Chapter 3 #3
JD’s mouth curved faintly, but there was no humor in it. “That means their children’s phones, messages, drug use, harassment, party setup, alcohol sources, who supplied what, who filmed what, and which parents knew about the annual private-school bonfire and pretended not to.”
Regan’s eyes went sharp.
Edge looked like he approved of that part.
JD glanced at them before looking back at me.
“If this gets in front of a local jury, and I mean a real local jury, not a country-club dinner table, the story changes. Rich girls bullying a Native Arizona girl with biker ties over her dead mother until she broke? That doesn’t play as cleanly for them as they think it does. ”
My heart pounded.
“They’ll say I’m crazy.”
“Maybe.”
I flinched.
JD did not look away.
“They’ll say you had a psychological break,” he said. “That may help legally.”
“No.”
The word came out too fast.
Regan turned toward me. “Destiny?—”
“No.” Panic rose cold and vicious. “No. I can’t do that. I can’t plead crazy. I can’t sit in a room while lawyers say I’m unstable like my mother. I can’t let them say Destiny really is the stripper-name biker whore’s daughter who went crazy just like everyone knew she would.”
My breath came faster.
The IV tugged when I shifted.
“I can’t,” I said again, and this time it broke. “I’d rather face consequences than let them make Mandy’s ghost the whole story. I need a fresh start. I need to go somewhere nobody knows me. I need to not be this forever.”
Regan’s eyes filled.
Edge looked destroyed.
I turned to JD because if I looked at them too long, I would fall apart completely.
“Does this mean college is over?” I asked.
The room went very quiet.
My voice got smaller.
“Nursing school. Is that gone now?”
JD’s face changed.
For the first time since he entered, he looked less like a strategist and more like a man with a heart he’d rather keep out of business.
“I wanted to be a nurse,” I said, and tears slipped down both sides of my face now. No stopping them. No pride left. “I wanted clean halls and anatomy books and people who didn’t know Mandy. I wanted to help people. I wanted one thing that was mine.”
Regan made a soft sobbing sound.
“I really messed up tonight,” I whispered. “Mom.”
The word came out before I could catch it.
Mom.
Not Regan.
Not stepmom.
Mom.
Her face crumpled.
For one second, she looked like she might collapse right onto me.
Then she gathered herself and leaned over, pressing her forehead gently to mine.
“My sweet girl,” she whispered. “You are not over.”
I cried harder.
Edge turned away for half a second, one hand covering his mouth.
Tarak stared at the floor.
JD waited.
That was decent of him.
When I could breathe again, he spoke.
“My old man was country club,” he said.
I blinked through tears.
JD’s mouth twisted. “Hell, my family probably founded half the clubs these people use to convince themselves they’re better than everyone else.”
A weak laugh tried to escape me.
Failed.
“I know how they think,” he continued. “I know what scares them. I know what embarrasses them. I know which calls to make and which donors hate which judges and which school board members have skeletons wrapped in monogrammed linen.”
Regan sniffed. “That was poetic for you.”
“I’m emotionally evolving.”
Edge grunted.
JD looked back at me. “If I’m successful—and I said if—I may be able to keep formal charges from landing hard.
We may settle damages. Quietly. Expensively.
We may turn the civil threats back on them with enough evidence of bullying, drugging, and negligence that they decide privacy is worth more than revenge. ”
My heart thudded.
“But?”
“But you don’t get to waste the fresh start if we buy it for you.”
I stared at him.
JD’s voice grew firm. “If we make this go away enough for nursing school to stay alive, you go. You work. You get counseling because you need it, not because they get to call you crazy. You stop carrying Mandy like a sentence. And you make something out of your life that is bigger than tonight.”
My lips trembled.
“I don’t know if I deserve that.”
Edge made a harsh sound.
Regan pulled back enough to look me in the eye. “You do.”
Tarak stepped closer. “You always did.”
JD nodded. “Consequences and second chances can exist in the same room, Destiny. Don’t confuse one for the absence of the other.”
I looked down at my bandaged hand.
The one that had held fire.
“I’ll pay it back,” I whispered. “Whatever the damages are. I’ll work. I’ll?—”
Edge interrupted. “No.”
“Dad—”
“No.”
I glared at him through tears. “I’m trying to be responsible.”
“You can be responsible by healing, telling the truth to JD, and never hiding this kind of pain from us again.”
“That’s not enough.”
“It is tonight.”
Regan smoothed my hair. “Tonight, you breathe.”
I hated that breathing felt like the hardest thing they could ask.
JD looked toward the door. “We need to move on Cabo after Cal’s ranch, but we’ll think more on the exact timing. She’s not getting on any charter until Doc says she can handle it.”
Regan nodded. “Thank you, JD. Truly.”
JD’s expression softened when he looked at her.
“That’s what family does, Regan.”
Her face shifted again, grief and gratitude tangled together.
“You were there for me,” JD said. “For Skye. For my son. This is me returning the favor.”
Edge looked at JD, and some silent understanding passed between them.
JD glanced back at me. “Skye will meet you at Cal’s ranch. She’s already headed there.”
Regan frowned. “This late?”
“She’s going for a hike,” JD said dryly.
Despite everything, I almost smiled.
“A hike.”
“A very sudden, very private hike in the middle of the night to prepare a room, gather supplies, and make sure nobody at the ranch asks questions they don’t want answers to.”
“That sounds like Skye,” Regan whispered.
JD nodded. “She’ll be waiting.”
The thought of Cal’s ranch loosened something in my chest.
Wide land.
Horses I mostly avoided.
Quiet.
Jackson’s laughter sometimes echoing near the barns.
Skye’s warm eyes.
Regan beside me.
Not safe exactly.
But safer.
My eyes moved to the door.
Dylan was out there.
I knew it without asking.
I could feel it, which was ridiculous. I was not magical. I was medicated, bruised, dehydrated, and possibly one bad decision away from house arrest.
But I knew he was there.
Edge saw me look.
Of course he did.
His face did not harden the way I expected.
It just got sadder.
That was worse.
“You trust him?” he asked quietly.
I looked at my father.
I thought about rain on the clubhouse windows three years ago.
A bleeding San Diego prospect lowering his eyes because I was fifteen and he knew the line.
I thought about the desert tonight. His arms. His voice.
The secret things he didn’t tell because I had been too far gone to consent to being known that way.
“Yes,” I whispered.
Edge closed his eyes.
Regan’s hand tightened around mine.
Tarak exhaled slowly, like history had just shifted in a direction no one could stop.
Edge opened his eyes.
“Then he helps get you to the ranch.”
My heart jumped.
“I thought?—”
“I don’t like it,” he said.
That sounded more like him.
“But?”
“But tonight he brought you home.”
I swallowed hard.
Edge leaned closer, his eyes holding mine.
“And you, little fire, are going to learn the difference between being watched and being protected.”
The words hit deep.
Too deep.
Because I didn’t know if I knew the difference anymore.
Maybe none of us did.
Doc came in then with fresh bandages, a bottle of water, and an expression that said emotional revelations were inconvenient to medical care.
“Family meeting over,” he grumbled. “She needs ten minutes quiet before you drag her onto a horse like lunatics.”
“I hate horses,” I whispered.
Regan let out a watery laugh.
JD’s mouth twitched. “So I’ve heard.”
Edge squeezed my good hand once.
“You set the desert on fire,” Tarak said softly. “You can survive a horse.”
I looked at him.
For the first time all night, the ghost between us thinned.
Not gone.
Maybe never gone.
But thinner.
“I’m sorry,” I said again.
Tarak stepped closer and pressed his lips gently to my forehead, the same place Dylan had kissed my hair, but different. Older. Family. Forgiveness.
“We love you,” he said. “Even when you are a disaster.”
That made me laugh.
It hurt.
I did it anyway.
Regan kissed my cheek. Edge kissed my knuckles. JD slipped out to make calls that would probably cost more money than I could imagine. Doc started fussing with my bandage, muttering under his breath about stubborn outlaw children and stress shaving years off his life.
And outside the door, I heard Dylan’s low voice speaking to Nate.
I couldn’t make out the words.
Didn’t matter.
I closed my eyes.
For the first time since the fire, I let myself imagine something beyond punishment.
A ranch hidden under stars.
A beach I didn’t deserve.
Nursing school maybe still waiting somewhere beyond the smoke.
A fresh start.
A man with dark eyes who had found me bleeding in the desert and kept my worst secrets to himself.
Destiny.
My name floated up from somewhere deep inside me.
Still heavy.
Still dangerous.
But maybe not only a curse.
Maybe a warning.
Maybe a promise.
Maybe a thing I would have to learn how to carry without burning everything I touched.
Doc adjusted the IV, and cool saline slid into my vein.
Regan sat beside me, my hand in hers.
Edge stood at the window, watching the dark like he could threaten dawn into giving us more time.
Tarak leaned against the wall, haunted but here.
Still here.
All of them here.
For me.
I breathed in.
I breathed out.
And when the next tear slipped free, I didn’t apologize for it.
The next hour came to me in pieces.
Pain first.
Always pain.