Chapter Ten
“Chase!”
I know that voice.
“Chase!”
I try to open my eyes, but my efforts prove to be futile.
It’s not until a palm slaps across my face, reeling me back, that I feel them crack through a crusted barrier. They are dry as they work to peel themselves open, and my tongue is heavy, too thick for my mouth. I blink, trying to clear my vision, trying to find my way back.
“Fuck, I’m sorry, man. I thought you were dead.” Harlen inhales sharply, sucking his panic down. “What the fuck happened?”
His voice is stone cold.
Golden curls lay at the shutters of my eyes, then Harlen’s bright blue, yet stormy ones blink into view.
I look down, toward the ground.
There is blood everywhere.
And I wonder for a moment why there is so much, and whether it was all mine.
My white T-shirt has been stained red. Droplets and smears of crimson—that had turned black—are splattered across the cream carpet.
I squeeze my eyes closed, propel my memories forward. They come back to me almost instantly.
The drink I took from Aria.
My frenzied search for Harlen, for Jade, and for Laiken.
How everything started spinning before I could find them. How my legs and arms stopped working, my dad’s fist, no, Colton’s.
I squeeze my eyes closed harder, willing the nightmare away, begging for a replacement, yet when I pry them open the crimson stains are still there, painted across my body, a mark on my soul.
I clear my throat, a rustle in my chest. Reaching for Harlen’s gaze, and his wrist, he latches onto my elbow and helps me to my feet.
“Aria drugged me, Colton jumped me,” I tell him.
Harlen’s fingers are through his hair, his teeth clenched. “That motherfucker.”
I run my hands back through my own hair, split knuckles grazing my scalp. I don’t say anything else, because what happened to me didn’t matter, but what happened next did.
“Where’s Jade and Laiken?”
Harlen tries handing me a bottle of water.
I don’t take it.
“Last time I saw them was when they were in the kitchen—”
The contents of my stomach swirl. I cut him off, “Was that when we saw them…earlier in the night? Maybe hours ago?”
He nods, then he pales. The drugging, the beating falling into place.
“You haven’t seen them since?” I ask and the tone of my voice changes, it’s dark and deadly and sinister and—
Harlen is racing toward the door before I can finish. I follow behind him with the same urgency though unable to grasp a similar tempo. I ignore the way I stumble on my feet, the way my vision is still closing in on me with every beat.
I was fucked up, and badly beaten, but I was moving, and with each step, and every breath, I was coming back to myself, and heading toward them.
Frantically, we weave ourselves through every room and when we reach the last one, with no sign of Jade or Laiken or Colton in sight, a buzzing starts against my thigh. With trembling fingers, I slip them into the pocket of my ripped up black jeans.
Laiken’s name blinks on the screen.