by Caitlyn Dare
My grip tightens on the wheel, my knuckles turning white. I focus on them instead of Hadley’s shaky breathing as she tries to decide what to do.
She wants to push me, I know she does. But equally, she knows me better than anyone and she knows I’m not going to bend right now, no matter how much she might beg me.
“Okay,” she finally whispers. “You know…” she trails off, clearly changing her mind about what she feels she needs to say to me. Instead, when she speaks again, her voice is harder, like she’s found some strength. “Thank you. For everything.”
Without another word, she pushes the door open, grabs her bag from the trunk and walks into her building without so much as a glance back in my direction.
“FUUUUUCK,” I shout the second she’s out of my sight, my palm raining fury down on the wheel before me.
My head falls back against the headrest as I scream out my frustration.
Movement at the building's stairwell window catches my eye. Knowing she’s watching me, I throw the car into drive and speed away from her. My heart shatters even more the farther I get.
I abandon the car in front of James’ house. I don’t even remember if I kill the engine, I just step out and walk away.
Forgoing the house, I make the pool house my first port of call, hoping that Remi is going to be inside.
Ripping the door open, I find the living area empty. Not thinking, I march straight to the bedroom and fling the door wide open. “Fuck,” I bark, finding my brother’s naked ass staring right at me.
“Fucking hell, Cole,” he snaps, scrambling to cover the two of them. It’s not necessary, my vision is blurry and dark. I’m barely seeing anything right now.
“Remi, you need to go to Hadley. Now.”
“Why? What’s wrong?” she asks, sitting up so she can see me over Ace’s shoulder. “Shit,” she gasps when her eyes land on me.
“She needs you. You need to…” I trail off, my voice cracking, knowing that I can’t be the one to comfort her right now, or ever.
Spinning on my heel, I march out of their love shack as fast as I entered, only this time it’s to the sound of their voices as they call out to me to wait.
I have no intention of talking to anyone right now. I just need it all to disappear. I need all the pain, and grief, and the fucking ache in my chest to leave.
I blow through the house, ignoring Ellen as she tries to find out if I had a good weekend.
No. No, I didn’t have a good fucking weekend.
The only thing I stop for is James’ liquor cabinet. It’s fully stocked, as always. The stupid cunt keeps filling it up despite the fact that I empty it on almost a weekly basis. Any decent parent would clear this house out, knowing just how dependent I’m becoming on the shit.
With an armful of whatever I can carry, I head for my room. That little packet of pills I thought of yesterday are calling to me.
They are exactly what I need.
They’ll quiet the voices in my head.
They’ll make me forget.
They’ll make everything easy. Make everything go away.
And if I’m lucky, none of it will ever come back.
The contents of my drawer hit the floor, and I smile as I pull the baggie from the back.
My perfect poison.
They've been sitting there, waiting for me to need them. My last stash from the Heights. I can only hope that they’re as good as they were sold to me.
Twisting the cap off the first bottle, I fall down onto my bed. After chugging down half the contents without so much as feeling it, I tip the pills into the palm of my hand. “To oblivion,” I announce to no one as I lift the lot to my mouth and swallow them down with the remainder of the first bottle.
My stomach swirls as it tries to cope with the sudden barrage of alcohol, but after a few minutes, it starts to take effect and I reach for the second.
Everything I touch turns to hell. I ruin everything, taint lives, take lives, hurt those I love.
It’s time for the torture to end.
It’s not until the third or fourth bottle that everything starts to get hazy, but finally, it comes.
The crash of the bottle as it falls from my hand and lands on the floor feels like it’s a million miles away as I float into nothingness.
A place where pain, death, and ruined lives doesn’t exist.
A place where I don’t need to worry what I’m about to fuck up next.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Hadley
“Hadley, thank God.” Remi rushes into the room and I close the door behind her. “What happened?”
“It’s gone...” I whisper, sliding a hand to my throat. The words are painful to say, but nothing compares to the pain of the loss I feel.
“Oh my God,” she breathes. “I’m so, so sorry. Tell me what you need.”
“I just want to sleep.” But I can’t. Every time I close my eyes, I see Cole’s soulless gaze, I hear the devastation in his voice.
“Come on, lie down. I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Thank you.” I go to the bed and lie down. Remi lies beside me, letting silence envelop us. “Do you want to talk about it?” She eventually breaks the thick silence.
“There’s nothing to say. It wasn’t meant to be. Cole?” I ask, changing the subject because I’m not ready to talk about it. “He told you to come?”
“Yeah, he was—”
“Broken, he’s broken. And it’s all my fault.”
“No,” she grabs my hand, “you just said it yourself, it wasn’t meant to be.”
“He won’t come back from this.” I whisper the words, knowing that if I give them meaning they’ll be real, and my heart isn’t ready to accept what my head already knows.
Our baby wasn’t the only thing I lost today.
“He will. He just needs time.”
“You didn’t see him, Remi. It’s not like before when Donny...” I trail off, not wanting to go there. “I thought that was bad, but this... this will push him right over the edge.”
“Don’t say that. He’ll be okay.”
“He won’t.” Tears trickle down my face. “He thinks this was all his fault.”
“W-what?” She looks at me and I turn onto my side, careful not to move my legs too quickly.
“There’s some stuff… stuff I need to tell you.” My eyes shutter, but when they open again, Remi is staring back at me with nothing but love and understanding.
“Whatever it is, I’m here.”
“My parents sent me here because I fell in love with the wrong boy. His name was Tim.”
“Go on...” she encourages.
“Where I come from... it isn’t like here. Gravestone County is steeped in history and tradition. Tim was set to marry another girl.”
“Marry?” Her brows draw together.
“It’s a long story, but let’s just say that in a place like Gravestone, your destiny is decided long before you’re born.”
“And what about you?”
“I was to be promised to someone else. My father hadn’t brokered the arrangement yet.” I was too young. But I hadn’t been too young to fall in love with Tim.
“We had sex. It was our first time, and I got pregnant.”
“Oh my God.” Remi pales. “What happened?”
“I tried to make my parents understand how we felt about each other. But they were having none of it. A teenage pregnancy would bring shame to our family. Not to mention the fact that we’d jeopardized Tim’s future. He was a freshman in college, and I was a sophomore in high school.”
“A sophomore?” Confusion clouds her eyes. “But you started here as a sophomore.”
I nod slowly, hating the guilt that snakes through me. “I stayed back a year.”
“Wow, okay... wow. And how did I not know this again?”
“Because I didn’t want anyone to know. It would have only led to questions I didn’t have answers for.”
She gives
me a sympathetic smile. “What happened to the baby, Hads?”
“They... they made me get rid of it.”
Remi gasps, but it doesn’t compete with the pain lashing at my insides.
“They made me kill my baby, and then they sent me here.” I say the words, but it’s like it isn’t me. Because no one can survive this twice... the world isn’t that cruel and unfair. Is it?
“And Tim?”
“They forbade me from seeing him again. My parents kept me under house arrest until they sent me here.”
I realize how fucked up it sounds—because it is fucked up. But it was my life. The nightmare I have to carry with me always.
“You must be... I don’t even have words.”
“I’m okay. I’ll be okay.” I have to be. Because I realize now that I don’t want any ties to them. From here on out, I’m no longer their daughter.
Consequences be damned.
“As soon as we graduate,” I say, “I’m going to leave.”
“L-leave? But where will you go?”
“Somewhere far away from here.”
“He needs you, Hads. He isn’t thinking straight right now, but once the dust settles, Cole will come around.”
“I let him hurt me, Remi.”
“What?” She pales.
“The way we are together... intimately. It’s not normal.”
“We all like rough sex every now and again, there’s nothing wrong—”
“Not like this. This is different.” I gently pull down my tank top to reveal Cole’s brand.
“What the fuck is that? Is that a .... no, he wouldn’t.”
“He did. It was punishment. Tim’s been texting me, says he wants to talk. After two years, he wants to talk.” I laugh bitterly, my insides twisting violently. I feel empty, hollow. Completely numb. “Cole found out.”
“Holy shit, Hadley, that’s intense.”
“He’s not like normal people, Remi. There’s this darkness that lives inside him. I think something happened to him when he was younger.”
She considers my words for a minute and then lets out a soft sigh. “I didn’t want to believe it... but I think you’re right.” The truth echoes around us and then she says, “So Cole got rough and thinks he had something to do with you losing the baby?”
I nod again, because I can’t talk over the deluge of tears.
“Oh, Hads. Come here.” She shuffles closer, wrapping her arm around me, and lets me cry.
I cry until there are no tears left, and my eyes are sore and my body is exhausted.
“Sleep,” Remi soothes. “I’ll be right here.”
My eyelids grow heavy as I finally let go of the last few hours. I let it all drift away until there’s nothing left but me and a dark abyss.
And maybe that’s just the way it’s supposed to be.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Conner
My cell ringing cuts through the music blasting in my ears. Ripping my eyes from my English Lit assignment, I turn to look.
My brows pinch when I see Remi’s smiling face looking back at me.
“What’s up, Princess?” I ask the second the call connects.
“Conner,” she says in a rush, panic filling her voice. I sit forward, sliding my laptop from my legs, ready for what she’s about to say. I already know it’s nothing good.
“What’s wrong?”
“A-are you at home?”
“Yeah, why?” I swing my legs from the bed, ready to run to the pool house for whatever has that fear in her voice.
“I-It’s Cole.”
“What?”
“Something’s happened with Hadley. Please can you go and check on him.”
“Yeah, I’m going now.” I keep my cell to my ear as I race for the door. I want to say everything is fine, but since the second I heard Remi’s voice, dread settled in the pit of my stomach, telling me there’s something very wrong with this situation.
“Cole?” I shout, my fist raining down on his bedroom door. “Cole? You in there?”
No answer.
“I’m coming in,” I warn, although I already know it’s not necessary. I’m not about to catch him doing something he wouldn’t want me to see.
Twisting the handle, I push the door open. My heart hammers in my chest as an empty discarded bottle of vodka comes into view, quickly followed by another.
Lifting my eyes, I find his hand hanging limply over the side of the bed. “Fuck. Cole,” I cry, flying into the room.
My cell slides from my hand, but I don’t feel or or hear it as it hits the floor. Remi is still on the line and I know she’s going to be saying something, but I don’t hear anything but the blood rushing past my ears as sheer panic and fear engulfs me.
“Cole, COLE!” I scream, dropping to my knees beside him.
He’s white as a sheet, but when I touch him, his skin is still warm.
“What the fuck have you done?” I bark at him, although I already know I’m not going to get a response.
Glancing around the bed, I find more empty bottles before my eyes land on a baggie. My teeth grind.
He promised. He fucking promised me that he was done with this shit.
In the bottom are two little pills, but I fear there were a hell of a lot more when he got his hands on it.
“Cole, wake up. Please, just fucking WAKE UP!” I shake him, hoping this is a really bad nightmare and he’s just wasted. But I know he’s not. I feel it in my gut.
“HELP,” I bellow into the silent house. “Help me.” I’ve no idea if anyone is in or if anyone can hear. Pressing my fingers to his neck, I try to find a pulse.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I chant when I don’t find one straight away, but after taking a calming breath and trying again, I find a faint trace of one.
“What the fuck is wrong with you? You selfish fucking cunt.”
“Conner, Conner, Conner?” Remi’s voice finally breaks through my haze.
To start with, I look around, thinking that she’s here, but then I remember my headphones.
“He’s… he’s taken something. He’s out cold. I need… I need to call…”
“Fuck. Call an ambulance right now. We’ll meet you at the hospital.”
She hangs up and I look around for my cell to make the call that could save my brother’s life. But before I remember where the fuck it’s gone, footsteps pound up the stairs.
James comes flying through the door. “What’s… fuck.” His eyes widen at the sight of Cole before he pulls his cell from his pocket and makes the call I failed to.
“They’re on their way. What’s he taken?”
I lift the baggie up for him, and after inspecting the contents, he pockets it.
“Come on, let’s get him downstairs so they can get to him quicker.”
James scoops Cole up into his arms as if he weighs nothing, which we both know isn’t true. He’s got at least twenty pounds on me, and I’m not exactly small.
I stare at the two of them as James moves for the door, and although this situation is fucked up beyond belief, a little part of my heart slots back into place, seeing James step up to be the father the three of us need.
We might like to think we’re tough, all too happy to take on the world, but the truth is, we need someone. We’ve been taking care of ourselves for too long… Ace has been taking care of us for too long.
Ace? Where the fuck is Ace?
I follow them out of the room, almost standing on my cell as we leave. Locating his number, I hit call, but he doesn’t answer. “I’m going to find Ace,” I shout at James as I take off in the other direction.
My body screams at me to stay beside Cole—he needs me, but he needs all of us.
We’re a fucking team. We do the hard shit together.
I crash through the pool house door, making Ace look up from whatever he’s reading. “Con?”
“It’s Cole.”
“Shit.” He’s off the couch in a beat and following me out of the do
or.
By the time we approach where James is waiting with Cole still in his arms, the sirens of the ambulance are getting closer.
“Let’s get him outside,” Ace says, helping James take Cole’s weight.
As they step out the front door, the ambulance comes to a halt and two paramedics jump from the front.
I watch in a daze as they get Cole in the back and start working. Everything aside from what they’re doing ceases to exist. Everything blurs around me, and all I can feel is the racing beat of my heart.
What happens if he doesn't make it? What am I meant to do then?
The realization of how serious this could be slams into me like a fucking truck, and I stumble back. My feet hit the steps leading to the house and I fall down on my ass, not even feeling the pain I’m sure followed.
Tears burn my eyes as I continue to watch the EMT’s work. They check his vitals, do all the things I’m sure they need to do, but he doesn’t move. He doesn’t do anything but lie there completely helpless as I feel a part of me slipping away.
Why didn’t I know something was wrong? I’m meant to feel these things. We’re meant to be connected or some shit. I didn’t even know he was home.
I was too distracted, my music was too loud. I was… “FUUUUCK!” I roar, the tears I’ve managed to hold so far falling as I finally allow myself to break.
I can’t lose him. I can’t fucking lose him.
“Conner, it’s going to be okay, Son. I’ve got the best medical team in the state waiting on him. Everything is going to be fine,” James says, pulling me into his arms and holding me tight.
It’s the weirdest feeling. No one has held me like this in… fuck, I don’t even know how long, but it’s been a lot of fucking years.
Unable to hold it together even a little bit, I sob into his chest.
“Come on, we need to go. He’s going to need us there when he wakes up,” Ace says, sounding way too put together. Although when I pull myself from James and take in the harrowed look on his face, I know it’s all a front.
He’s crumbling as fast as I am.
He wraps his arms around my shoulder, and the two of us follow James toward the car.