The Twenty-One (Emerald Cove #2)

by Lauren K. McKellar

  The boy in that hospital bed isn’t sick. Sure, he isn’t as strong as he used to be, and he is sleepier than normal, but he’s still so alive. It’s just so hard to argue with that.

  The clock ticks over to three, and I gaze left and right, searching for the familiar blonde curls over the sea of other heads exiting the building. School finished ten minutes ago but still there are stragglers working their way out of the buildings, clustering around trees next to bus stops.

  None of them are my sister though.

  After another ten minutes, I give in and call. She doesn’t pick up, and that familiar sick sense of dread I have when dealing with her kicks me in the gut.

  I check my watch for the fourth time this afternoon, cursing when it tells me the truth. It’s five to four. Two hours before visiting time ends. Three hours before I’m supposed to be at work, at Colin’s.

  I get out of the car and slam the door behind me, leaning up against the metallic blue sedan, and dial Zy this time.

  He answers on the third ring. “What’s up?”

  “She’s not here.”

  Silence.

  “Shit.”

  “Do you have any idea where she could be?” Worry clips my tone as I crane my neck, hoping to see her dawdling out of the building.

  “I don’t know, maybe—“

  “Ell Bell!”

  The two words turn my blood cold. I turn to the left.

  Danica.

  She stumbles down the concrete path, blonde curls flying in the wind behind her. A guy who has to be at least ten years older than her has his arm around her hip, part helping her walk, part groping her boobs.

  “That’s my bodyguard.” Dani points to me with a shaking hand. Her pupils are dilated, her jaw clenching and unclenching.

  “Is that ...” Zy trails off, reminding me I’m still on the phone.

  “Yeah.” I sigh. “I’ll call you back.”

  I hit end on the call and pocket the phone, folding my arms across my body to protect myself from the chill that’s descended, despite the spring warmth What has she done?

  I blink back the tears that threaten to fall and press my thumb and forefinger to my nose. Please don’t let this be happening. Please ... not again.

  “This is my sister, Eleanor.” Dani wraps an arm around my shoulders, affecting an English accent when she says my name, and then laughing hysterically.

  The older man laughs too, shoving his hands in the pockets of his denim jeans. His denim jacket cloaks his body snugly and there’s a sinister look in his gaze, and I have a feeling he’s seen far more with those steely eyes than I ever want to glimpse in a lifetime.

  “Your sister owes me money. You got it?” he barks.

  I blink and jerk my head back. “Pardon?”

  “She owes me. She said you’d—”

  “Can you please lend me two hundred dollars, sis?” Dani hisses the s. “I forgot my debit card.”

  Anger burns inside me. “Dan, I don’t have that kind of money.”

  “You don’t want to fuck with him,” she stage-whispers.

  “It’s only two hundred.” The man shrugs as if it’s no big deal. As if he thinks perhaps I’m not living week-to-week in a shack, employed for minimum wage by a creep and my mother.

  “Do you take direct deposit?” I ask, and am rewarded for my smart-arse comment with a death stare.

  “The only direct deposit I’m interested in is the kind I can make in your sister’s—”

  I hold my hands up in apology. “Got it. Sorry.”

  I open the car door and open my wallet, turning my arse away from the couple when the guy whistles. It’s clear he thinks this is hilarious.

  I find the partition with my rent in it and slide the notes out, my hand shaking. “Take it,” I whisper.

  I don’t look at him, though.

  The whole time, my eyes are glued to my sister.

  “Take it all.”

  “Yeah.” He grabs the cash and walks away, leaving me and my sister alone.

  ***

  I storm inside Mum’s house, Dani hot on my heels. I turn to face her, anger burning through me. “This has to stop, Dani. It’s not a joke any more.” And as much as it makes me feel like a little kid, I utter those three last words. “I’m telling Mum.”

  “I’ll pay you back,” she says, her voice quiet. “I promise. I’ll get it for you tonight.”

  “Where?” I shrug. “Do you think Mum will lend you the cash?”

  “I won’t let you down, Ellie. Just chill. I’ve got this,” she says, her words coming at a rapid speed, and strides down the hall toward her old room.

  I walk into the living room and head straight to the fridge, pouring ice-cold water into a glass. It numbs my throat on the way down, and I wish it could numb my heart.

  My phone vibrates in my pocket, and I pull it out to check it. Joel. Probably wondering what time I’m coming to the hospital later tonight. My thumb hovers over the accept button, and I’m just about to pick up when Mum walks into the room.

  “Eleanor. You’re early. For a change.”

  For some reason, those three added words are all it takes. The anger and hurt, the guilt and regret that have been roiling around inside of my gut since the day Dad died all spew forth from my mouth, as if someone has opened the gates and now there’s no stopping it. “I got your daughter here on time after some druggy demanded money from her.” I step closer to Mum, my hand clenching around the glass tumbler I hold.

  “Money?” Mum frowns, as if the very idea is so unlikely it offends her sense of self.

  “Money.” I confirm, and glance up the hall, as if afraid she might hear. “We need to get her help, Mum. We need to make this stop.”

  She shakes her head, but I see the doubt in her eyes. I pounce on it like a hungry animal. “She’s got a problem. This isn’t a one-off. This isn’t twice. This is at least three times she’s done it.” My mind flashes to the man I love in the hospital bed. “Life is too short, Mum. She could die.”

  The word sends a shockwave over her. She clutches at her heart, then thins her lips. “You better—”

  “No!” I throw my hands out. “You better stop blaming me for this.” Tears well in my eyes, and I shake my head. The weight I’ve been carrying with me for the last year cranks up a notch. I stoop under its burden. “I have done everything I fucking can.”

  Mum nods, and turns to the hall leading to Dani’s old room. I follow, my feet leaden on the tiled floor.

  When we reach the closed door, Mum turns to look at me. Her raised brow speaks volumes. It says hope and heartache and everything in between.

  Then she opens the door.

  Colin’s gaze flies to us. His arm is around Dani’s shoulders in what should have been an innocent gesture.

  It’s where his other hand is that isn’t.

  Fondling her breast.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  The first time I hear my mother swear isn’t in a hot fury. It isn’t in excitement, or glee. It’s in exactly the same manner as she does everything in life.

  Cold. Calculating.

  Cruel.

  “What. The. Fuck.”

  Colin flies from Dani and brushes down his shirt, as if wiping off evidence. “I don’t know what you think you saw.”

  Mum changes from worried caregiver to protective mamma bear in an instant. Smoke all but fumes from her nostrils as her fists clench by her sides in a gesture that screams fury. “You were touching my daughter.”

  “I can ... it’s not what it looks like.” Colin babbles to Mother, his arms outstretched as if pleading.

  I glance at Dani.

  She tucks a handful of pineapples, fifty-dollar bills, into her jeans pocket.

  A stone of realisation balls into the base of my gut. She needed the money ...

  Dani shoots me a smirk and it says volumes. It confirms the fear I’ve had ever since Colin started trying to push boundaries with me.

  Maybe it was be
cause he was paying for something more with my little sister.

  Colin claps his hands together, almost in a beg. “I’m sorry, I—”

  “Get the fuck out.” Mum points to the door. Colin’s gaze travels from my sister to my mother’s hand, and his normal soft pink pallor turns a deathly shade of white.

  “I ...” He swallows, and glances around the room. “I don’t know what you think you saw, but ...”

  “Whatever it was, it was too much. Go. Now.”

  He doesn’t need further encouragement. A hot arm brushes past me as he races out of the room.

  I press my eyes shut as a million thoughts race through my brain. It’s hard not to ask Mum if she believes me now.

  It’s harder still not to shake Dani and ask her why she lied. She so obviously knew Colin was a sleaze—why did she laugh? Let Mum think I was making things up?

  When I open my eyes again, my sister is sitting on the bed, hugging her knees to her chest. Tears streak down her cheeks, as she looks out the window, as if somehow that might hold the answer to all her problems.

  I hold my breath, waiting for my mother to unleash. Waiting for her to rail against my sister, as she’s berated me so many times. Waiting for Dani to get what she deserves.

  “It’s okay, sweetie.” Mum walks forward and sits beside her on the bed. She pulls Dani’s shaking body close to her own and strokes her hair, the long blonde ringlets that stick to her back. “It’s okay.”

  “Mum, she took money.” The words fall from my lips before I have time to think.

  Dani sobs harder, her frail shoulders shaking.

  Mum’s head whips from my sister to myself and back again. She gives a small, almost imperceptible shake of her head. “She wouldn’t do that, Eleanor.”

  My eyes bug out of my head. “Seriously?” I raise my hands in the air in question. “Why don’t you believe me?”

  The only answer is Dani’s gentle sobs, and Mum’s soothing there theres.

  I bite my lip. My sister is in trouble. I want to go over, to hug her, to make sure she’s okay, but a part of me thinks of Dani in the car this afternoon. Dani who took my rent money to help pay for whatever drugs she bought off that junkie. Dani who is letting a close family friend touch her in exchange for cash.

  That Dani needs help.

  And by sheltering her from the storm, I’m not protecting her. I’m exposing her even more.

  All my actions of the past few months come back to slap me in the face. Finding the drugs. The trip to hospital. Covering for her at work.

  All of that was me enabling her to slide further and further down this slippery slope.

  A slope I could have stopped her falling on.

  “You should go,” Mum whispers, and they’re all the words I need. “Let me deal with this alone.”

  I turn on my heel and I leave, running from the room, down the hall, out the house and into my car on the street. I sit there, staring at the place I called my home. The place where I grew up.

  The place where my sister and mother now talked, consoled—without me.

  All I ever wanted was to keep my family close. Somehow, I’ve torn myself apart from it, and I don’t know how to fix this.

  I grab my phone. There are four missed calls in total, all from Joel and all within a few minutes of each other. My stomach lurches as I start the car and pull out of the drive.

  The streets are quiet, thank goodness, and as the phone rings I pull out onto the main road, my headlights beaming against the pale yellow early evening light. The phone rings out, and anxiety tightens my grip on the wheel. Why wouldn’t he answer?

  Why did he call so many times?

  Fear chills my skin. I blast the heater, and hot air puffs my arms and legs, but it isn’t enough to warm the cool creeping over my heart.

  “There are at least two more weeks,” I whisper to myself, but the words ring hollow. Because this time a month ago, there was one more year.

  Life can change at lightning speed. A storm is coming, and I don’t want to get hit.

  I swallow down the extra saliva that’s coating my mouth and stop at the traffic lights, staring at my traitorous phone. No new calls from Joel. I’m almost afraid to dial again, because if he doesn’t pick up, what does that mean?

  I know with terrifying certainty that I’m not ready for him to die. I’m just not.

  With a shaking hand, I hit redial. The sound of my phone ringing takes up all of the space in the car. It’s a hollow repetition that burns against my heart.

  The lights turn green and my car jerks forward.

  The phone rings out.

  It’s then that I make a decision. I’ve lived my entire life by the rules—I need to break them for once.

  My foot slams to the floor. I speed toward the hospital. I drive like a woman possessed, racing through amber lights and sitting above the speed limit. I’m hyper-aware of everything around me. The way the sun sets, a pale pink hue ghosting across the horizon. The sound of the Avett Brothers song on the radio. The hot, hot air that mists across my face. The sour taste in my mouth.

  As I steer the car through the final roundabouts to the hospital, a movie of this afternoon plays through my mind. Dani. Colin. Mum. Joel.

  My head hurts, and I touch the place between my eyes. Deep lines crease there and I try to smooth them away with my hand.

  I pull up outside the hospital and park my car in the ten-minute waiting bay. Because I’m going to go inside, kiss my boyfriend, and then come back down to the car and park it down the street, in the proper bay, once I know he’s okay. We’ll laugh about this as I recount my actions to him over the phone. How paranoid I am. How silly I was to be so worried.

  My key slides out of the lock and then I’m inside the hospital, trying not to run for the elevator. I press the up button and the doors open straight away, as if this moment was meant to be. As if the universe is working to keep me on schedule.

  The elevator shoots up to the third floor, and when the doors open I stride down the corridor, a smile plastered over my face. Joel doesn’t need to see how worried I’ve been. He doesn’t need to know of the hurt playing through my mind.

  Just as I turn the corner toward his room, my phone vibrates in my pocket. I pull it out and read his name and smile. Perfect timing.

  I reach the door to room 318 and round the corner, a spring in my step. “Hello?” I sing in a playful voice, hitting answer to his call as I walk inside.

  Only it isn’t Joel calling me at all.

  It’s his father.

  And he’s a mess.

  ***

  Joel’s father is the picture of grief. His normally combed grey hair is tousled, as if torn out of shape by desperate wringing hands. His eyes are red spider webs, and his skin splotchy, as if someone has spattered pink and white paint all over him. Two fingers press to the bridge of his nose while he holds a cell—Joel’s cell—to his ear.

  His eyes lock with mine, and he slowly pulls the phone to his side.

  In that moment, I know. My whole life is about to change.

  Numb fingers hit end on my mobile, and I stow it back in my pocket. With all my strength, I move one foot in front of the other. One foot in front of the other.

  When I’m at his side, I wrap my arms around the frail older man who looks as though he just lost a part of himself.

  And maybe he did.

  “Ellie.” He breathes the word into my hair. His arms wrap around me as if he’s drowning and I can somehow save him.

  I don’t tell him I can’t swim.

  I can barely save myself.

  After a few moments, he pulls away, swiping at his eyes even though there are no tears. He shakes his head and shudders in a breath, then lets it out between rounded lips. “He’s ... he’s asking to see you.”

  Hope dances in my chest and I press my eyes shut, praying for just one short moment. He’s asking to see me. That means he’s alive. That means—

  That means he wants to say go
odbye.

  I push my shoulders back and look Mr Henley in the eye, then nod. He steps to the side and I walk forward, but it’s not my body taking these slow steps. It’s not my eyes that latch onto Joel, lying still in his bed, the machines around him somehow looming more ominously than usual. And it’s not my knees that crumple beneath me when I fall into the chair.

  I’m somewhere else. Removed. Detached.

  This isn’t happening to me. This cannot be real.

  The girl who isn’t me clasps Joel’s hand, and it’s colder than normal. I rub it between my palms, trying to warm the life back into him, as if I’m two pieces of kindling and can spark a flame within him. That’s all I want. That’s all I’ve always wanted. For him to keep fighting. For him to fire up.

  “Joel,” I whisper.

  Slowly, oh so slowly, his head turns. Two eyes blink open, and then those blue orbs are locked with mine. Only, there isn’t the usual power behind his gaze. Half his energy has been sucked away by this cancer.

  The door cricks closed behind me, and I glance over my shoulder to note that Mr Henley has left the room. I only look for the briefest moment, though. Right now, every second I get to stare at those eyes is worth all the money, all the security, all the safety I have.

  It’s everything.

  “Hey, sexy.” I smile, and trace a finger down his cheek. He rests his eyes shut again, a small smile playing on his cracked lips. “Do you want a water?”

  His head moves left to right, and he opens his mouth the tiniest bit. “No. Thanks.”

  “Okay.” Take the water. Want the water. “You don’t have to.”

  He huffs a laugh, and then wracking coughs shake his body. They make the machine above his head beep that little bit faster. When he falls back to the pillow, peace once more creates a mask over his face.

  It’s then and there that I know.

  Joel Henley is dying.

  He’s dying right in front of me.

  And there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.

  “I don’t want you to go,” I whisper. My bottom lip shakes, and I sniff. Tears prickle at my eyes, and I hate this. I hate that I’m crying again, and that this is the end, and that I didn’t even see him much today. I hate that I didn’t dress in something nice, or bring a nice gift, and that I haven’t prepared the perfect things to say to give him courage in these final moments.