Chapter 9 Jett
Leaning against the tree, I welcomed the shade from the hot sun as I waited for Quinn to come out of class.
When I saw the doors open and students coming out, Quinn was easy to spot, tall and graceful.
I noticed she had changed her clothes from earlier into three-quarter-length yoga pants and a pink T-shirt knotted at the back.
She came down the stairs of the sports sciences building, ignoring most of her classmates.
With her hair now in a high ponytail, she cut an impressive figure as she crossed the lawn to meet me.
I watched her as she put her sunglasses on before offering me a wide smile.
We were all hoping to head to the NFL, and Quinn had never been happy about being left behind, so she’d decided when she was fourteen, if she couldn’t play beside us, she would treat us, and she held onto that determination.
She was now studying sports therapy, and she was damn good, too.
“Hey, twice in one day,” she murmured when she was close enough to be heard without drawing attention to us, which would be impossible. She looked hot, and I was the school’s quarterback. We were probably already on someone’s Instagram or TikTok.
“It’s how rumors start,” I told her, causing her to look around uncertainly at my comment, but she laughed despite the underlying truth of it. “They’re both at practice,” I told her quietly as I pointed at my ankle. “I’m not, I’m injured.”
“Bullshit story.” Quinn lowered herself gracefully to the grass, and I followed. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” I hesitated, but this was Quinn. “I’m fucking furious.”
“You have a right to be.” As she pulled at the grass, she looked a little uncertain.
“What is it?”
Handing me her phone, she gestured toward the screen. “It’s open.”
As I read the article she had open on a website, I felt my insides twist. “Is this shit legal?”
“Yes, it’s used sometimes as an anesthetic.
They call it twilight sedation.” Quinn leaned forward to scroll on her phone.
“See here,” she said as she pointed. “It’s used for conscious sedation.
Many people are awake and talking when they are given it, and after the procedure, they have no idea what happened. ”
“Is it possible,” I asked her as I kept on reading, “that this is what I took?”
“Yes. It’s called Versed, and it gets given in liquid format as well as IV. In a drink, it can be slightly bitter, it says . . . so I assume you would notice . . . but in beer? I don’t know if you would. I think it can also be diluted down, from what I understand reading it all.”
“I didn’t put the beer down though,” I said as I looked up at her in concern. “I don’t remember much, but I know this.”
“You had to have. Or you drank something else?” Her brow was scrunched in thought as she read on her phone. “Are you sure you only had one beer?”
“Positive. The only other thing I drank was water.”
Quinn’s head snapped up as she tore off her sunglasses to glare at me. “You said one beer, nothing else.”
“No other alcohol. I picked up a bottle of water when I left.” Rubbing my jaw, I thought about it. “I don’t even know if I opened it.”
“You dumbass,” Quinn grumbled as she stood. “It was in the water.”
“How?” I said as I rose to my feet with her. “How would anyone know which bottle of water I was going to pick up?”
Quinn hesitated, looking thoughtful before she looked at me in horror. “Unless you weren’t the target and everyone at the party was.”
Taking a step back, I looked at her. “How long does it last? You said it can be diluted down, but how long does it stay effective?”
Quinn read down her phone, and then her fingers were flying over the screen as she looked it up.
As she relied on her medical references, I tried my hardest to remember Friday.
I had the beer, I spoke to Derrick about routes as I searched the room, but the prick I was looking for wasn’t there, so I left.
Did I pick up the water? Or was it given to me?
I couldn’t remember.
Shit.
“Depending on what else it’s mixed with, it can stay as potent in water for up to twenty-four hours.” Quinn looked at me, her brown eyes wide with concern. “Well, that’s just horrifying.”
“How long does it stay in your system?” I asked numbly.
“Four to six hours.”
That wasn’t long enough. “I don’t think it was that.
I left around one.” I wanted to punch something.
“I was tested at nine, that’s too long.” Saturday morning came rushing back to me.
I had been fuzzy, which I thought was due to alcohol, but my memory was clearing, and now .
. . now I was going to kill someone. “I drank from a bottle of water in my room when I took a painkiller before I left for fucking practice,” I groaned in realization.
“Come on, we need to tell Gray and Ash. Don’t fight me, Quinn, I need you there to answer their questions. ”
With a curse and a lackluster punch to my arm in protest, she started to follow me, grumbling the whole way about asshole Santo men.
When we got to the stadium, practice was over, and I texted Gray to tell him to meet us in a box. We needed quiet, and we needed somewhere without the team seeing us, so I opted for one of the boxes, and even though we had access to most of them, I’d gravitated toward our family one.
It was adequate in size. Eight plush comfy chairs covered in black leather.
Silver and black were very much the theme in Cardinal Saints College.
Light gray walls with black uplighters gave a more muted effect.
Overhead spotlights were an option if you wanted a brighter atmosphere.
The carpet was a dark gray, but the main area of the floor was black wood, which was easier to clean up spills, which happened often during a game.
Fans would never learn to put the drinks down before jumping to their feet to cheer, no matter how well-bred the family.
A black faux marble countertop with five bar stools in front of it separated the guests from the booze and the three fridges behind.
Quinn had already grabbed a soda as I waited by the windows for my brother and cousin.
When Gray and Ash joined us and had also taken drinks from the fridges, I quickly ran down what Quinn had learned. It was gratifying that Ash and Gray were as speechless as I had been when I read the articles.
Quinn stood slightly behind me, answering their questions with what she had gleaned from the internet and also from her professor when she had asked careful questions. His answers had made her start looking into the drug.
“How long does the memory loss last?” Gray asked.
“It can be a few days.”
“So, it will come back? He’ll remember who this was?” Ash spoke as he studied her phone. Neither of them ever made eye contact when they were in the same room now. That ship hadn’t only sailed, it had sunk.
“Possibly,” I said.
“How did it even get in the water though?” Gray asked as he looked between us. “You said it was unopened, was it sealed?”
“Gray . . . I don’t know.”
“We would have heard if the whole fucking party lost their goddamn memory over the weekend,” Ash spoke suddenly. “Those parties can be wild, but not everyone’s smoking or snorting.”
“Or drinking alcohol,” Quinn said softly in agreement. “Who else would have seen the water?” she asked me.
“I don’t know.”
“Can’t you even think about it?” Gray asked me in exasperation.
“Brother,” I warned him as my jaw clenched.
“His memory from right before it could also be affected,” Quinn said as she took her phone off Ash. “I hate to say it, but I think you need to just wait.”
“I’m not waiting,” I snapped as I turned away from them and looked down over the field. The gridiron looked welcoming, and I wanted to be down there, throwing balls, not up here, trying to recapture a lost memory.
“You think you drank the water before you left right on Saturday morning, right?” Gray started to pace. I could hear him crossing the carpeted floor. “Why do you remember practice before the game?”
“That’s a good point,” Ash said as I turned to look at them. “You were kinda hazy, lethargic even, but you were aware.”
“I was?” My head was spinning trying to make sense of it all. “Quinn?”
“I dunno.” She shrugged as she leaned against a seat, her foot tapping as she thought. “Unless . . . the familiar is so routine that you didn’t notice?”
“He didn’t notice he lost his memory?” Ash asked with more bite than he needed.
“You fell asleep,” Gray exclaimed suddenly.
“At break, you ducked Coach, and you sat in the bleachers, remember?” he asked me as he crossed to stand in front of me.
“I woke you up. It wouldn’t have been more than ten minutes.
” When I started to nod in recollection, Gray looked over at Quinn.
“That’s not normal, not on game day.” He turned back to me.
“You said it was the hangover, and I said you were lucky we were at home to a shit team.”
“I . . .” Jesus, this was hell. “I think I remember that.”
“And all you did after that was throw and catch, Coach didn’t want you too tired for the game.” Gray was practically vibrating with excitement. “It pisses me off that we didn’t notice.”
“Why would you though?” Quinn said thoughtfully. “You were hungover, you were active, talking, walking, playing. You were normal.”
“He’s never normal,” Ash quipped before he scowled when he realized that he had made a joke to Quinn.
An uneasy silence followed, but I knew better than to push it.
“I have the three Elises on it,” I said, breaking the tension. “By the end of the day, I’ll be well versed.” I sneered at the name of the drug, even with my play on words. “Again.”
Gray snorted in contempt, and Ash was suddenly looking anywhere but at Quinn, who was looking at me with her lip curled in distaste. “You went to Elise?”
“Queeny, you said you weren’t helping.”
“I know but . . . Elise?”
“The more the merrier, isn’t that right, Ash?”
Yes, I went there. Yes, I was a bastard. Yes, it made Quinn’s lips twitch into a smile.
“Still, we didn’t have to go to desperate so soon,” Quinn said regally as she collected her bag from the counter. “Okay, I’ll find out more about this, and if you find out more about who, let me know.”
“What are you going to do when we know who it is?” Ash asked. He stood, his arms extending high over his head as he stretched. “Glare at her?”
“Enough.” I stopped Quinn’s or my cousin’s reply. “I got this now, thanks for finding out what it was.”
“I’m not done with this,” Quinn warned me as she secured her bag on her shoulder. “Not by a long shot.”
“What do you mean?”
“Jett, are you serious?” Quinn looked more pissed off than normal. “I’ll deal with this bitch.”
“No.”
“Yes.” She gave an angry toss of her hair, and I was ready for a lecture, but when she met my gaze, her look was one of concern.
“She drugged you, she slept with you, because she’s twisted or to make sure you had it in your system for practice?
” I realized Quinn was as furious as I was and wanted to cause harm.
It pleased me how much I was on board with that. “This bitch is mine. I’ll kill her.”
“She’s mine,” I growled as I met Quinn’s fierce look.
“You’re going to hurt a girl?” Quinn mocked me slightly, a perfect eyebrow rising in question. “You would never hurt a woman.”
“Hurt her? No.” I looked around the room at my family. “Annihilate her? Absolutely.”