Chapter 15
Kayla
The drive to the island is silent. Finally, the bridge lights appear through the windshield, but all I can think about is Vero, and I push everything else out of my mind.
Clay slams to a halt, and we are barely out of the truck before Brawley appears, Ares a few steps behind him.
Brawley glances at me and then at Clay. “What the fuck were you thinking bringing her here? We have no idea what we are walking into.”
“He was thinking that Vero is my friend,” I say before Clay can even open his mouth. “And I won’t sit at home while my friend needs help. Even if that means helping you look for him. Now tell me where you have already searched, so we can cover more ground.”
Brawley stares at me and nods. “The asylum, his room, the bar, the cemetery, and the cornfield perimeter. If he was fucking with Cave, we would have heard it.”
“Does he have any places he goes that aren’t on the island?” I ask. “Somewhere he would think no one would look?”
“No,” Brawley says, and I can hear the sadness in his voice.
“Then he is here somewhere,” I say. “Let’s split up.”
No one argues, and we head off in different directions. Though I am at a disadvantage of not knowing the island, there is no way I will let it stop me.
I head toward the big tent, and it is so quiet I can hear my own footsteps—it feels freaky being here alone.
Using the torch on my phone to light my way, I check the corners and all the areas where a person could be hiding.
I’m about to leave when a whimper catches my attention, and it’s so faint that I almost convince myself it was my imagination.
Instead, I move toward the main stage, where my light catches on a door at the base.
It is most likely a prop storage area, but as I crouch down and try the handle, I find that it’s locked from the inside.
“Vero?” I whisper.
There is nothing but silence, yet my gut says he’s inside.
“It’s Kayla, I’m by myself,” I tell him quietly, as I have no idea what his episodes look like, and I don’t want to scare him. “If you don’t want to let me in, I can just sit here.”
“How did you find me?” he says, not sounding like himself.
“I heard a noise.”
I sit and wait, not pushing him to talk. Eventually, the lock slides open and the door cracks, and one of his eyes peers out at me.
Whatever I was preparing myself for, it was not this.
I glimpse enough of him through the crack to realize that he has cut off most of his hair. It is now patchy and chunks are missing close to the scalp. He is holding scissors in his hand.
“Can I come in?” I ask him quietly.
The door opens wider, and I slip inside. The space is small, and I was right—it’s where the props are kept. Vero is sitting against the far wall with his knees pulled up to his chest, scissors in hand, and his face is wet from tears.
I sit down beside him, close enough that our shoulders are almost touching, and I look straight ahead at the opposite wall.
“I pull my hair,” he says, “when I get like this, and it hurts. It hurts so fucking bad. I couldn’t stop pulling it, so I had to cut it off . . . I had to.”
“That makes sense,” I reply.
“It looks so bad.”
“It just looks like you need some help to finish it,” I tell him calmly. “We can fix it.” I hold out my hand for the scissors, and he gives them to me. “I’m going to cut the rest to even it out, then we can go back to the house. There we will shave it, so it looks good.”
He turns his head toward me. His eyes are red, and he looks exhausted. “You know how to cut hair?”
“I have been cutting my own hair since I was sixteen, and I can’t make it look any worse.”
The corner of his mouth twitches. “That’s not as reassuring as you think it is.”
“Sit still,” I tell him and shift so I’m kneeling in front of him. Then I work through what is left, carefully cutting it down to his scalp as close as I can.
“I scared Brawley,” he says quietly.
“Brawley is fine. He is looking for you now.”
“That’s what I mean,” Vero says. “He doesn’t get scared.”
I keep cutting his hair, remaining silent. He doesn’t need me to fill the space; he just needs me to be here.
“I hate feeling like this,” he says after a while.
“Does it happen a lot?”
“Enough that everyone knows the drill,” he replies, “but not enough that I stop feeling bad. Sometimes I just need it to stop. The noise in my head, I need it to stop.”
“Okay,” I say.
“Just okay . . .? I don’t scare you?”
“No, it doesn’t scare me.”
He stares up at me. “Most people want to fix it.”
“I’m not going to fix it, but I will sit here with you until you are ready to move.”
I finish cutting his hair and run my hand over his skull, making sure all the strands are even.
“You ready?” I ask him.
“Yeah.”
We move out from beneath the stage, and I lead him out of the tent. When the night air hits us, Vero stops, tips his head back, and breathes. I stand beside him until he is ready to move.
Once we are walking again, Brawley finds us. He stops when he sees Vero, and something crosses his face—relief, maybe—but he shakes it off as he closes the distance between us. He takes Vero’s face in his hands and makes him look up at him.
“Ring, now,” Brawley demands.
Vero drops his head back and looks at the sky, then back at Brawley, nodding once.
I step forward. “He just—”
“This is how we do it,” Brawley says.
“He is exhausted and needs to sleep. He doesn’t need you to beat the shit out of him.”
“Kayla.” Clay’s voice comes from behind me, and I turn to see he is standing a few feet back. “Let them do it their way.”
I look at Brawley and then at Vero, who gives me a small nod. I don’t fucking like it, not even a little, but if this is how they do things, I can’t argue.
Ares is already there when we arrive, standing inside the cage door with his arms folded. He looks at Vero, and the moment he notices his lack of hair, his eyes shift briefly to me.
Brawley and Vero enter the cage. Brawley rolls his shoulders, and Vero stands across from him. They look at each other for a moment before Brawley swings.
That is when I lose my fucking mind. Vero is not ready; he won’t fight back.
“Stop!” I yell, rushing toward the cage door. Clay’s arms come around me from behind, locking me against his body. “Let me fucking go. He isn’t going to fight back—it’s not fair.”
“I know,” Clay says in almost a whisper. “Let them do this, even if it’s hard for you to watch.”
Vero staggers after taking another hit, and I push harder against Clay’s arms. “He’s hurting him.”
“He knows exactly what he is doing,” Clay says, but it does nothing to reassure me.
“Both of them do. This is nothing new, and this is how Vero gets out of his head when nothing else works. Otherwise, this goes on for days or weeks.” He adjusts his hold on me, but it doesn’t loosen.
“He needs to feel something, and this is the only way Brawley knows. Just stay out of it.”
I stop fighting, but Clay’s arms stay locked around me as I witness one of the hardest things I have ever had to watch.
Brawley does not go at full strength, that I can tell, and I notice Vero is slowly coming back.
It may just be a smirk, but he is in there.
He moves better on his feet, then throws a punch back, and Brawley takes it, grinning at him as Clay exhales behind me.
It goes on for a few more minutes, then Brawley wraps an arm around Vero’s neck and pulls him in, pressing his mouth to the side of Vero’s head.
Ares opens the cage door and steps out. Relief washes over me—it is over.
I push out of Clay’s arms, and this time he lets me go, so I race through the cage door. Shoulder-checking Brawley so he lets me closer, I elbow my way in, and Vero looks at me with blood on his lip, his eyes now clearer.
“Come on,” I say. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”
He falls into step with me, and we wander back to the house.
I ask him for the first aid kit, and he leads me to a bathroom.
Vero sits on the edge of the tub while I set everything up, then I tip his chin a little to look at the cut on the bridge of his nose.
It isn’t deep, but it’s still bleeding, so I press gauze to it and hold it there.
He’s quiet while I work, which is not like him, but I focus on my task.
As I reach for the antiseptic, he sniffles, so I put it down and wait.
“I can’t do this anymore,” he whispers.
“Do what?” I ask.
He presses two fingers to his temples. “Pretend.” Before I can respond, he hits the heel of his hand hard against the side of his head and squeezes his eyes shut. “Fuck.” He does it again. “I need to leave.”
“Vero.” I reach out and catch his wrist before he hits himself a third time. “Please don’t leave. Talk to me.”
He opens his eyes and stares at me, so lost, my heart hurts for him.
“I’m not in love with you.” He says it fast, like he has to get it out before he loses his nerve.
Then he stops and shakes his head—hard. “Fuck, I’m fucking this up already.
” He puts both hands over his face for a second and then drops them.
“I think I do fucking love you, I do, but I am so in love with Brawley I can’t see straight.
I can’t think straight. The thought of not being around him makes it hard to breathe—it’s like the air gets punched out of my lungs and it doesn’t come back.
” His voice breaks on the last word, but he steadies himself and keeps going.
“But I feel like you actually get me. You see all of it: the parts that scare everyone else, the parts that even I don’t know what to do with.
You just stay. I have never had that with anyone before.
I don’t know what to do with it, and it scares me.
But I don’t get scared and I don’t know what any of this means and I am so fucking confused. ”
He drops off the edge of the bath and onto his knees in front of me. His arms wrap around my legs and his forehead presses against one of my thighs as he holds on tight. I look down at him for a moment, then reach down and take his face in both hands, tilting it until he is looking at me.
“Vero.” I wait until his eyes are on mine.
“I can see myself loving you.” And I mean it; I can see it.
“I can already feel it. But I would never love you the same way Brawley does, and I would never try.” I hold his face when he tries to look away.
“What you have with him is not something I am trying to compete with. I wouldn’t even know how, and I wouldn’t want to.
Your love with him doesn’t have to look the same way as it does with me.
They are not the same thing. They don’t have to be. ”
He stares up at me, his eyes wet and face raw in a way I don’t think many people ever get to see. “So, you don’t want me to leave?” he says slowly. “Even though I can’t love you the same way.”
I laugh. “No. I would never want you to leave. Not for any reason.” I run my thumb across his cheekbone.
“The way you are with me is exactly right for me, Vero. You don’t have to change it or name it or make it something else.
” I look at him and I mean every word. “You heal a part of my soul. I don’t know how else to say it.
And I think I need to be around you just as much as you seem to need to be around me. ”
He looks at me for a long moment and gives me a smile—not the unhinged version I love so much, but it’s a start.
“Okay,” he says.
“Okay,” I reply.
He leans his forehead against my thigh again, and I let him, one hand resting on the back of his head. We stay like that for a while in the quiet bathroom.