Chapter 15
CHAPTER
FIFTEEN
Jude
Finally home.
I fall into a heap on the couch, exhausted from the long days and the even longer flight home.
Okay, the flight wasn’t actually that long, but it sure as hell felt like it.
“Where’s West?” I ask Ezra as he comes out of his room in a white t-shirt and gray sweatpants.
He doesn’t even bother looking up at me before answering, “You know he’s at work.”
“But why?” I whine. I didn’t expect how hard it was going to be away from him for so long. We’ve never gone this long and not only was I worried about Berlyn in our absence, I couldn’t stop stressing about West.
He’s not good with people he doesn’t know. Ezra and I have always run interference on any situation where he could feel uncomfortable. What if something happened at the tattoo shop while we were gone?
Would they have been able to handle it without us?
“He doesn’t know we’re back yet,” E reminds me. We never got the chance to tell him we caught an early flight. And thank fuck we did because we have business to take care of tonight. “He should be home in about an hour,” he adds when he catches me pouting.
The only thing holding me together is knowing, not only will I see him soon, but we have plans to make and a lot to look forward to tomorrow.
“I still can’t believe so much has happened. We were only gone for a few days.” Longer than we initially were supposed to be. But not even a full week and we come back to the entire situation here being flipped on its head.
Ezra sits at my side, his thigh brushing up against mine as he settles in with his laptop. He was working through the entire flight but is already locked in and back to ignoring me. I huff, but can’t really be mad because he has to do this so we can make our move tomorrow.
Instead of complaining or trying to distract him—both tempting options— I watch him work for a few minutes before pulling up the feeds in Berlyn’s house to see where she is. At this time, she should be back from her classes, but I haven’t been able to check in with her as much as usual.
West was with her this morning very briefly before her friend came over. I caught a bit of their conversation and the girl really is growing on me. Did they start digging into their scumbag professor at all? Would they even know where or how to look?
Ezra will leave no stone unturned if need be. But we don’t need any more information to know we’re going to kill him. West didn’t say much, but he said more than enough. Hearing the bits Berlyn said this morning sealed the fucker’s coffin.
Ha, found her. Berlyn is home. I get comfortable as I pull up the different feeds of her room so I can watch her from every angle. Why have one when you can have three?
Bet her friend would agree with me too. I smirk to myself and catch E shaking his head at me, but he doesn’t say anything. Too absorbed in setting up our alibi for tomorrow. Thank god Berlyn’s security cameras are only outside. It makes our plan that much easier.
For a moment, I think the feeds have frozen when I turn my attention back to her to find her in the same position. But it only takes a moment to notice it’s her who’s frozen. She’s standing near the foot of her bed staring at it as if it holds the answers to the universe.
What the hell could she be thinking so deeply about?
Her head tilts to the side and I zoom in to find a small smile lifting the corner of her lips. Okay, so it’s not a bad lost in thought moment? I sit up straighter on the couch, focusing more on her as I try to decode what could possibly be going on.
It’s always easier to watch her when her friend is with her because they never stop talking. I don’t have to wonder what’s going through her head. They say it all.
She whispers something as her attention stays fixed in place but I don’t catch what she says. Groaning, I turn the volume up but she’s listening to music and that’s the only thing that grows louder.
Ezra flicks his attention my way for a moment with an arched brow, silently asking me what’s going on.
“I don’t know,” I grumble. His fingers pause their rhythmic dance over the keyboard but I shake my head. I’ll let him know if it’s something that needs his attention. For now, he needs to focus on our alibis.
Berlyn finally moves and my attention locks back onto my screen while Ezra continues to work. She heads to her desk and grabs her sketchbook and some pencils before climbing into bed.
It’s as if the world falls to pieces around her, no longer existing as she puts pencil to paper over and over again. She starts with long, broad strokes, but quickly they become rapid movements as her hand flies over the sketchbook.
I don’t even know for how long she sits on her bed, lost to the art pouring out of her while I watch. It’s been awhile since she’s been so completely absorbed in her drawings like this. It always feels as if it literally bleeds out of her, without a thought. Running only on instinct.
That feeling is not something I fully understand.
To let go and let something freely fall from you without a plan or any intention.
Weston has moments like this too. It’s always his best pieces that are created in the moments where he’s lost to the madness of his own mind.
But they are normally born from only the most extreme of emotions.
Is it the same for Berlyn?
What has rocked her so much to throw her into this state?
She doesn’t seem upset, almost the opposite. Completely enthralled.
Weston comes home and as happy as I am to see him, I can barely tear my eyes away from where Berlyn is still sketching furiously.
I pull him down beside me and Ezra moves over to create enough room for him.
It’s tight with the three of us on one couch, but all of us crave the closeness after being separated.
Leaning my head on West’s shoulder, I feel his entire body melt into the couch, tension bleeding out of him.
“She’s drawing?” he asks, but his question is less about what she’s doing and more about why. As she’s gotten busier in school, she’s had less time for her art. With her talent, it’s a shame, but maybe I’m biased.
“She was staring at her bed, lost in thought before grabbing her stuff and has been drawing since,” I explain.
Panic lights in West’s eyes and I freeze, waiting for him to explain it, but he stays quiet. He leans closer to the screen as if he could be closer to her and feel what’s going on inside her head. “She seems okay,” he says but why does he sound surprised by it?
“She smiled a bit before she started drawing,” I tell him. “Why? Was she not okay when she was with you?”
His nod is immediate but his explanation takes longer.
I wait patiently, knowing he’s taking his time trying to find the right words.
Ezra and I are pretty good at being able to fill in the blanks, but when he hesitates like this it means he really wants to get it right.
Wants us to understand something very specific.
“She disappeared in her head,” he finally says.
Ezra stops working on his laptop as we both contemplate his words. “After Richards,” he adds and both Ezra and I stay quiet to give him the chance to say anything else that might make all the pieces come together, but he seems to be struggling more than usual.
I put my hand on his knee and squeeze, trading looks with Ezra behind West’s back. He doesn’t have to say anything else, we both understand exactly the type of feeling West is describing. We’ve watched him do it a million times over the years.
He disappears into his own mind, sometimes for minutes, other times for hours, and even times where it’s been even longer. It can feel like living with a ghost. Whenever it happens, Ezra and I tread carefully to try and bring him back to us.
For the most part, it’s been easy over the last few years. I always wondered what it felt like for him, where he went when he wasn’t with us, but now I wonder if he even realizes he does it.
“It wasn’t like that,” I’m quick to reassure him. “She was herself, just thinking about something really hard.”
West heaves a sigh of relief and my own tension lessens. Ezra gives me a subtle nod before turning back to his laptop. He trusts that I have West. Of course I do.
He had it the worst of us as kids. None of our parents were gems. Greedy, selfish, monsters that only cared about themselves. None of them ever should have had kids in the first place, but West’s parents were something worse than monsters.
They punished him for making any noise, beat him, starved him, and locked him in a small bathroom for days on end. They were inhumane in the way they treated him and I think he had to learn to disappear from his own mind and body in order to survive the torture they put him through.
What has Berlyn gone through that she’s learned such a thing?
It might not have been what happened right now, but West would not be this tore up about her being lost in thought. The girl practically lives in her head. It had to be more than that to freak him out.
Did what happened with her professor elicit such a trauma response? Or is there more to it than that?
We’ve never really dug into Berlyn’s background. There’s never been much of a reason to. We cared about the here and now and the future we were determined to have. But if someone has hurt her in the past, could come back to hurt her again, we will take them out. There’s simply no other choice.
“What did she draw?” West asks, his voice back to its normal level of gravel.
Ezra peeks over at our screen. “She’s smiling.”
I focus back on Berlyn and my own smile grows. “Is that not her turned on smile?”
Ezra tilts his head and West zooms in further, locked on her expression. E is the first to chuckle. “It definitely is,” he agrees.