Chapter 2
CHAPTER 2
REMI
“ A re you ready to go, kid?”
I grunted in acknowledgment and stuffed the last of my clothes into my backpack.
It felt strange—leaving the only place I’d ever known. A fourth-floor walk-up wasn’t much, but it had been home. Now, it was nothing more than an empty shell, stripped of the life we’d carved into its walls.
“Get moving then,” Arti grumbled, already heading for the door. “I can’t wait for ya any longer. The drive’s gonna take a few hours, if not longer. Your mother needs to get to the home so her condition stays stable.”
Like I didn’t know that.
I hated the way people spoke to me—like I was slow and needed things spelled out. Just because I wasn’t wide-eyed and wagging my tail at the world didn’t mean I was stupid. People never got that. They saw a kid who didn’t fit into their neat little boxes and decided he was broken. That was fine. Let them think what they want.
I bit the inside of my cheek, doing a final sweep of the apartment to make sure I hadn’t left anything important. It wasn’t like I could afford to replace things. I knew that better than most.
The last year had been hell—balancing school, finances, and working nights at The Hollow bussing tables just to keep food on the table. Every penny from Mom’s insurance—along with anything else I could scrape together—had been funneled into her medical bills, as if keeping her breathing mattered more than keeping the lights on.
And now, after all that, we were leaving.
Leaving Cedarbrook. Leaving behind the life I’d tried so damn hard to hold together with my own two hands.
All for a woman who didn’t even know she was alive.
I should have been relieved when she woke up from the coma. That’s what a good son would have felt. Instead, all I could think about was how unfair it was that she came back like this —half a person, her brain wrecked beyond repair. She needed oxygen just to get through the day. Couldn’t move without help. Couldn’t speak .
Existing like that wasn’t life.
It was suffering.
She should have died. I knew it, and maybe, somewhere in that broken brain of hers, she knew it too. It would have been a mercy.
Instead, she clung on, breathing, blinking, waiting . And now we were moving across state lines so she could waste away in some nursing home under the care of an aunt I’d never met. That was her future. That was mine.
Nothing here for me anymore.
Not that there ever was.
It wasn’t like I had friends. People were too much work, and I’d never had the patience for their bullshit. Because I wasn’t a brown-nosing little kiss-ass who hung on every word the jocks spewed, or played any sports, I’d been marked an outcast.
That suited me just fine because the living were exhausting.
The dead were easier.
I’d always preferred the cemetery anyway—the quiet, the stillness, the reminder that none of us got out of this alive. Life was a fleeting illusion, a single bright spark that was swallowed by the darkness of eternity when our hearts gave out. It was the only certainty in the world, and most people feared it but me…?
I was fascinated by something so permanent.
The idiots at school didn’t get that. They ran around like they were untouchable, like they’d never have to face the same decay and rot as the corpses buried six feet under.
But they would. Every single day they woke up was just one day closer to the end. And I was the only one who seemed to see it.
The door to the private ambulance slammed shut, harder than necessary, but I didn’t care if it pissed off Arti or his team. It wasn’t like Mom would notice. It wasn’t like she’d give a shit.
So why should I?
“Jesus, kid.” Arti shot me a glare from the driver’s seat. “You’re a fucking mess.”
I rolled my eyes, shoving my bag between my feet as I tried to get comfortable on the rock-hard bench seat. The only things I needed were my sketchbook, camera, and pencils. I’d have to pick up a new set of charcoals once Mom was settled, but for now, I had bigger problems—like tuning out Arti’s relentless chatter.
The engine rumbled to life, and the ambulance lurched forward, leaving Cedarbrook behind. Good riddance.
Five minutes in, and my ears were already bleeding from Arti’s voice. If I had to endure the entire drive with him running his mouth like this, I’d throw myself out of the moving vehicle. I could just visualize the way my skin would paint the blacktop as we drove down the interstate. Beautiful.
The last few years had drained me, physically and mentally. I wasn’t just tired—I was bone-deep exhausted. The kind of fatigue that sleep wouldn’t fix. The kind that lived in my muscles, weighed down my limbs, made every step feel like I was trudging through knee-deep mud and battling against a riptide.
I needed silence. Darkness. Solitude.
I shifted, curling up on the seat with my hoodie bunched beneath my head against the cool window. The steady vibration of the road hummed through me, lulling my body into something close to rest. So close but perpetually out of reach, I popped in my AirPods, turned on my favorite serial killer podcast, and finally— finally —unconsciousness claimed me.
A prickle of unease crept up my spine, yanking me from sleep. Adrenaline shot through my system as my eyes snapped open. The world outside was pitch-black. Not the hazy, congested blue of Cedarbrook, but a deep, endless void.
“Welcome back, kid.” Arti’s chuckle grated on my nerves.
I shot him a glare and sat up, stretching as my joints cracked in protest. My eyes caught the clock on the dashboard, the green segments showed six p.m. Five hours. I’d been out for nearly five hours. What the fuck? No wonder I felt like utter shit, and my head was pounding like a motherfucker.
“Five hours?” My voice was rough with sleep.
Arti shrugged. “Storm slowed us down. Visibility was shit, everyone was crawling.”
“Huh.” I scrubbed a hand down my face.
“Almost there. ‘Bout twenty minutes out.”
There wasn’t much to see in the darkness as I trained my gaze on the window. We weren’t in a city, no bright lights and streets lined with clubs and bars. Just an empty, winding road that looked straight out of a horror movie. Tall, skeletal trees lined the narrow path, their branches draped in something that could’ve been moss—or something worse. The weak arc of the ambulance’s headlights barely cut through the gloom, leaving too many shadows for my imagination to fill in the blanks.
Brielle had mentioned they lived outside the city, near Hollow Pines National Park. Her care home—aptly named Hollow Pines Care Home —backed right up against it.
We veered off the road, the ambulance’s headlights sweeping over a weathered sign. The lettering was barely legible, but according to the GPS, we were in the right place.
“You have reached your destination.” The distorted female voice announced, flat and emotionless.
I stared at the driveway ahead, which resembled a dirt track. Potholes—some deep enough to swallow a wheel—scarred the road leading up to the home. Neglected. Forgotten. If Brielle took care of her patients the way she did this place, Mom was not in safe hands.
Hollow Pines Care Home emerged through the misty drizzle. The massive, white building loomed in the darkness, its long, barred windows staring blankly ahead. The place reminded me of an old asylum, the kind of institution people whispered about but never acknowledged. We passed the front, heading for the back entrance as per Brielle’s instructions. The ornate main doors weren’t equipped for patients arriving in hospital beds like Mom, but what she called the servants’ entrance was.
Arti turned and reversed us toward the back entrance, shut the engine off, and rolled his neck before running his fingers through his hair. The double doors behind us swung open, revealing two figures silhouetted against the harsh light that spilled out from the home.
Brielle and Brock, I assumed. Having never met them, I had no clue what or who I was looking for. No childhood photos. No family visits. Nothing. With a sigh, I slung my bag over my shoulder and climbed out just as Arti did.
“Get the doors for me, kid.”
His dismissive tone grated my nerves, but I moved to unlock the ambulance doors and shoved back one heavy lever at a time. The two nurses who’d accompanied us stiffened at the gust of cold air, scurrying to tuck extra blankets around Mom’s fragile frame.
The rain slicked my hoodie, soaking through the material in seconds as I yanked out the running boards from beneath the ambulance. The metal groaned under my grip, the chill biting at my fingers as I lowered them to the ground, the gravel crunching beneath my feet as I worked.
The pitchy, feminine laugh that cut through the night had me glancing over my shoulder to see what was going on. Brielle stood too close to Arti, a manicured hand resting lightly on his arm as they lost themselves in conversation.
But it wasn’t her that held my attention. It was him, the broad, silent figure standing just off to the side—Brock. His stance was rigid, hands clenched at his sides, his stare locked onto me with the kind of hostility that burned cold against my skin.
I didn’t know the guy from Adam, but judging by the way he was looking at me, he sure as hell had already made up his mind about me. Most people would’ve been unsettled. Maybe even intimidated.
I just didn’t give a shit and let it roll off my back.
It was already clear—this wasn’t going to be anything like the picture Brielle had painted over the phone. That the family who hadn’t known I’d existed were excited to get to know me and welcome my mom back into the fold. It had sounded too good to be true when the words had left her lips, but now? Reality proved they were just a pretty picture she’d wanted to paint to get me here.
The question was why?
Growing up, Mom never talked much about her family. She never fit in, she’d said. And I was better off not knowing them. But she’d also mentioned—vaguely—that if we ever needed help, there was a seventy percent chance they’d be there for us.
“It’ss w-worth a…ssshot.”
Her words echoed in my head, slightly slurred from her first, smaller stroke. Seventy percent weren’t great odds, but it was better than nothing. And now I was all out of options, with no savings left and her insurance drained. It wasn’t like I had anyone else I could ask for help.
It had been just me and mom growing up. Dad died on active duty when I was two, but beyond that, he was a ghost. There were no photos, medals, or even letters from him for me to read to get to know him.
No proof he’d ever really existed.
Not that it mattered. Even my own mother struggled to understand me. So why would a bunch of strangers parading as my family be any different?
I was better off alone. I’d always known that.
The nurses maneuvered Mom’s bed down the ramps, their hurried footsteps echoing across the bricked driveway as they wheeled her inside. The open doors spilled warm light onto the rain-slicked ground, a stark contrast to the cold seeping into my bones. Water dripped from my hair, rolling down my face as I shoved the ramps back into place and slammed the ambulance doors shut.
My hoodie clung to me, heavy with rain, as I trudged toward the entrance. One of the double doors had already swung closed, but before I could step inside, Brielle blocked my path.
Her expression was unreadable at first, but her pale blue eyes were frigid—empty of the warmth I’d expected.
“What are you doing?” Her tone matched the ice in her gaze.
I hesitated. Why did it suddenly feel like I was trespassing?
“I just…” I cleared my dry throat. “I wanted to make sure Mom was settled in, and?—”
“Angelica is fine,” she cut in with a clipped voice. “Arti and the nurses will take care of that.”
“Okay, but can I?—”
“No.” The word was a slap.
She braced her arm against the doorway, leaning in just enough to make her point clear.
“You need to find somewhere to stay.”
Wait. I blinked at her, rainwater stinging my eyes. “But I thought?—”
She laughed. Sharp. Mocking. “There’s no room for you here.”
My stomach dropped. “But you said—” I fisted my soaked hair, frustration clawing at my skin like fire ants. “You said I could stay here with Mom.”
“That was then. This is now.”
Her gaze raked over me, slow and deliberate, disgust curling her lip.
“Angelica is here, and she’ll be looked after,” she said, like it was some great favor. Like I was the outsider. “You, however, don’t belong here.”
I could barely breathe. This couldn’t be happening. “But…where am I supposed to go?”
She shrugged. “The mountains? The city? I don’t give a shit. Just get gone. If I see your face around here again, I’ll call the cops.”
I opened my mouth to argue—to fight, to demand answers—but then, I felt it. The presence behind her. A shadow. Brock. I wasn’t short at 5’11, but he towered over me. Broad and thickly muscled. The kind of muscle that looked less like hard work and dedication and more like a side effect of a roid addiction. And his glare? It was a warning. A threat.
But it was lost on me.
I smoothed every trace of emotion from my face, watching Brock like he was nothing more than a mildly interesting experiment. His control started to crack.
The twitch of an eye. The clench of his teeth. Veins pulsing beneath stretched skin as his grip tightened on the doorframe behind Brielle.
“She told you to leave,” he said, voice low and seething like a ticking time bomb. “Or do I need to remove you from the property?”
I rolled my eyes. Tilting my head, I studied them like they were animals in a zoo. “I don’t care about staying where I’m not wanted,” I said evenly. “But I want to see my mom. The doctors said she doesn’t have long.”
For the briefest moment, something flickered in their eyes, but it was gone before I could name it. Then, the door slammed shut in my face.
I exhaled slowly, staring at the weathered wood. Well, I guess I have my answer.
A stray stone sat near my boot, and I kicked it hard, watching it ricochet off the brick driveway before vanishing into the dark. My heart thudded, an uncomfortable, restless beat against my ribs.
Turning on my heel, I headed back toward the ambulance to grab my duffel—the only real proof I existed. Because if I stood there any longer, I’d do something stupid.
Like breaking in or making a point no one gave a shit about. I was good at picking locks, but my kit was buried at the bottom of my bag, the one I didn’t have.
Arti was leaning against the front of the ambulance, cigarette dangling between his fingers. The smoke curled into the damp air, the scent sharp and familiar.
“I’m sorry, kid,” he said, voice rough.
I didn’t answer. What was there to say?
“Want one?” He held the pack out toward me, flicking the bottom so a cigarette popped forward.
I hesitated but fuck it. Taking one between my lips, I let him light it. The first inhale hit my lungs like fire, and I coughed hard, doubling over for a solid minute.
Arti chuckled. “Been a while?”
I glared at him through watering eyes, but he only smirked, taking another drag. The cherry flared bright red in the darkness. “I’d offer to take you into the city, but…” He trailed off, chewing his cheek like he wasn’t sure how to say what came next.
I spared him the effort. Shrugging my duffel over my shoulder, I unzipped it just enough to pull out my puffer jacket and tug it on over my backpack. The rain was picking up. I couldn’t afford to let my sketchbook get wet. Or my camera. They were irreplaceable. Pieces of me, scrawled in ink and graphite.
“If you head that way—” Arti gestured toward the treeline. “—it’s about a forty-minute walk into town. Once you hit the main strip, go three blocks down. You’ll find Denny’s Diner. If anyone knows where you can crash, it’s Denny and Doll.”
I nodded. “Thanks.”
It felt strange—this random act of kindness from someone who owed me nothing. But I’d take it.
“Hey, kid?”
Halfway across the driveway, I glanced over my shoulder. “Yeah?”
“What’s your number?”
Unease curled in my stomach. My shoulders tensed, hunching against the rain. “Why?”
Arti let out a flat laugh. “So I can let you know when they’re gone. You can come see your mom.”
Oh. My throat tightened. I hadn’t expected that. “I, uh…” I shifted on my feet, forcing my expression to stay neutral. “I don’t have one.”
His brow furrowed.
“Had to sell it to keep the lights on,” I admitted. “Got sick. Couldn’t work.”
Arti studied me for a long moment, then nodded like it made perfect sense. “When you get one, tell Doll to let me know.”
I gave him a two-fingered wave and kept walking.
His voice chased after me. “I’ll check in with her until then, yeah? Just… check in with Doll every day.”
I didn’t answer, slipping into the shadows beyond the treeline. The night swallowed me whole. The path ahead was well worn, but the trees loomed overhead like silent sentinels. Moonlight trickled through the canopy in broken shards, painting the forest floor in silver and shadow. I wasn’t sure how much it would help.
But I wasn’t in a position to complain. All I could do was follow my feet; what will be, will be. I slid my AirPods in, and Every Me Every You by Placebo drowned out the howling of the wind ripping through the trees.