Chapter 67 Clara
Clara
The sky is dark, but I’m pretty sure it’s still morning. Time is tough right now—whenever I dare pay attention to it, it reminds me that my dad doesn’t have any more of it. No more minutes or seconds, no more breaths or heartbeats. No more dad hugs or telling me how proud he is of me.
The shock of it steals my breath, and once I think it, I can’t stop.
It plays over and over again in my mind, like the worst movie I can’t seem to turn off.
His eyes were so serious as he fell on top of me, but they’d softened as he held onto me.
His weight had pinned me to the ground while the metallic stench of his blood seeped into yet another carpet in that damn office, my dress first slick, then sticky with it.
He wore a weak smile as he gave his last breath.
Then came the shock. The way my hands shook as the paramedic tried to take me from the room while I screamed at him to help my dad.
Falk, bumping into me as unfamiliar cops dragged him out in handcuffs.
The regret strung across his face finally let it sink in.
My dad was gone.
My dad is gone.
The wind howls outside, and I focus out the window as winter white dances with the storm.
Jansen’s heavy hand rests on my head with Fluffington wedged between me and the back of the couch, his tail drooping over my ankle.
Trips stares at the silent TV, eyes red from exhaustion, hands clenching and relaxing like the motion might make something change.
Mattie is missing.
Mattie isn’t dead, but by the time we find her, she might wish she were, because Bryce has her. “How did you know about Bryce?” I ask, my voice cracking from lack of use.
Jansen doesn’t answer, so I tilt my head to see if he’s sleeping. He looks down at me, his usually smiling face grim. “We found his second phone, the one he used to talk to Mattie. We sent photos anonymously to Trips’ dad so the intel wouldn’t come back on you two.”
“I guess that got him a wedding invite,” I mutter.
“Why didn’t you warn us?” Trips asks, pulled from whatever thoughts that have held him hostage for more than a week.
I know what I’m reliving. I don’t know what he is.
“We did,” Jansen says, brow furrowed as I force myself upright.
I miss his hair, his new piercings glinting in the lamplight as the wind rattles the old glass beside us. He’s still handsome, but more feral than before, like all the soft bits of him were carved off along with his hair.
We’ve all aged a decade in the last few months, even if the evidence of that would be invisible to anyone outside this house.
But I feel it hovering between us, this quiet truth that we aren’t the same people we were before.
We’re not college kids or young adults. We’ve shed the last of our childishness over these last few months, and I’m not sure what that means for all of us.
“I never got a message,” I reply, feeling Trips’ anger simmering across the room.
Walker comes in then, his face lighting up when he sees I’m sitting up instead of comatose. “I was just going to heat up some cinnamon rolls—would you like one?” he asks.
“We sent them a message about Bryce and Mattie, didn’t we?” Jansen asks instead of answering.
Walker’s smile fades. “Yeah. But we never got a reply. I take it you didn’t get it?”
I shake my head. “They took my phone as soon as they got the list.”
Footsteps sound on the stairs, brought by the first noise that’s happened in this house in who knows how long. RJ joins us, squeezing into the corner of the couch. After a second, he holds an arm open, hope clear in the set of his shoulders.
I know what I’ve lived through. But what have they survived?
RJ looks fragile, like I might not want him anymore.
Which is so untrue I tremble at the thought.
So I crawl into his lap, and he wraps an arm around me, a sigh getting caught in the tangle of my hair.
I see a similar look on Walker’s face, so I pat the spot I just left on the couch.
And he takes it, the three of them lined up, RJ under me, Walker and Jansen maneuvering me so my legs sprawl across them.
Trips, as always, sits a little separate.
I reach a hand across the gap, and I know the same tentative hope is on my face when Trips’ glare relaxes, his hand grasping mine. It’s uncomfortable, but worth it, to have all of them here with me.
It’s like the room sighs, something clicking together that we all feared might be broken forever. I swallow back yet another wave of tears, then clear my throat. “Where are we at with Mattie?”
The surprise from Walker and RJ leaves a sour taste in my mouth. How long have I locked myself inside my head? With nothing to mark the days—no job, no class, only my dad’s funeral to break my vigil—it could be any number.
RJ recovers first. “We’ve gotten access to all her friends’ cells. It looks like she was fishing for a place to stay right after your wedding. We narrowed it down to three locations, so now we’re looking at nearby security footage to figure out which one they ran to. But so far, there’s nothing.”
“Can I see? The messages with the timestamps?” I ask.
Walker pulls out his phone and hands it over, showing me the screenshots he’d made of them.
Trips takes back his hand, running it through his hair. “Yesterday was her sixteenth birthday. She should be planning her party, not running away with a fucking pedophile.”
“Agreed,” RJ says, not commenting on how Trips has been just as useless as me since we got back.
“If I could sleep, I might be more help,” he says, like his guilt requires explanation.
It’s Jansen who answers. “Sometimes we’ve got to lean on each other. And that’s okay. That’s family, man. So, do what you need to do to process, and we’ll find your sister.” After a moment, he adds with no context, “RJ’s birthday is Saturday.”
“Of course you’d remember that,” Walker says, a teasing annoyance in his voice that I didn’t realize I’d missed while I was gone.
“It’s a birthday. Those are important. We have to celebrate, assuming we find Mattie first.” He squeezes my foot. “And if you’re up for it, of course.”
My dad is dead. I’ll be grieving him, probably forever. His life was cut short. But he gave his life for me, so I can live, love, and celebrate for as long as I have left on this rock.
“If it works out, I want to try,” I say.
RJ tugs me closer. “Whatever you feel like, Sugar, we’ll do.”
I settle against him, looking at the screenshots from Mattie again. But a moment later, I’m sitting up as straight as I can in the weird position across three laps. “I know where she is,” I announce.
“How?” Walker asks.
I poke at the screen in my hand. “Here, look, she asked these two friends first, but after they replied, she still asked this other friend. It’s like she was fishing for a better option. They’re up at Lutsen. Bryce knows the area too, so he’d feel safe there.”
“Lutsen? Like, the ski mountain north of Duluth?” Trips asks.
“Yeah. One of her friends has a ski-out condo there.”
I feel a heavy exhale from Walker against my thigh. “We’ll go see what we can find. But what about you? Would you like anything to eat?”
I stretch, reveling in all the places my body touches theirs. “Honestly, I need to shower. And try to get my hair unknotted.”
“Then food?” he asks.
I lean forward, pressing my lips to his. “Then food.”
Forcing myself to my feet, my body stiff and aching from lounging for an unknown number of days, I shuffle to the bathroom, ready to try to reengage with my life.
I didn’t die. And I won’t let my dad’s sacrifice go to waste. I’m going to live one hell of a life, and when we meet in the afterlife, I’m going to tell him all about it. Or at least, about all the parts where I’m fully clothed.
He doesn’t need to know everything I plan to get up to.