Chapter Thirty-Four
Eddie
Even staring at my hands won’t wash away the blood that was now on them.
Her screams.
Her begging for me not to let her go.
Everything is on repeat as I inch closer to their door. The dread hitting me like lightning, searing my soul, making what’s left of my heart crumble like sand.
But there’s no other way. If she’s going to find out, she’s going to find out from the one who dropped her…
Cipher stands beside me in full uniform, looking less like a biker and more like a cop. His presence is needed, because I don’t think I can do this alone.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” he questions, standing beside me stoically.
“It should come from me…” My voice trails off the second we’re on their stoop. Amber’s car is in the driveway, so surely she’s home too. But can I really handle seeing her after everything?
Cipher knocks on the door, positioning himself between me and whoever answers. Pippa’s parents are out of the country on business, so the only one we can get ahold of is Poppy.
Every second that passes between the knock and the door being flung open is counted by heartbeats—beats so fast I can barely keep up with them.
The world starts to spin, and my breathing feels constricted. Tugging on my collar, I sway, then plop my ass down on the first step, unable to control the vertigo swirling around me.
“I feel like I can’t breathe,” I mumble, my chest tightening. It’s like my heart accelerates into overdrive the second I hear footsteps on the other side of the door. “My chest hurts too. Shit, what’s fucking happening to me?”
“You’re having an anxiety attack,” Cipher warns. “Stay seated.”
I couldn’t stand if I wanted to. Everything feels funny. Cold sweat falls down my neck and face in sheets, staining my collar, drenching everything from the neck up. My stomach knots like it’s tying itself together, nausea taking hold, the urge to vomit imminent.
Cipher bends down to rub my back just as the front door flings open, but I’m too far gone to turn around and see who it is.
“She’s not here,” is all Poppy says before the door slams behind her.
Cipher knocks again, and the door swings wide.
“What? What the fuck do you want, Eddie? Haven’t you ruined enough?”
Cipher clears his throat. “Ma’am, I’m Officer Johnston with the Reno Police Department. May I come in?”
“Sure,” she says curtly, “but that motherfucker can stay outside.”
“Unfortunately, ma’am, I feel as though it’s best if he comes inside. He’s having a bit of an anxiety attack, and I’d like to keep an eye on him. Would that be okay?”
Poppy’s voice is oozing with hatred. “Do I really have a choice?”
Cipher nods his head. “Everyone has a choice, but in his current condition, I can’t leave him alone.”
“This is so stupid. But fine. By all means, come on in.” She waves an angry hand toward the couch that’s in the middle of the room.
Cipher helps me to my feet and guides me into the living room, motioning for her to sit on the couch first. She chooses a hard chair facing it, refusing to sit beside me.
“It’s probably best you have a seat.”
She eyes me curiously as Cipher sits me down on the cushion facing her, then carefully sits down next to me.
“What’s this about?”
“Eddie tells me that your parents are out of town on business?”
“They’re always out of town… why? What’s going on?” she questions, obviously reading our uncomfortable body language.
My head drops in shame, my breathing calming to something manageable. My heart no longer races like it’s in a spinning room. If that’s what an anxiety attack feels like, I’d hate to feel a panic attack if it were ever to happen.
Slowly, I lift my head, meeting her eyes for only a few seconds before I see Pippa staring back at me, her ghost haunting me from beyond the grave. Shaking my head, I try to remind myself that this is Poppy not Pippa.
It doesn’t work.
“I’m not sure how to tell you this…” Cipher starts, adjusting the way he sits as she shifts awkwardly on the hard wooden seat. “But there was an accident…”
“An accident? Are my parents okay?”
“Your parents are fine,” he reveals, “It’s not them I’m here about.”
Poppy’s eyes widen before narrowing in on me. “What did you do to my sister?” There goes my heart again, racing inside my chest, a cold sweat pooling on my forehead as pressure builds in my chest to the point of combustion.
Cipher speaks before I have a chance. “I’m not sure how to tell you this—”
“Is that all you know how to say?” she yells, blowing up at him before turning her rage on me. “I know you have something to do with this or you wouldn’t be here. What the fuck did you do?”
“First off, don’t take out your anger on the officer. He’s just doing his job. Second, what makes you think I have something to do with it?”
“Because you have no other reason to be here, Eddie. Amber fucking kicked your stupid ass to the curb, and my sister… well, you fucked up your chance with her too. So why the fuck are you sitting here ruining my day even further with your presence?”
I fucking hate how she always talks down to me like I’m nothing more than gum stuck to her shoe, and like she’s better than everyone. It’s why the words fly out of my mouth cold and uncaring.
“Because she’s dead, Poppy. Pippa is dead.”
The words freeze in the air between us, each one stagnant and final. She wasn’t expecting them, not with the way her jaw quivers, eyes widening with shock. She stands there for far too long before her face twists into one of fury, her grief taking over.
She launches forward, shoving me so hard I fall off the couch. “You lying son of a bitch!” Her fist connects with my jaw before Cipher can react. It catches me off guard, the pain more than I ever expected to come from someone her size.
I deserved that hit, and anymore she wants to throw at me. I’ll take them all if it will help us both heal from this.
Cipher grabs her wrist mid-swing, seconds from nailing me again. “Ma’am, sit down!” He can try to reason with her, but it won’t work. I’ve seen the Kiplinger sisters as hurricanes, but you should run when they turn into tornadoes.
“Fuck you!” she screams at him, wrenching her arm free. Her eyes cut to me; a dangerous gleam twinkling with spite around her iris. It’s like fire, the kind that burns and sears through flesh and bone. “You don’t get to stand here and tell me she’s gone. Not after what you did to her!”
She swings again, this time nailing me in the mouth, splitting my lip open. Blood trickles down my chin as she cocks back for another punch, but this time it’s halted by Cipher.
“Hit him again, and I’m going to arrest you, Ms. Kiplinger.”
She recoils, but the hate stays in her eyes. “How’d she die? Tell me?”
Cipher gently guides her back to the chair before breaking the silence with truth. “She fell from a very high height. I’m sorry.”
“My sister hated heights! You’re lying. You have to be. She wouldn’t have risked her life like that!”
I wipe the blood off my lip, my chest heaving in frustration. “And yet she did.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Think about it, Poppy. She was fucking obsessed with me, so obsessed she waited until my wedding day to reveal what happened between us. She was fucked up in the head. When I told her I didn’t want to be with her, she lost it, begged me to change my mind, especially when I called off our friendship.
She couldn’t take that, so she fucking called me, told me she was standing on top of Rattlesnake Mountain and had nothing to live for… ”
“Pippa would never kill herself.”
“I’m not lying to you, Poppy. That’s exactly where I found her, standing on the edge of the cliff, staring down at the city as if she was seeing it for the first and last time. When I got close, she backed up to the edge, telling me to not come any closer.”
“It’s your fault!” she screams.
“I know.”
“If you hadn’t messed with her head, she’d still be alive.”
“Maybe so, but it still doesn’t change the fact that she forced me up there, hoping I’d choose her instead of Amber, begging for forgiveness I couldn’t give.”
“So, you let her die?”
Cipher interjected, “No, Ms. Kiplinger, he tried to save her life. It was an accident. I don’t think she truly wanted to kill herself, but she was too close to the edge, and the ground beneath her gave way. Eddie caught her and tried to pull her up, but he just couldn’t hold on long enough.”
“I fucking hate you!” she says, hands tightening, her breaths quickening like mine right before my anxiety attack. “You killed my sister! My twin! My fucking whole world!”
“I didn’t want her to die. I put that on everything that means something to me.”
“Like Amber? She meant something to you and you threw her away like a fucking grenade!”
That one hurt, hitting me deep, like a knife plunging into my ribcage.
“Don’t bring Amber into this. This isn’t about her!
Do you have any idea what it feels like to feel someone’s life slip out of your hands?
I do! It fucking haunts me, Poppy. I can’t even blink without seeing her screaming for me to hold on, begging me not to let go.
” Suddenly, I feel gutted, like everything in my stomach wants to come out the wrong way.
“I need to sit,” I quickly say, my palms cold and clammy.
Her scream rips through the room. “Don’t you dare make yourself the victim! Not now. Not after taking my sister’s life. You bastard! I won’t let you do this.”
She attacks me without warning, pummeling my chest with pathetic, weak hits as tears spill down her cheeks so violently, it’s soaking the floorboards.
“Stop, Poppy. Please, stop.”
“I hate you!” she screams, just as my breathing turns into suffocation.
“I know. Hate me all you want, but please—”
“He can’t breathe,” Cipher tells her. “He’s having another anxiety attack.”
“Then let him die! He deserves it after what he did to my sister and best friend. This world would be better off without him in it.”