: Chapter 12

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.

“Payton?” My brother’s worried voice breaks through the ringing in my ears.

He moves in front of me, but my eyes slide to the left, once again landing on the double doors at the end.

ICU.

Mrs. Vermont.

“There’s been an accident.”

“She’s okay.”

My limbs give out, and I’m falling because I just know.

I feel it in my bones, in my heart.

His absence. His sweet soul and whispered words.

His promise.

He promised he’d be back.

“Payton!” Parker screams, falling with me. Mason is there, too, maybe someone else. “Payton, talk to me.”

My vision blurs, my eyes closing as my hand subconsciously moves to my belly. It shakes but presses against the soft, stretched skin there hidden behind a hoodie.

Did you leave me all alone?

“This is all your fault, little girl,” Mrs. Vermont screeches. “Every time you think of my son, remember that. I told you you didn’t deserve him. This must be the world’s way of proving me right.”

My chest cracks open.

“Whoa, what the fuck, lady?” Mason glares, and his mother instantly tells him to stop. “Uh-uh. No way, Mama. This lady just⁠—”

“This lady just lost her son, Mason.” His mom’s whisper might as well have been spoken into a microphone. Because there it is.

The confirmation.

He’s…gone.

My organs squeeze the life out of me. I’m choking on nothing, shaking and convulsing, tearing in fucking two.

But I don’t think I’m moving.

My brother reaches down, pushing the hair from my eyes, and his touch stings like a live wire. I’m screaming, but no sound leaves me. I’m being electrocuted from the inside out. I must be.

More voices join us then, but all it sounds like is water in my ears.

Suddenly knuckles are under my chin, and my eyes are lifted to meet a pair of green ones.

Parker says something, and Chase nods. In the next moment, the burn of the cold floor disappears, replaced with a hint of warmth. My eyes open again, and I’m in the air.

I think I hear screaming, and then…nothing.

The soft murmur of voices splinters through the darkness, and I wince at the sound, my head pounding with the threat of an oncoming migraine.

Fingers brush along my hair, and my own sink farther into the material beneath them.

“Peep,” my brother whispers.

My eyelids feel like weights, but I somehow manage to lift them, slowly meeting his gaze as he kneels before me.

“Parker…” I blink in confusion, the arm wrapped along my middle tightening, but when I shift, they loosen, and I throw my own around my brother. “Can I go home? Home to your house home?”

“Are you sure, Payton?” he asks.

He says something else, but I don’t hear it. I’m already nodding.

“I’m sure. I don’t want to be here.” I can’t be here. “Please.”

“I’ll take her home. Stay with her.”

My muscles tense, and I pull away, slowly looking behind me to the person whose lap I’m sitting on.

My brother asks, once again, if we’re sure, but Chase doesn’t look his way, just offers me a small smile. “Yeah, man. I got her.”

My ribs rattle, a chill breaking over my skin. He sat with me this whole time?

How long has it even been?

Chase gives me a small nod, and then he pushes to his feet, not asking if I want to be put on my own. He carries me from the room the same way he held me inside it.

My lips start to tremble, and I squeeze my eyes closed.

I don’t want to see the hall.

I don’t want to see the others.

I don’t want to do this without you, Deaton.

Tears leak from my eyes, and Chase’s arms tighten around me.

And because the universe decided I wasn’t beat on enough for the day, the only person worse than Miranda Vermont makes her presence known.

My mother is here, and by the sound of it, she’s been waiting for a while.

“Where the hell is she?” her threatening voice shrieks. “I gave her long enough.”

“She needs to be with people who care about her right now,” Parker snaps. “Not someone who treats her like a puppet.”

My body bounces slightly with Chase’s advancing steps, and I close my eyes tighter, refusing to look her way. I can’t face her, not right now, not when I know what I would see.

Victory and I told you so.

Suddenly, Mason is in front of me, staring down with an overwhelming sense of helplessness. He gives me a small nod, then turns, standing at our side in silent support as my brother faces off with our mom.

“Put her down,” she seethes. “She needs to learn to live with disappointment. It’s life. And we’re leaving.”

“She’s not going anywhere with you,” Chase warns calmly, and then suddenly Brady is here too.

Emotions well in my throat at a fast rate.

Support.

Safety.

Loss.

Emptiness.

Shock.

Absolute devastation.

I can’t keep up.

I gasp, and Mason’s hand shoots out, pressing to the spot on my back below Chase’s elbow. A silent, unspoken I’ve got you passing from his skin to mine.

“Put. My daughter. Down,” my mother demands yet again.

“Get the hell out of here, Ava,” Parker growls. “Now is not the time for this shit. For once in your life, be a good mother, and let her have some time before you start your shit again. Please.”

I curl into myself even more, because I know what he might have forgotten.

There isn’t a decent bone in her body.

“Time for what?” She proves my thoughts right. “It’s not like it happened in front of her, and she’s sixteen! So her little crush is no more. Not my problem! Deaton is dead. She’ll get over it!”

My lips part, desperate for air, but the knot in my throat denies it, and I feel my face burn with the lack of oxygen.

“Oh my god!” someone shouts, and I peek left, spotting the woman who must be Nate’s mom charge toward mine, but her son blocks her before she can lunge at my mother.

Guilt burrows its way into my bones. Her daughter wouldn’t be in that room if it weren’t for me. Kenra brought me to California.

Deaton followed.

This is all my fault.

Uncontrollable, gut-wrenching sobs burst from my throat. I might be screaming.

Shadows crowd me, telling me the boys have moved closer, but I can’t see them. I don’t hear them.

My vision is full of broken glass and mangled limbs.

I see Deaton’s bloody body as he screams in my face that this is my fault.

That I ruined his life.

That I ruined everything.

The next thing I know, the cool night air whips me in the face. My body trembles, and then my ass meets something cold. The arms releasing me slip farther away, but my hands snap out, clinging to them.

“Please,” I beg.

They come back, holding me tighter this time, and the last thing I hear before I pass out again is “I’m not going anywhere, I promise.”

It’s like a sledgehammer taken to the last of my strength.

Deaton made me a lot of promises before he left.

I refuse to accept, let alone make, any more.

My boyfriend is dead.

I wish I were too.