27. Niko
Niko
“Where the fuck is she?”
That was what I woke up to. Trey never panicked. Even on the night that Cam died, I hadn’t seen him freak out. Trey was a master of disguising his emotions, and he never let things get to him. He drowned them in energy drinks and the occasional joint, smart ass comments, and whatever project he was working on.
But right now, that was exactly what he was doing. He pulled at his hair with one hand as he clasped a sheet of paper.
My eyes were still blurry as I stood, pulling the paper from him. As I read, my heart sank.
Guys,
This isn’t as eloquent as my last letter. I’ve already given all of you confessions of love. You know how I feel.
I can’t stay here with you knowing that I am a liability, that your lives would be better off without me. Every day I stay, I put Maya and Katya in danger.
Don’t try to find me. It’s for the best. Please know that I love each of you. I’ll never forget you, but it’s better if you forget me.
Ivy
I wanted to rip the paper in half and set it on fire. Spread its ashes far and wide. If Ivy were here, I would shake her. What the fuck was she thinking? Where the fuck had she gone?
Once we got her back, I’d tie her up and never let her leave my side again. I should have known her act last night was just that, an act. Instead, I had fallen for it, thinking she wanted us. That she was ready for what we had done, even though Cam’s death weighed so heavily on all of us. I thought that was what she needed. That it was to help her heal and move on.
It was all a lie.
I didn’t know what her plan was, but it was foolish and reckless. What did “it would be better if you forgot me” even mean? And why did she think she got to make that choice for any of us? Why didn’t she talk to us?
“What else did she leave behind?” I asked. Trey thrust her phone into my hand, and I skimmed through the messages. The ones from the unknown number made me want to scream. She was meeting with whomever it was all because they claimed they had someone she wanted.
And knowing Ivy, she assumed it was Cam. It was the one person in the world she would want. Ros and Frankie were in Strathmore with the rest of us. I couldn’t think of any other reason she would risk herself.
Caleb sat on the bed beside me, his jaw clenched, and his arms crossed over his chest. “I knew it. I fucking knew it from the first text message she got. She should have blocked the number.”
But she hadn’t.
“What do we do?” There was no way in hell we would choose to “not find her.” That wasn’t even an option.
Caleb tilted his head back and stared at the ceiling. “Talk to Dominic. He’s a psycho like Trey. I can guarantee you the car she drove has a tracker.”
I was grateful that at least one of us could think straight—not me, but one of us. Not for the first time, I wished Trey had put a tracker beneath her skin. It would have made everything easier.