21. Penelope
The jail cell is small and cold and smells like disinfectant and the despair of people who have been here before and will be here again.
I didn’t sleep. The cot is a metal shelf with a mattress thin enough to feel the bolts through.
The fluorescent light never turns off. And the craving—the craving was there all night, louder than ever, the cruelty of a body in withdrawal being denied its medication while locked in a room with no exit and no distraction and nothing but the sound of my own breathing and the carousel of images that the pills used to silence.
But I didn’t break. I lay on that cot and I breathed the way Darla taught me and I stared at the friendship bracelet on my wrist—teal and yellow, faded, the one constant—and I survived the night.
One more night. One more proof that the craving is not bigger than me, even when the craving has the home-field advantage.
Morning. The officer’s footsteps. The slot opening. “Turn around. Hands through. You’ve made bail.”
The handcuffs. The hallway. The processing desk. And through the glass door: my dad. Standing. Waiting. His face, the face of a man who has not slept and has been standing in this lobby since the doors opened because Gideon MacHale does not sit when his daughter is behind a wall he can’t break.
I rush to him. Leap into his arms. “I’m so sorry, Daddy. I’m so sorry.”
“You did nothing wrong, sweetheart. Nothing. Arthur dismantled their case overnight. The security footage proves you were home. The charges will be dropped by end of day.” He holds me tighter. “Are you okay? Did anyone—”
“I’m okay. They put me in a room by myself. I just—I want to go home, Dad.”
The car. Silent. I stare out the window at the Massachusetts morning—gray, cold, the particular January light that makes everything look like it’s been washed in sadness.
Twenty-four hours ago I was eating pineapple upside-down cake on a couch with the boy I love and the world was the best it had been since October. Now I’m riding home from jail.
At home my mom is at the kitchen table. She rushes me—the full Alice hug, the one that compresses you until you can’t tell where her body ends and yours begins. “Oh, baby. Oh, my baby. I was so worried.”
“I’m okay, Mom. I promise.” I pull back. Look around the kitchen. “Where’s X?”
My dad sets his keys down. “He was at the gym late last night. Probably still sleeping.”
I nod. Sit. Drink coffee. Try to eat. But there’s something wrong.
A feeling—not the anxiety, not the craving.
Something else. A weight in my chest that has no name.
The instinct of a person who is connected to another person on a frequency that doesn’t require proximity, and the frequency is off.
Static where there should be signal. Silence where there should be heartbeat.
The front door opens. The Elite Five plus Cat pour in—Kaiden first, Cat under his arm, Iz right behind them, Danny and Ryan flanking. They surround me. The formation. Hugs.
Iz is the last to reach me. He doesn’t say anything at first—just pulls me into his arms. Hard. Long. His face in my hair. His hands gripping my back like he’s making sure I’m solid.
“Don’t ever do that to me again.” Muffled.
Into my hair. The instruction of a boy who spent the night pacing his bedroom calling his father every thirty minutes for updates on a girl he loves and couldn’t reach.
“I was losing my mind, Penny. My dad had to physically stop me from going to the station at two a.m.”
“I’m okay, Iz.”
“You’re not okay. You spent the night in a cell. Don’t perform ‘okay’ right now. Just… let me hold you for a second.”
I let him. Because Iz holding me is not a betrayal of Xander. It’s a boy who cares about a girl. And right now, the girl needs to be held.
Danny fills us in. Daisy’s testimony. Lucian as the money behind Reece—financial crimes, money laundering, the strategic marriage to Veronica. The arrest was Lucian’s play to discredit me before the real charges come.
I absorb it. Nod. Drink more coffee. But the feeling in my chest is growing. The static on the frequency getting louder.
“Where’s Xander?” I ask again. Looking at the empty chair at the table. The chair that should have his coffee cup and his phone and his sprawl of a boy who takes up more space than he’s given. “He should be up by now.”
Cat looks at me. “He’s probably still at the gym. You know X—he hits things when he’s stressed.”
I stand. Quietly. Move upstairs while the group talks. I need to check. I need to see.
His bedroom. Door open. Bed empty. Not slept-in empty—untouched empty. The covers still made the way I made them yesterday. His gym bag gone. His phone charger plugged into the wall with no phone attached.
My bedroom. Empty too.
I call him. Straight to voicemail. The particular silence of a phone that is either dead or destroyed.
The feeling in my chest detonates.
My phone rings. Unknown number. I answer because I am a girl whose boyfriend is missing and unknown numbers are the only thing connecting me to answers.
“Xander?”
Laughter. Not Xander’s laughter. The particular, slimy laughter of a person who enjoys other people’s fear the way other people enjoy music.
Reece.
“Pretty Penny. How was your little jail stay?”
My blood goes cold. Not metaphorically. I can feel the temperature change in my veins—the physiological response of a body that has just identified a predator.
“Where is Xander?”
“Right here with me. All tied up and a little banged up from last night. Somebody got to him in the parking lot of his gym. Shame, really. Nice kid.”
“Reece—”
“There’s only one way to save him, Penny. You. Here. Thirty minutes. Alone. I’ll text you the address.”
He hangs up. The text arrives. An address near the docks. I stand in Xander’s empty room. Holding the phone. The stillness of a person who has just received an impossible demand and is calculating whether to comply.
He has Xander. He has my Xander. The boy who found me on the treehouse floor. The boy who tied a bracelet on my wrist. The boy who held me while I cried and talked me through anxiety attacks and said “forever” and meant it. Reece has him.
I move. Fast. Shoes. Jacket. Down the stairs. Through the kitchen where the group is still talking—laughing about something Danny said, the particular obliviousness of people who don’t know yet.
Iz catches my arm as I pass. “Where are you going?”
The lie comes automatically. The addict’s skill—the performance of normalcy that I’ve been practicing for months. “X asked me to grab something from the store. He’s super tired. Be quiet, he’s sleeping.”
Iz studies my face. The assessment of a boy who knows what my lies look like and is deciding whether to push. He lets me go.
I’m in the garage, car door open, when the passenger door opens. Cat slides in. Buckles. “Where are we really going?”
I don’t bother lying to Cat. Cat is the one person whose bullshit detector operates at a frequency my performances can’t bypass.
“Reece has Xander. He grabbed him last night at the gym. Tied up somewhere near the docks.”
Cat’s face goes through three phases: shock, fury, ice. The ice princess emerging from behind the fear like a weapon being unsheathed. “Drive. I’m calling Kaiden.”
I back out. Hit the road. Cat dials.
“Kaid. Listen to me carefully. Reece has Xander. He grabbed him at the gym last night. We’re heading to an address near the docks.”
I can hear Kaiden’s voice change through the speaker—the shift from casual to combat. “Catherine. Do not go in there. Wait for us.”
Iz’s voice in the background, sharp: “What? Reece has X? What the—give me the phone. PENNY!”
Cat holds the phone steady. “Iz. Breathe.”
“Don’t tell me to breathe! He has X and you two are driving TOWARD him? Have you lost your—Kaiden, call the cops. Call your dad. Call every fucking adult we know. Penny, do NOT go in there!”
The chaos in the background—Danny’s voice, Ryan’s voice, the commotion of four boys who have just learned their brother is in danger and are converting fear to action.
Cat: “I’m texting you the address. Get here. Bring the police. Bring everyone.”
Kaiden: “Cat. I love you. Please be safe.”
Cat’s face—behind the ice, for one second, the girl underneath. The girl who loves Kaiden Monaghan with her whole chest and is driving toward danger anyway. “I love you too. Hurry.”
She hangs up. Looks at me. “You know this is insane, right?”
“Yes.”
“You know we survived a basement and the Penningtons and you’re literally driving us toward another man who wants to hurt us.”
“Yes.”
“Good. Just wanted to make sure we’re on the same page.
” She pulls her hair back. Ties it. The preparation of a girl who has been through this before and knows that loose hair is a liability.
“I am so fucking tired of men in this town, Penny. I am tired of being grabbed and tied and locked in rooms by men who think our bodies are their property. Of always having some fucking man playing these games and thinking they own us. Penningtons. Reece. Your boyfriend’s psycho father.
How many times do we have to survive before they stop coming for us? ”
“I don’t know.”
“Me neither. But here we are. Again. Driving toward the danger instead of away from it because the boy we love is on the other side of that door and leaving him isn’t something either of us knows how to do.”
Her voice cracks on the last sentence. Just a fraction. The fracture of a girl who is projecting strength because the alternative—admitting she’s terrified—would make the car shake too hard to drive.
I reach over. Take her hand. Squeeze. “We’ve survived worse,” I say. Not because I believe it. Because saying it makes the car steadier.
“Yeah.” She squeezes back. “Trauma-bonded for life, babe. You’re stuck with me.”