Chapter Twenty-Three #2
She dragged him with her, weaving into the crush of bodies. Jax stayed close, a wall at her back, his eyes scanning, never settling. It helped something relax in me that he was on Avery duty, and I scanned the crowd for Luke.
I spotted Theo instead. He’d found a brunette near the wall, his focus fixed on her animated hands more than anything happening with us. Tori was nowhere in sight. I lost track of Avery in the push of the crowd until Luke’s shoulder brushed mine.
“Couldn’t stay away, huh?” I muttered.
He gave me that crooked grin, the one that said he knew too much. “You’re surprised?”
I tipped my empty cup toward the dance floor. “Tonight’s a train wreck.”
Then the floor shifted beneath us. The music jolted, not the beat but the way the bodies around us stuttered, a ripple of attention cresting in one direction. Shouts rose over the bass. Cups tipped. The floor seemed to tilt under me, wrong, wrong.
My stomach dipped before I even saw her.
Through the crush, Jax’s frame broke clear—Avery in his arms, her head lolling against his shoulder. But her eyes—wide, frantic—fought to stay open, panic skittering for something solid in the blur.
I shoved forward, Luke tight on my heels, the crowd closing and opening around us in jolts of movement.
She blinked hard, unsteady, the motion sluggish. “Dizzy.” Her voice caught on the word. “Everything’s… spinning.”
Elise’s laugh cut clean through the music. She raised her voice, pitched just right for the nearest circle to hear. “Wow. Didn’t think you’d go that far, Jax. Guess slipping something in her drink was easier than convincing her to sleep with you.”
The room shifted. Heads turned. Whispers rippled like sparks catching dry grass. Phone screens lit up.
Jax’s expression hardened. “I didn’t touch her drink.” His grip tightened, steadying Avery against him. “Don’t you dare—”
But Elise already had her stage. One arched brow, one tilt of her head, and suddenly, he was the villain in her story.
I shoved through the bodies until I was at Jax’s side, Avery limp against his chest, her eyes wide with panic. My glare cut straight to Elise. “Don’t pretend that you weren’t the one who handed her that drink, Elise.”
Elise’s mouth curved, wide-eyed innocence dripping from every word. “Me? I wasn’t the one hovering over her.” Her gaze slid toward Jax, deliberate, cruel. “That was him.”
Gasps flared. Whispers coiled through the crowd, sharp as glass. More phones lifted, catching the moment.
Fury vibrated in every line of Jax. But Elise had already done it—slipped the seed of doubt, lit the fuse, another bomb at the guys’ already shaky friendship.
And it didn’t matter that we knew the truth. Not with half the party filming, not with Elise’s poison already spreading.
“Hospital,” Luke snapped, suddenly at Jax’s side—steady where I wasn’t. “Now.”
Jax didn’t argue. Avery sagged in his arms, her eyes fluttering, breath shallow.
He barreled forward, every line of him carved in fury and focus.
Luke pushed ahead, his shoulder dropping into bodies, forcing gaps through the throng.
Theo appeared on the other side, grim-faced, flanking Jax as though they’d rehearsed it.
All I could do was keep close, stumbling after them, terrified of losing sight of Jax’s shoulders cutting through the crush. Avery was a blur in his arms, limp and too still, and every step they took without me scraped raw.
Elise’s voice clawed up from memory, sharp as the day I’d caught it in an empty hallway after school. She hadn’t seen me. She hadn’t known anyone was there. “I’m trying! He’s chasing her—what do you want me to do, drug him?”
I’d told Luke. I knew she’d meant him. But now—Avery limp in Jax’s arms—that didn’t matter. Elise didn’t play straight lines. If she couldn’t get to Luke, she’d go for someone close, someone easier. And Avery… Avery was the perfect strike. Take her down, and the rest of us followed.
Chase. His name hit like a blow as the door burst open on the night air. If he saw Avery in this state—slack in Jax’s arms, Elise’s poison already lighting up feeds—it wouldn’t just break them. It would blow us apart.
Luke
We shoved through the night air, panic spurring us forward. Jax didn’t stop moving. He carried Avery tight against his chest, her hair tangled across his arm, her head lolling with the car’s headlights sweeping over us as we cut toward the curb.
“My SUV,” I barked, already yanking the keys free. “We’re not splitting up.”
Theo didn’t argue. Mila dove into the back seat first, making room.
Jax climbed in after her, Avery still in his arms, refusing to let go.
Theo slid in on the other side, shoulders hunched, silent but braced.
I slammed the driver’s door and shoved the car into gear, tires squealing as we peeled away from Tori’s street.
The drive blurred, traffic lights punching red and green across the windshield, Mila’s hand clenched white-knuckled around the headrest. Avery stirred against Jax, a soft, broken sound tearing out of her throat. His grip tightened.
“I’ve got you,” he muttered, voice pitched low like he could anchor her there.
“Hospital’s five minutes,” I ground out, pushing the car harder than I should.
We pulled into the emergency entrance, but I didn’t aim for the main doors.
The Kings had built a private wing years ago, an attempt at both philanthropy and privacy.
My family’s name was still stamped on the walls in brass.
I cut the engine and was already out, waving down a nurse at the side door.
Recognition sparked in her eyes, and the questions stopped at the look on Jax’s face as he carried Avery past.
They swept us into a side room—quiet, controlled. Doctors we knew. Nurses who didn’t blink at the mess we dragged in. I filled them in on what’d happened then placed a call to Chase, who tore out of his house immediately at our news. His parents were an hour out but headed in as well.
The air smelled of antiseptic and adrenaline. Gloves snapped. A nurse clipped sensors to Avery’s fingers. Blood was taken. An IV line snaked from her arm to a clear bag, fluid already dripping. The steady tick of the monitor filled the silence where panic should’ve been.
I signed the intake papers, my name opening doors I wished I didn’t have to use. By the time I got back, Avery was stretched out on a narrow bed, pale but breathing steady under the monitors.
The nurses had started fluids. Vitals were murmured and recorded, low and efficient—heart rate, blood pressure, nothing I wanted to hear too clearly. Mila stood near the wall, out of the way, her arms wrapped around herself as though she was holding in everything she couldn’t fix.
Jax hadn’t moved from her side. He sat forward, elbows on his knees, his hand wrapped around hers so tight it looked painful. His head was bowed, the back of his neck corded, but his thumb stroked her knuckles in steady passes.
The beeping steadied—slow, rhythmic. A nurse adjusted the IV drip, checked the monitor, then quietly slipped out, giving us space.
Her lashes fluttered. Then her eyes opened, slow, dazed.
“Jax?” Her voice rasped, raw.
His head jerked up. “I’m here.” The words caught, rougher than I’d ever heard him. “I’ve got you.”
A tiny smile pulled at her mouth. “Told you… I can handle myself.”
Jax huffed an anguished rush of air and pressed her hand to his forehead. “Don’t ever do that to me again.”
Mila’s eyes cut to mine. “Luke. Do you remember what I told you last semester? About Elise. The phone call in the hallway.”
The memory of Mila telling me what she’d overheard came back in sharp focus: “I’m trying! He’s chasing her—what do you want me to do, drug him?”
I remembered the way Mila had said it then, tight with fear. And hearing it now, with Avery limp in Jax’s arms earlier, it landed different. “Yeah. I remember.”
Mila’s voice dropped lower. “She shifted targets. It was always about tearing us apart. Luke, she doesn’t need it to make sense. She just needs us to crumble.”
The truth of it sliced deep. Elise wasn’t reckless. She was surgical. Avery had been the easiest way to land the blow.
“Then we don’t give her what she wants,” I said, though it felt more vow than a plan. “But Jax, her parents and Chase will be here. You need to go before it turns into another scene.”
Jax finally turned from Avery, eyes bloodshot, voice hoarse. “I’m not leaving her.”
“You can’t be here when her parents arrive,” Theo said quietly, the first words he’d spoken since the car. “You know what they’ll think.”
Jax bristled, muscles coiling. “I don’t care.”
“You should,” Avery rasped, her eyes slitting open again. Her voice was weak but steady enough to cut through. “Jax. If you stay, they’ll see doubt before they see me. Don’t let Elise win twice.”
The fight in him broke on that. He looked wrecked, but he leaned down, pressing her hand to his chest. “I’ll be outside. Don’t forget that.”
Her smile read tired but real. “Wouldn’t dare.”
Jax stood, every movement reluctant, his hand slipping from Avery’s only when he had to. Mila caught his arm, steadying him before the fight could flare again. “We’ve got it,” she told him quietly, then her gaze lifted to me. “Luke will handle the rest.”
The look she pinned me with left no room for argument. It wasn’t a suggestion—it was an order. And she was right. My name was the one on the wing. The one the hospital staff would answer to. The one the Dunns would think twice before crossing.
“Fine.” The word came sharper than I intended, but I held it steady. “I’ll deal with them.”
Theo nodded once, grim, already moving toward the door to make sure Jax didn’t circle back.
The room quieted, monitors ticking steady, Avery’s breathing evening out. But the relief was paper-thin, already tearing.
The clock was running. Once Chase walked through those doors, careful wouldn’t matter—truth would.
I looked at Mila, her face pale under the fluorescent light, but her chin lifted, fierce.
“We need to tell him everything,” I said. “Before Elise does.”