Chapter 24 – Dakota
OF ALL THE LIES YOU COULD’VE TOLD, IT JUST HAD TO BE THE TRUTH
DAKOTA
“I’m fine, Dakota, stop worrying so much. I’ll call you in the morning,” Val said. He sounded exhausted.
My footsteps echoed loudly in the stairwell, and I rubbed my eyes. “I will never not worry about you. Call me if anything happens, okay? Anything at all.”
“I will. Now go see your man.”
I laughed and tried to ignore the unease that had been gnawing at the back of my mind for days. “Yeah, love you.”
“Love you too.”
I hung up, then opened my messages to Reese again.
I was worried about Reese as much as I was worried about Val.
My brother would be okay, I knew that, but every time he got sick and had to be hospitalized, I couldn’t shake the dread that took over me.
All the what ifs and maybes played through my mind like an awful soundtrack, and all I could do was stay by his side, let the doctors help him and wait for him to get better.
This time it was pneumonia, but what would it be next time? When would the next time be? Would it be the last?
Fuck, I couldn’t think like that. Val would be okay. He was always okay.
But Reese…he hadn’t answered any of my calls or returned a single one of my texts, and that wasn’t like him.
Well, maybe it was at first. But I thought we’d been getting closer lately, and he usually responded to me almost immediately. Was he upset that I hadn’t called or texted him for a few days?
I’d had to leave in the middle of class when Val called me from the manor, and in my rush to get him to the hospital, I’d left my phone there.
I couldn’t leave Val for anything, not even my phone. I’d asked Albert if he could bring it to me when he came to visit; he’d given Everett the task, and he’d taken his sweet fucking time getting it to me.
I was terrified something had happened to Reese. I’d wanted to call him more than a few times in the days I’d been stuck by Val’s bed, but I didn’t even know his number.
I was the only one in my family who ever gave a shit when Val got sick; Evelyn was too far gone to ever know what was happening in her children’s lives, and Albert would always just say “He’ll be fine” and wave it off, as if Val hadn’t spent the better part of his childhood in a hospital.
Everett didn’t give a shit about either of us.
I thought Reese would be fine, but if he was mad because he thought I was ignoring him…I mean, I could just explain everything, and he would understand. Right?
But I couldn’t forget what Everett had told me when he’d brought me my phone, which made me wonder if there was way more going on than I was aware of.
Everett was lying. He had to be. And if he wasn’t, then the situation was different than he’d presented it because Everett was as dishonest and conniving as they came.
My entire life had been shaped around Everett’s brilliant misdirections and theatrics.
All Everett did was act. Everyone in my family, really.
Growing up and seeing how he was behind closed doors versus how he presented himself in public, I never understood how nobody saw through the snake’s skin.
Why was I the only one? Evelyn and Albert thought he was perfect; they were blinded by their own desperate need to have at least one flawless child.
So when he’d told me that Reese was having secret meetings with Albert and telling him everything about me behind my back, I really didn’t believe it at first.
Everett had a reason for telling me something like that. He wanted to drive a wedge between me and Reese, that was clear. But what wasn’t clear was whether or not the information he’d given me was true.
Had he been having meetings with Albert? Had he been keeping tabs on me and relaying what I did back to my poor excuse for a father?
Why?
That was where I needed to start. Why would he do something like that, if it was true?
He’d been transferred here after essentially being kicked out of his previous school. He’d told me that a few weeks ago. But he was being bullied and had only defended himself, and the school had sided with the bully because his parents were rich, so they’d opted to send Reese away instead.
He had no prior relationship with Albert and he was randomly assigned to my…
I paused, one hand on the railing, then squeezed it as a wave of anger rolled through me.
Was it not a coincidence? Had Albert put Reese in my room to watch me? Because of what happened last spring? Because he was worried I would do something like that again?
A bitter laugh scraped up my throat.
I could believe it. But what I couldn’t believe was Reese just going along with that for no reason.
Albert must have threatened him with something, hung something over his head—he’d used something as leverage.
Possibly his scholarship.
Fuck, I hated my family so fucking much. If that was true, Reese couldn’t be held in the wrong for anything, no matter what he’d told Albert.
I didn’t give a shit what Albert thought he knew. I hadn’t done a single thing wrong—not then and not now.
If Reese had gotten tangled up in my messed up family’s bullshit, that wasn’t his fault. Not by a long shot.
I needed to protect him from all that. I needed to find a way to help him out of it.
I wasn’t sure I’d ever wanted so desperately to expose Everett for the fraud he was before this moment. It was fine if he was just hurting me, I was used to that. Had dealt with it my entire life.
But if Reese was being hurt because of Everett, that was unacceptable.
That vicious little tiger had imprinted himself on my heart, dug his claws into my soul, and I wasn’t going to let anyone hurt him. Not my family, not me, not himself.
I’d protect him at any cost.
The hall was quiet when I got to our floor, and my pulse raced with anticipation at seeing Reese again after being gone for so many days.
I wanted to touch him. Hold him. Wanted his hands on me, to smell his soft floral scent, to kiss his pouting lips.
I just wanted to be with him.
Was he sleeping? It was midnight, so he might be. How had he slept without me? Did he have nightmares? Was he sleepwalking?
I’d been so worried that something bad would happen to him without me there to stop him from leaving, and not being able to get in touch with him had only augmented all that worry.
I opened the door and shut it quickly so the light from the hall wouldn’t wake him if he was sleeping.
I quietly took off my boots and used the dim light of my night light to find my way to my bed. I glanced at Reese’s side, but couldn’t see much except for the faint lump under his covers.
There was a huge part of me that wanted to just jump on him and wrap myself around him, to pepper his angry face with kisses and hear him grumble at me, but I didn’t want to freak him out if he was asleep.
I went over to him, just to check, to see if he was okay. I needed to see him with my own eyes. My foot bumped into something on the ground, and I heard it shoot across the floor with a scraping sound.
“Shit,” I whispered. What the hell was that? I stepped on something that made a loud crunching sound, and I could feel whatever it was breaking into little pieces under my foot.
I knew Reese wasn’t as neat as I was, but normally there weren’t things just scattered across the floor like this.
My shin bumped into Reese’s bed, and I reached down to feel for him. My hands found the sheet, the pillow, soft comforter bunched near the window…but nothing else.
No Reese.
I patted the bed as fear began to slither down my spine, slowly at first, and then more frantically when I couldn’t feel anything in the bed.
“Reese?” I called.
Was he in my bed?
I quickly went to my bed, but I already knew it would be empty. I flipped on the overhead light and my mouth fell open.
The room was a fucking mess. Shit was everywhere; books strewn across the floor, lying open or facedown, pages crumpled. Clothes spilled out of drawers and lay in lumps on the floor, on the bed, on the desks. Paper had been ripped to shreds, scattered all over the room.
“What the fuck…?”
A sinking dread poured through me, a horrible prickle of fear scraping down my spine.
Was he…had he…
My eyes flew to the bathroom door, and I ran over to it, shoving it open.
It was empty, but the bathroom was a fucking mess, too. The drawers were open and everything in them littered the floor or the counter or the tub.
Hair was everywhere.
A hair trimmer sat on the counter, still plugged into the wall, and there were strands of brown hair in the teeth.
I picked it up, staring at the hair. It was definitely Reese’s hair.
“What the fuck.”
He’d cut his hair off…?
I dropped the trimmer and shoved my hands in my hair, pulling hard as I stared at the destruction around me. Panic was roiling through my system, and I was terrified something horrible had happened to Reese. That he’d done something to himself.
Where the fuck was he? Where was he?
It was midnight, and he wasn’t here. So where was he?
I pulled my phone out of my pocket and called him. It rang and rang and rang, going to voicemail.
I left him a message.
Called him again.
And again.
But he didn’t pick up.
I texted him.
Me:
Where are you??
Call me back please
Reese, please pick up the phone
What happened to the room? Are you okay? Please pick up!
Reese—where the fuck are you?? Are you okay?? Please, even if you’re mad at me, just tell me you’re fucking okay! I’m about to call the fucking cops because it looks like a crime scene in here
That was a lie, but maybe it would spur him into responding.
Tiger Darling:
New phone who dis
…what? What the fuck?
Had someone stolen his phone? Or was he trying to be funny? Because none of this was fucking funny.
Me:
What? That’s not funny, where are you??
Tiger Darling:
Why do u care???????
Okay…so he was mad. I could work with that. But what I couldn’t work with was not knowing where he was or if he was safe.
Me: