate has Deaton’s mother’s arms restrained behind her back.
Parker tugs me a few paces away, and Mason steps in front of me, blocking me from the vicious woman’s view, but the numbness, it’s completely gone now, and a wave of unease crashes through me.
I stumble, my back hitting the wall.