Chapter Eighteen #2
I watch another tear fall. This time she is quick to palm it away, to sit up, to straighten her spine. She whimpers, and then, she’s slamming the back of her head against the painted brick wall, screaming in agony.
I am quick to reach for her, even quicker to wrench her into me.
We went too hard.
Laiken’s torn up shins press to my chest.
She trembles violently, her teeth slamming down on themselves when I feel her chin hook over my shoulder and her tears wet my neck.
I drag my palm over the hair at the back of her head, clenching her neck.
“It’s okay, Laik. It’s okay.”
But we both knew it wasn’t, that our lives were completely fucked, I just didn’t know what else to say.
Laiken pushes out of my hold, and her verdant eyes are rimmed red. She looks at me through a pool of crimson tears, then presses her hands through the top of her hair, squeezing the tips of her damaged fingers into her scalp.
“It’s not okay, Chase. None of this is fucking okay.”
I wanted to tell her that she was right, that I didn’t know what the fuck I was saying.
But she continues, “It’s sick and disgusting and I can’t help but wonder if I just let her vomit all over herself and didn’t get him to pull over, if we didn’t choose to run; if any of this would have even happened.” Her agony colors her cheeks.
She’s hyperventilating, struggling to get her words out—struggling to make sense. Her hands are back through her hair, tearing at the strands.
I don’t speak again.
Laiken presses herself against the wall, reclining her head, trying to settle herself, all while crying, “I need her. I need her so badly!”
Her words open the wound at my chest further.
So do I, Laik. So do I.
I drop my chin.
We sit in silence when I feel a tap on my shoulder. Harlen passes me a bottle of water. My hands shake when I uncap it.
I press it to Laiken’s shin and she drops her chin, reaching for it.
“Th-th-thanks,” she whispers into the opening, pushing it to her crusty lips and taking a sip. The plastic crinkles in her trembling hand. She places it down beside her, running the back of her hand over her mouth.
“I had a bad feeling, Chase. My gut told me that I had to get us out of that car.” She whimpers, her body moving with the cry. “I just can’t help but feel that my actions were what sealed Jade’s fate.”
Brushing my thumb across the entrance of my nose, I whisper, “Don’t do that. You did what you needed to. You trusted your gut.”
She drops her head back to the wall and I grate my teeth at the crunch.
“I should have done so much more.” Her voice was quiet, barely there.
And when my throat is too dry to reply, she clears her own and I turn back toward her.
Her head remains pressed to the wall, only her eyes are open, angled down on me, never blinking.
“Jade was really sick. I tried to get him to leave, but he wouldn't. I even offered him money, but he said he wanted something. I knew that something was us. So, I decided we had no choice but to run…” She pauses and her eyes are still open, but she hasn’t blinked. “Until he shot her in the back.”
The hole in my chest tears wider.
“I went to the ground with her. She was screaming, Chase. It was fucking terrifying.”
Laiken stares at me, unblinking.
“I laid myself over her, but it was like he wanted to separate us because he shot me in the arm, then he kept popping off all around me.” She shakes harder.
“I had no choice but to scramble away, behind a tree, that's when I called you.” She lets go of the breath she was holding, then she grabs her arm, wraps her fingers around her limb, over the bandage, squeezing, biting into her bottom lip.
“I should have stayed. I left her. I should have done more.”
She slams her head back down on the wall and this time, I can’t move, I’m frozen in place.
Harlen is on his feet the moment she stops.
“God, Chase. You have to believe me when I tell you that I tried to stay with her, but I think he wanted us…separated.”
I reach toward her hand hanging limply at her side and push my fingers to hers. She freezes, drops her chin, watches them link.
“I believe you, Laik.”
Her fingers twitch around mine. She pulls in a breath, then raises her broken eyes.
“I tri–I tried so fucking hard.”
I drop my chin to my chest and whisper, “You had already done more than you should have, Laik.”
She clamps down a cry, takes her fingers from mine and digs them into the top of her head. “Why doesn’t it feel like that? Why does it feel like I could have done so much more?”
My heart slams in my chest. “Because you’re a fighter. Tough as fucking hell.”
With her fingers still screwdriving into her skull, she shakes it.
“Nah, not me.” She raises her haunted eyes and looks right into mine, and I swallow the lump in my throat when she says, “That’s your sister.”
I keep my eyes on hers, until she turns away.
Silence hums between us.
Harlen returns to the seat across the room, swiping his eyes into the crook of his elbow, an attempt to remove the evidence of his tears.
“What happened after that, Laik?” he croaks, swallowing his emotions back.
I feel my heart fall to the basement of my stomach.
It was the question I was too afraid to ask.
The answer I was too afraid to hear.
Laiken’s bottom lip begins to tremble, and she pushes her fingers to her mouth, shaking her head. “I don’t think I can—”
“Laik.” I reach for her hand. “I’m going to need you to, okay? Can you do that for me?”
“Oh god,” she cries.
And I tighten my fingers around hers, but she rips them away. She doesn’t meet my eyes again, shuffling back and turning away.
Silence fills the room again, the three of us holding onto our breaths.
“When our call cut out, I watched him break her legs, her arms, then he r-raped…” Her teeth gnash down on themselves. She closes her eyes. “I stepped out from behind the tree to try and, I don’t know, distract him, but he kept going, until he was done, and then he-he…”
Harlen’s exhale beside us is brutal, and out of the corner of my eye I see him shove his hands through the top of his curls, clenching his scalp, drilling his eyes closed, trying to keep her words out like I was.
And yet, I ask with urgency, “He what, what did he do?”
Laiken’s head swivels slowly toward me, and my heart bangs into my throat.
She exhales, then whispers so quietly I have to screw my ears to hear it, “He snapped her neck.”
I couldn’t breathe when I watched him close his eyes and a tear fell into his lap.
I couldn’t breathe when he stood and crunched his already bloodied fist into the wall.
I couldn’t breathe when he sunk his fingers into his scalp and tore at his hair as he cried for her.
I couldn’t breathe when he shoved his best friend away and stumbled to the floor.
I just couldn’t breathe.
And I wasn’t sure I ever wanted to again, because telling Chase what happened to his sister was just as painful as witnessing it and not being able to stop it.