26. One Last Try
26
One Last Try
WINTER
Most days, I don’t want to get out of bed. I wish I could sleep for a couple of years and wake up when the hard times are over. But today, for the first time in forever, I’m as excited as I am anxious to open my eyes. Just to see if he’s still here, next to me. My body tells my mind the truth before it sees it. My hand wanders to his side of the bed—the side where he’s not.
He left.
What feels like a sledgehammer swings at my heart. I honestly don’t know what the fuck I expected. He was drunk, horny, and he knew he could have me. He knew I still love him.
Goddamn it, Winter. You should’ve known.
We stayed up all night having sex, and I honestly thought he was coming home. It felt like the good old days. Before my father’s accident, before I found out he’d been lying. When I was oblivious and happy. I gave myself over to him completely. How could he?
Exhausted, I sneak out of bed, the icy temperature of my hardwood floors matching my soul. I couldn’t fake a smile in a million years.
As soon as I step into the kitchen, Waze edges his way toward me. I pet him, my mind blocking out the truth: Haze just wanted a hit it and quit it last night. I see Kendrick sitting at the table and hear the shower running. He and Allie probably came back early this morning.
“Look who it is.” His eyes are packed with judgment. “Had fun last night?”
Great.
“Let me guess, you know.” I slouch down on a chair.
“Yep. Saw Haze leaving when we got here this morning. He cheated on you—I’m surprised you would—”
“He didn’t.”
“What?” He blinks at me.
“He didn’t cheat on me. I overheard the girl I saw at his apartment talking at the party. He paid her to be there.”
He wrinkles his nose. “What the fuck?”
“That would be the right term.” I crack a bitter laugh.
“Did you confront him?”
“That I did. Then he showed up here, fed me some shitty love confession, got what he wanted, and left.”
Why am I telling him all this?
My words paint him a pretty clear picture. “He’s an asshole. I’m sorry.”
“Not your fault. It’s mine.”
“Why would it be your fault?”
“I wanted to believe him so bad that I…” Spare him the details. “I can’t ever let him play me again.” I pour myself a cup of coffee.
“You guys kept it in the bedroom, I hope,” Kendrick jokes.
“Well…” I conceal my smug expression with a sip.
His eyes flash with disgust. “Winter, I swear to God, if you tell me I’m eating on a table covered in your butts…”
I can’t restrain a laugh. “Relax, we didn’t do it on the table.” I put out his panic before it flares into a wildfire. He nods faintly, not entirely convinced, and gets up to put his dishes away.
“Can I sit on the couch?”
“It’s a couch. That’s kind of the whole purpose,” I mock.
“No, I mean, is it clean? I don’t want to sit somewhere you and Haze fucked last night.”
My lips flatten.
“Oh my God! Seriously?” he snarls. “Where can I sit, then? The carpet?”
A small grin remolds my lips.
“Are you serious? The floor, too? What’s wrong with you people? Are there any places you haven’t had sex?”
I actually have to stop and think about it. We did it a lot last night—like , a lot .
“The balcony?” I try a joke, but Kendrick is not amused.
“Screw it. I’m going to my room. I can assume you guys never had sex in my bed?”
I pretend to hesitate, triggering his anger. He starts to fume, making me laugh out loud.
He’s scandalized. “You freaks! I slept in that.”
“I’m kidding.” I throw my hands up. “We never had sex in your bed.”
Kendrick exhales in relief and carries on down the hall.
“If it makes you feel any better, we tried to clean after,” I call. “Kind of.”
“Clean? Clean ?” He scoffs. “Gimme gallons of holy water, then maybe I’ll sit on that couch again.”
I watch him slam his bedroom door with a laugh. My eyes dart to the time on the stove. Crap, I’m late. I’ll have to skip the shower this morning. My dad may be getting released today.
I doubt he’ll want to move back in with Lauren. There’s so much we’ve yet to figure out. He wants a divorce from Cruella, but he needs constant help and supervision until he heals completely. The doctor said he’ll be in a wheelchair until his leg heals. Not to mention it should take him four months to recover from it all. He can’t just slide back into his routine overnight. He called his insurance company and found out he doesn’t have access toat-home care, which is another problem we’ll have to tackle as soon as possible. There’s no way to fix this mess, no glue strong enough to piece our broken family back together. Someone’s going to have to take care of Mai and Jay. It goes without saying that someone will most likely be me. Now that I’m a school dropout, I’ll have more time on my hands, but I also need to get a better job.
Since the house is under my father’s name—pretty much everything is—I doubt Lauren will be allowed to stay there much longer. If it was up to my dad, I would’ve never moved out in the first place, so, safe to say that I’ll still move back in after he’s kicked Lauren out?
Drained, I sit on my bed and reach for my phone. I can’t stop thinking about Haze and how insane last night was. I hate that it was good—okay, I hate that it was the best .
Waze comes strolling in through my partially opened door and hops up next to me. His waving tail whooshes a piece of paper off the nightstand. God, I can’t believe Haze told me he loved me. I can’t believe he lied about something so important.
I frown at the crumpled note I didn’t notice before and bend over the side of my bed to scoop it up.
Haze’s handwriting.
Three words. Nothing else.
I meant it.
HAZE
I’ve never been a good liar. Even in my player days, I’d tell my booty calls what I wanted up front to avoid getting their hopes up. Yes, I was—am—an asshole, but I wasn’t a liar. Now lying is all I fucking do.
Lie to the girl I love.
Lie to my only friend.
Lie to myself .
I didn’t even last two fucking weeks without her. Thirteen days. That’s how long it took for me to flinch and come crawling back to her. No matter how important it was for me to stay away from her, I couldn’t. Last night was a mistake, but if this is what a mistake feels like… I’ll make this exact mistake for the rest of my miserable life.
I can handle her hating me, but Caleb’s dirty-ass hands on her? That. That I couldn’t handle. Almost kicked his skull in right there. It hasn’t even been weeks yet and he’s already making his move on her. When I had to watch him take her upstairs, I honestly thought I was going to crack and kick every door down until I found them. She promised that nothing happened between them, and I wanted to believe her.
I wanted to believe her when she kissed me back.
I wanted to believe her when she bounced on my lap.
And I especially wanted to believe her when she came undone while calling my name. Repeatedly.
Fuck, I missed her.
I felt like actual shit when I sneaked out of bed in the morning, but waking up next to her was my breaking point. The moment I knew I couldn’t keep my end of the deal. They said they’re willing to negotiate if I do this one thing for them. This one thing that’s way more than meeting shady people to sell them drugs in dark places the way I did most nights for the past few weeks. This something could get me killed or put in jail.
It’s a job no one else wants. But no one else has something to fight for like I do.
Lose the girl , the douchebag repeated on the other end.
Memories flood my brain, and just like that, I’m back to begging a complete stranger not to ruin my life in an empty parking lot.
THIRTEEN DAYS EARLIER
Pain is a part of life, my mother once said to me after my sister died. It hadn’t even been weeks at this point. It’d been days at most. Still, she continued to act as though Desiree’s murder was just an unfortunate event, a sad story, a bad statistic.
I didn’t want to care anymore. Because all it ever did was ruin me. It destroyed me when life destroyedher. Emotions are how you know you’re alive , she repeated. You have to let them all in to be able to get better. Yeah, well, what’s the point of feeling if everything you love leaves you?
I closed myself off to any type of emotions until the day a five-foot-five brunette called me out on my shit in the school hallway. She made me believe that my mother might beright. That emotions did have a point after all.
But now… Now that I’m standing in front of Vic’s washed-out building with a crumpled note in my hand, I sure as hell wish I didn’t feel anything anymore.
She’s next.
I keep rereading the poorly written words in the hope they’ll disappear. I can’t stop myself from frantically looking around as if I expect the person behind the note to have been dumb enough to stick around.
No one.
Not a single soul.
I can’t believe I didn’t figure this out sooner. Everything about the accident was so fucking weird.It was them. All along. It wasn’t some random hit-and-run. They wanted revenge on me.
So, they took it out on the only person I love in this world.
How did they even find out that she knew? Is it because I moved out? I wasn’t even the one to tell her—Caleb was—and she doesn’t have a clue that I’ve been working with the organization for tips. They probably think she knows about them. Every bit of information spread into the world brings them a step closer to being exposed, and something tells me this twisted revenge game is something these fuckers quite enjoy.
Ricky warned me, but I didn’t listen. I didn’t think they were serious and now… Now, Harry is dying because of me.
Winter’s only parent is dying because of me .
I take a deep breath and dial the last number they gave me frantically. It’s a new one every week. It rings once. Twice. I hold my breath. Someone finally picks up. Not a word. Just silence. Pure and torturous silence.
“Ricky?” I say, getting inside my car and shutting the door when a family of five walks by.
“Ricky’s dead.”
I stop breathing.
“Why?” is all I can say.
I know I should ask what happened, but that’s not what matters most right now . Why did they kill him?
“You know why.” The voice is chilling.
“He didn’t do shit.”
“He helped you.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“We warned his ass. Multiple times. But he wouldn’t listen. Felt he owed you in some fucked-up way. Tanner might be a partner of ours, but nothing was said about his annoying little brother who risks exposing us for some piece of ass.” He pauses, scoffing. “Man, I sure hope the pussy is good to be worth all this trouble. You know what, don’t answer that. I guess I’ll see for myself when we get her. She looks pretty tight.”
Horrifying images flash in front of my eyes. Winter, touched by unknown hands. Her screams. Her tears. I will tear that guy to pieces limb from limb if I have to.
“I swear to God, if you touch one hair on her head, I’ll—”
“Defensive, are we?” he laughs. “What did you expect, kid? She knows about us. You think we wouldn’t cover our tracks because what… you love her?”
“She doesn’t know about you. All she knows is I’m looking for my sister’s killer.”
“And you expect us to believe that? Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t send my guys after her right now.”
Fuck, I don’t have a choice.
“I’ll work for you.”
He doesn’t reply right away.
“Go on.”
“You lost Ricky, didn’t you? I can be his replacement. I’ve been in and out of the street fighting business for years. You could use a guy like me. I do this for you, and you leave her, her friends, her family alone. No threats. No attacks. Nothing. She’s free to carry out the rest of her life unscathed.”
He doesn't speak for several minutes.
“Fine.”
Thank God.
“But you can’t say no,” he spits. “We call you for a job and you’re here within the next hour or I’m sending my guys over to get a good fuck from your pretty little girlfriend, you hear me?”
“Yes,” I say through gritted teeth.
“You start tomorrow.”
I don’t reply, looking around the now deserted parking lot.
“Oh… and lose the girl. You get her to stay the fuck away from you from now on.”
Panic stirs up in my chest.
“Not happening.”
He laughs.
“Refuse and she’ll have to watch every person she loves mysteriously die one by one. You’ve seen what we can do. She’ll think she’s responsible, even believe that she’s cursed. Until one day, my guys pay her a visit and show her just how right she is.”
I clench my teeth to the point of pain.
“Please… don’t make me do this.” I can’t believe he’s got me to beg.
“You’ve got twenty-four hours. Tick tock.”
He hangs up.
NOW
I’ve been staring at my phone for the past thirty minutes, debating on whether or not I should call her. Just explain everything from beginning to end. Tell her that I love her and after tonight, everything will be fine. I’ll come home. I can’t keep this up. I did what they said like a brainless puppet because the mere thought of seeing her get hurt drove me completely mad.
To think she believed that I could even consider, for half a second, fucking someone else. I don’t think I could get a hard-on even if I tried. In her defense, I got everyone fooled. Even Vic. He tried and tried to convince me not to bring the girl back home when we went out that night. He said I had something good. Something that deserved a fighting chance, unlike him. I told him nothing happened yesterday. I’m not sure how Winter even found out I’d faked it in the first place.
When they started sending me pictures of her a bit before the cheating setup, I realized how serious they were. She went out for coffee, then grocery shopping, and they snapped a pic to let me know they were watching, that they were close. I hope they didn’t see me go back to the apartment last night. No death threats so far.
They’ve been dangling the idea of this job like a piece of meat for a while now. If I do this thing for them and survive, I could be out of this nightmare. For good. Free to be with her, or so they said, but then again, can I trust them?
I fucking hate myself. Because even after all of this, I still want to find Marcus. It put me into this mess in the first place, it risks destroying the only good thing in my life, but I want to keep looking. I need to find him. For Des.
I dial their number for what I hope to be the last time. He picks up but doesn’t speak. He never does.
“I’ll do it.”
Silence.
“Excellent.”
“I do this and I’m free? We’re free?”
“Yes.”
“How do I know you’ll keep your word?”
He scoffs. “You don’t. That’s what makes it so fun.”
I want to bust my fist through the car window but talk myself out of it. I’ll need both hands when I pull her into my arms tonight.
“What do I have to do?”
“Go to the usual spot at nine. I’ll have someone meet you for instructions. Don’t be late.”
I hang up.
In a few hours, I’ll be free.
In a few hours, I’ll go home to her.
I just have to survive the night.