Chapter Sixteen
I insist on driving and Travis can see that I’m in no mood to be argued with. I don’t fucking care if I get arrested and even though he drives like a maniac himself, he’s clutching the side handle of his Mustang by the time we get to Forest Hills. As we’re driving, we don’t say much. But my mind is buzzing.
I’ve lived my whole life half broken and half devastated. It started with our parents’ downward spiral, which affected all of us but sometimes I think it affected me most of all, because I was aware of it. I was the oldest and I could see that they were both doomed. The crying and the fighting. Their love that was so strong but so damaged by his addiction and her refusal to see it or even really acknowledge that he needed help. That they both needed help.
Later, after my parents died and I was finally able to get some distance from all that, I knew I could fix the thing in me that was broken if I could only find someone to prove that I could do it better, with everything I had. And now I have. My unicorn girl, who walked into my life and lit the whole thing up like a shining sun, finally giving it meaning and infusing it with a blazing kind of love that has become everything about me.
“I don’t know if I can live without her.” At first I don’t even realize that I’ve said it out loud. “I don’t want to live without her.”
Travis stares at me. “Kade. You won’t have to.” He’s shocked by the way I’m acting. It’s not normal. I’m usually the calm one. The one who holds everyone else’s lives together. “You just met her.”
“I don’t fucking care about that! I need her.”
“I’m sure she’s fine, Kade.” His attempt to reassure me has no effect on me whatsoever. “Everything will be fine.”
“Whatever happens to me, I want you to take care of them, Travis. Vaughn and Roxie. The two of them are more fragile than us. You’ll have to make sure Vaughn’s okay, and Roxie—”
“Kade. What are you talking about? You’re going to do that yourself. You’re not going anywhere. Come on. Don’t say shit like that.” There’s a lot of tragedy in the backstory of our family, and Gage’s, so what I’m saying digs deep and it should. I can relate to all of it now. All that long-ago sorrow is rising up.
“Something’s wrong,” I tell him. “I can feel it.”
“Slow down. This is it, up here on the right.”
We pull up to the gate of the house and I punch on the intercom buzzer.
“Hello?” It’s a girl’s voice, slurred from sleep.
“Amber, it’s Kade Tucker and I’m coming in. Let me the fuck in or I’m calling the cops and having you put away for a very long time. Open the fucking gate and open your goddamn door.”
There’s a pause. “It wasn’t my idea, Kade.”
“I don’t give a fuck whose idea it was. Let me in.” Fuck, my voice sounds cold. I’m a different person now. My heart has been stolen from me and I’m an empty shell of rage and revenge. The gate starts opening and I gun the accelerator up the long driveway then screech to a stop in front of the door.
Amber is there and she holds the door open for me. “Up the stairs. Third floor. It’s the last door on the left. I’ve told the guards to let you in.”
I run up the stairs, taking them in threes.
“It wasn’t my fault,” she yells after me.
The guards are expecting me and they cooperate, probably picking up on the fact that they’ll go to prison if they don’t, and possibly might anyway—and that I’m fully prepared to kill any fucker who gets in my way.
I storm into the room.
It’s empty.
There’s not even a sign that she’s been here.
But the doors to the balcony are open.
There’s a tree.
A wall.
A very high wall with barbed wire running along the top of it.
She wouldn’t, would she?
My phone rings in my pocket.
It’s a number I don’t recognize. But then ... I do recognize it. My number’s easy to remember. 615-565-6565. Maybe he knows something. “Sam?”
“Kade? Stella just called me. She needs you. She didn’t have your number. She’s hurt. It’s bad, Kade. She needs help.”