Chapter 6 - Dani
I must be losing my mind.
That’s the only explanation that makes any sense anymore, now that nothing fits together or feels real.
It’s like I’ve been dropped into someone else’s life. Someone unlucky enough to have everything ripped out from under her in the span of a few hours, all while unconscious.
My dad is dead.
The notion hits again and again, just as hard as the first time, like my brain keeps forgetting and then remembering just to torture me.
Dead.
I press the heel of my hand against my chest like it’s the only thing holding my heart together, like I can stop it from splintering any further, but it’s useless.
As easy as it would be, I can’t just lie here, and I can’t just accept this.
Everything in me is screaming that something is wrong…more wrong than just grief and loss. This is something I don’t understand yet, and I hate that.
Not understanding leaves too much in the air, and the unknowns are almost as hard to face as the loss itself.
Pushing myself upright again, slower this time, I grit my teeth through the weakness still clinging to my body even after spending numerous hours in this room. My muscles protest, and my head spins slightly, but I force myself to sit there anyway.
I have to think, and more importantly, I need to do something.
My mind drifts to the clinic, the surgery, the doctors, then to Liam, and my stomach twists.
Nothing about this is right.
My gaze snaps toward the bedside table, then to the rest of the room, hoping I might see some of my belongings if he was decent enough to grab them. But, of course, there’s nothing. It just looks like a guest room that’s dressed up to look welcoming enough, but is rarely used.
Panic rises all over again, but I pause and focus on my breathing.
Okay, that’s fine. That’s…definitely not fine, but it’s out of my control.
Swinging my legs slowly over the side of the bed, my bare feet hit the floor, and the cold shocks through me. Glancing down, it registers that I’m wearing the clothes I had on when I arrived at the clinic, and that makes me hesitate.
I should still be wearing a gown, but I’m not.
Immediately, another wave of anger hits me at the thought of Liam or the man who was with him dressing me, but I have to ignore it for now.
More importantly, I need to get out of here, find a phone, and call the police.
The thought locks into place, seeming like the most logical move to make in all of this. If I can just get away from him, then maybe I’ll have a better chance of understanding whatever the hell happened to me.
My steps are a bit hesitant at first, but as I move and get more blood flowing in my legs again, they become easier.
I make it halfway across the room before the door opens, and he’s there without missing a beat.
Jolting back, I grab the nearby dresser and look up at him, feeling caught.
Liam’s eyes immediately flick down to my unsteady stance, then back up to my face, and his expression tightens slightly.
“What are you doing?”
“What does it look like?” I snap, though my voice wavers, instinctively wanting to back down. “I’m leaving.”
“You’re not in any condition to do that.”
“I don’t care,” I mutter, gripping the dresser harder. “I need a phone.”
His expression shifts, and a more intense look settles into his features. “No, you don’t.”
It sounds far too final, like he has no intention of getting me the real help I need, and it sets off every alarm in my body.
“What do you mean, no? I need to call the police.”
“That’s not happening.”
The way he says it, so calm and certain, makes something cold crawl up my spine. More so, the brief, barely-there concern lands before he can school his features.
“Excuse me?”
“You’re not calling anyone,” he says. “Not yet.”
My heart starts pounding harder, not liking where this is going. “Why not? If what you’re saying is true, and if my dad was killed, then the police need to know. They need to—”
“They won’t help you,” he interrupts in a surprisingly quiet tone, yet it feels like cold water soaking me anyway.
I blink back at him in disbelief. “What?”
“They won’t help you,” Liam repeats, stepping further into the room and towering over me with his broad shoulders. “Not with this.”
“That’s not how that works. That’s literally their job,” I return, trying to shake off the way all of this muddles my mind. “You don’t get to just decide that for me.”
“I’m not deciding anything. I’m telling you how it is,” he insists, as if he’s telling the truth, but it can’t possibly be right.
Anger flares hot and fast in my chest as he doesn’t make any sense. “No, you’re not. You’re controlling the situation for whatever reason. You won’t let me leave, you won’t let me call anyone, and I don’t even know who you are. Do you hear how insane that sounds?”
He doesn’t react the way I expect.
Instead of raising his voice or arguing, he just watches me as if he doesn’t want to engage in this. Somehow, that’s worse.
“I want to leave,” I say again, more forcefully this time. “Right now.”
“You can’t.”
“I don’t know you,” I fire back, feeling a confusing mess of emotions well up in me, led by frustration. “None of this was supposed to happen.”
Something moves through his eyes at that, almost like that statement is more loaded than I’m aware of. “I know.”
“Then let me go!”
“I can’t.”
My chest tightens, my breath comes faster, and my voice breaks. “Why? Why can’t you just let me walk out of here?”
“Because it’s not safe.”
“That’s not your call to make!”
“It is right now.”
I stare at him, and fear settles deep in my chest. Not only did someone apparently lure Dad and me into some fraudulent trap, but the man who supposedly pulled me out of it won’t let me go. I don’t know what he wants, or what he intends to do, and that thought is terrifying in itself.
“You’re not telling me everything,” I say slowly, watching him with wariness.
He doesn’t respond like I’m onto him, and it only deepens that dread.
“You keep giving me half-answers,” I continue, my voice shaking. “You expect me to just trust you, but you won’t even tell me who you are or what’s actually going on. How am I supposed to believe anything you say?”
Liam pauses, then takes a deep breath. “You’re not.”
That catches me off guard. “What?”
“You don’t need to believe me,” he clarifies. “Not yet, anyway.”
That makes no sense. None of this makes sense.
It feels like I’m spinning and the ground keeps shifting under my feet, making me struggle to find anything solid to hold onto.
“Then what am I supposed to do?” I whisper.
“Rest,” he says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. As if I have the liberty to ignore everything else and take a nap instead.
That’s all it takes to make me snap.
“My dad is dead!” I shout, struggling under the grief and anger as they collide with me simultaneously. “I woke up in a place I don’t recognize, with a man I don’t know telling me I can’t leave or call anyone, and your solution is for me to rest?”
My vision blurs with tears again, hot and relentless. All of it at once is giving me whiplash, and I’m choking out more words than I can stop while he looks more startled now. “I didn’t even get to say goodbye. Do you understand that? Do you understand how much that hurts?”
My voice breaks completely at the end, and the anger drains out of me all at once, leaving me raw and hollow.
Sinking back onto the edge of the bed, my body gives out under the weight of it all.
“I was supposed to be there,” I whisper with a weak shake of my head. The deep, unshakable sadness breaks through the surface all over again. “I was supposed to be with him…I was going to save him. I was going to fix it.”
But I didn’t, and now he’s gone.
A sob escapes me before I can stop it, and the reality crashes over me again, more suffocating this time.
My shoulders shake as I try and fail to hold it together.
For a moment, there’s only the sound of my own shattered breathing, then I catch the slight rustle of fabric as Liam takes a small step closer.
“I’m sorry.”
His voice is quieter now, and almost different somehow.
Looking up at him through blurred vision, my chest aches before my limbs go numb, unable to bear the weight of everything anymore.
“No, you’re not,” I say immediately, the words coming out harsher than I expect. “You don’t even know him.”
He doesn’t argue or defend himself once more. Instead, his eyes soften fractionally.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” he says instead.
Even if he means well, it sounds too practiced and detached, like something people say because they’re supposed to.
“I don’t want your condolences, and I don’t want anything from you,” I snap, wiping at my face angrily.
After a brief hesitation, he murmurs, “That’s not entirely true.”
Not knowing what he means, I can only stare at him with my brows furrowed.
Liam takes another breath and absently rubs at his jaw like it’s a habit more than anything. “I know you want answers.”
He’s not wrong, but that doesn’t make it any better. It sure as hell doesn’t give him any reason to keep me here.
Pressing my lips together, I turn my face away.
“I just want to be alone,” I mutter.
Initially, I expect him to argue and keep pressing, but he doesn’t. Instead, he responds, “Alright.”
I glance back at him, surprised, but I keep my mouth shut.
“You’ll stay here,” he adds, not unkindly but firmly as he throws another look my way. Despite meaning it, it seems more like he’d rather not continue this conversation. “For now.”
Regardless of softening his tone for me, that edge of control is still there, but I don’t have the energy to fight it right now. Not with everything else crashing down on me.
I bristle, yet don’t say a word more.
Because what else can I say?
I feel trapped and lost. Everything feels broken in a way I don’t know how to fix. For the first time ever, I feel completely alone, and I don’t know where to start.
Liam lingers for a second longer, like he wants to say something else, but he drops it. Then, he turns and walks toward the door.
“Get some rest,” he says again, almost like he might actually care.
This time, I don’t argue.
The door closes behind him, the soft click echoing louder than it should, and without ceremony, I’m alone again.
Curling in on myself slowly, I pull the blanket tighter around myself even though I’m not cold.
I don’t know what to do; I don’t know what’s real, and there’s nobody I can trust in this.
All I know is that my dad is gone, and I wasn’t there to help him through it.
A quiet, broken sound escapes me as I bury my face into the pillow while the weight of it all finally crushes whatever fragile control I had left.
I don’t know how to start putting myself back together.