Chapter 61
KAIDEN
“That says going to take,” Vinny breathes. “I’m going to take yours. Future tense, like he hasn’t done it yet.”
I can’t breathe. I can barely see anything; the whole room is spinning, and the sound of Becks choking on sobs is making me want to claw my skin off.
“Sage is dead,” I say mindlessly, my lips feeling numb as the words pass through. “We were at her funeral. I saw her ashes at her grandmother’s.”
Becks flips back a page and slams his hand down on the photo. “So, who is that?!”
I look at the polaroid, trying to keep the bile down that’s rising in my throat.
A baby, a baby, a baby. My baby, Sage’s baby, our baby.
“Sage is dead,” I say again, my voice nothing but a whisper, and I’m not sure if I’m saying the words to convince myself or to convince them. “Sage is dead.”
“Kai.” Vinny grabs me by the shoulders, and I finally look at him, letting some clarity back into my vision. “Snap out of it.”
My teeth shake, so I grit my jaw for a moment before I take a deep breath and blow it out. Vinny’s green eyes are serious, and I pull some strength from them. “What the fuck?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t know.”
“Should we go to the cops?” Becks asks, ripping the polaroid of the blonde out of the case and looking at it closer. “This is Sage. This is Sage alive.”
I’m starting to feel a little more present, so I look at Becks. “That could’ve been taken weeks ago.”
He flips the page in the book, points to the ultrasound photo, and looks at me. “And this? What do you have to say about this?”
“It could be fake,” I answer, and Becks narrows his eyes at me.
“You’re a miserable, hopeless, pathetic bastard, Kai,” Becks spits, waving the photo of the blonde in the air. “This is Sage, and I’m going to fucking find her.”
“How?” I yell and throw my hands up in the air. “We have no idea where she could be, if that’s even her!”
“And your plan is to just assume it isn’t her?” he shouts back, standing up.
I look at Vinny, trying to gauge who’s side he’s on right now, but he’s staring at the ultrasound photo like he’s seen a ghost. Tightening my jaw, I take a breath through my nose, then slowly blow it out, flaring my nostrils.
“Vincent, what should we do?” I ask, trying to stay calm.
“We need to figure out if Sage is alive, and if she’s fucking pregnant,” Vinny answers, then he puts his hands on his cheeks. “Oh, God. Pregnant.”
A wave of nausea passes through me, so I sit down on the couch. “Where do we start?”
“We need to look for Aaron,” Becks says definitively, and Vinny nods at his side.
“Let’s go.”