Chapter 56
Raine
Two days later, I'm standing at the front desk, clutching Soren’s notebook to my chest, wearing a hospital-issued shirt and pants. So very Girl, Interrupted. I sign the final release form and haul ass down to the foyer.
“Hey!” a shrill woman’s voice cuts through the air.
Turning, I squint and see a young nurse running towards me. It’s the same nurse who sedated me on O’s orders. She’s not my favorite person in the world, that’s for sure. She’s out of breath when she catches up to me. I eye her suspiciously. “What?”
“There was another man with him sometimes.”
“Who? The man with the glass eye?”
She shakes her head and swallows, still struggling for breath. “No. Not him. The large, tattooed one. The man who was by your side every day.”
I raise my chin at her, instincts alert. There was someone else with Soren?
“He was an older guy, salt and pepper hair, lots of gold jewelry,” she rushes out. “Sort of good looking for an old guy? Had a minder or security guard with him too.”
Carson.
Memories come flooding back fast. This time, I remember being in some sort of house with medical equipment. Soren said something about Carson helping him find me … Soren must have trusted Carson enough to engage him to help. Which means …
Carson must know who we really are.
I don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing.
“I just thought you should know.” The young nurse tugs at her scrubs.
I look her up and down and turn to leave, but the nurse reaches out and stops me, her delicate fingers gripping my wrist.
“When he came back the final time, when he left that journal? He looked … broken. Like, he hadn't slept, hadn’t eaten. Hollowed out, you know? Just a shell of a human.”
Yeah, because he sold his soul to the devil for me.
My eyes drop to where her hand has wrapped around my wrist. “Remove your hand from me, before I break it.”
She snaps her wrist back, taken aback at my threat. Not one part of me feels bad either. This bitch kept me sedated for an extra two weeks when I didn’t need to be. I’ve lost so much time.
But maybe all hope is not lost.
Maybe I can still find Soren.
That is, if O hasn’t already sent him on a suicide mission.
***
I stand outside the apartment in Midtown, heart punching at my ribs like it’s trying to break out.
I feel strung out and weak. Heavy sedation will do that, I guess.
Makes you feel like you’ve been dragged up from underwater and dumped back on land.
My footsteps are heavy as I enter the foyer, making a beeline to the elevators.
The doors throw my reflection back at me, and I stop dead.
Jesus. I look like shit run over twice. I’m gaunt, my skin is a sickly pale, my eyes hollow, almost lifeless. I spin the hospital bracelet still clinging to my wrist. No wonder the taxi driver couldn’t get rid of me fast enough. I look like I’ve escaped from a psychiatric ward.
The door open with a soft ping, and I step inside.
I ride the elevator until, finally, the doors slide open on the fourteenth floor.
I punch in the code and wait. A soft click follows, and to my relief, the front door opens.
I step inside and place down the hospital bag on the kitchen island.
Nothing’s changed, except there's a a hole in the wall near the front door.
Like someone has punched clean through it.
I move through the apartment on autopilot, checking everything. I freeze, feet rooted to the floor when I stop at the entrance to Soren's room. It’s stripped bare, all his clothes gone. There’s nothing left but the faint smell of him. Rain-soaked leather and cedarwood.
My pulse erupts in my ears. He’s really gone. For a second, I just stand there and let myself feel the quiet, the emptiness of the space. He should be a free man. What the fuck was he thinking, trading his freedom for mine and vanishing like I was supposed to just … live with that?
Not a fucking chance I’m going to live with that.
I turn to leave Soren’s empty room, and my chest tightens, forcing me to grip the doorframe to stay upright. The weight of every ugly truth O told me keeps slamming into me, one ugly slap after another, driving me deeper like a nail under a hammer.
The Agency used my mother for her brilliance, and then built my whole life out of omissions and malicious deception.
Somewhere deep down, I think I’ve always known they were behind her murder.
Not the full shape of it, not how deep the rot really went, but enough to feel it festering inside me all these years, the lies feeding off my gut like a parasite.
I stand there, shaking, riding this tornado of pain, until my eyes catch the hospital-issued bag on the kitchen counter.
I move to pick it up and my fingers tremble as I open it.
From the cold, or grief, I can’t be sure.
Inside, tucked between folded clothes, lies the tiny diamond snowflake necklace my mother gave me.
I lift it out. The snowflake catches the light and splinters it across my palm.
Tears form, blurring my vision, as my fingers fumble with the clasp as I slide the necklace back on.
The metal settles against my collarbone.
I grip the pendant tightly.
“Mom,” I whisper, “I’m sorry.”
I'm not really sure what I'm apologizing for.
For everything I've done, I suppose. For not being brave enough to avenge her and for becoming the very thing she tried to protect me from.
Finding out she created PARM-17 keeps niggling at my brain, like how a mouse would nip at a piece of cheese. Why did she keep that a secret from me?
The only person that can answer that is dead.
I wipe the tears from my face, rough enough that my ribs ache with the force of movement. I dig deeper into the bag and find the other two items I was looking for. My ‘Ride or Die’ bracelets. With everything that happened, these should’ve broken weeks ago. But they didn’t.
A part of me wants to believe Cherry had a hand in that. That she’s somewhere out there, red hair wild, middle finger up to the universe, making sure I survive too. My feral little southern saint.
Another tear threatens to spill over my cheek, but I blink it away.
Falling apart is not an option.
There’s someone I need to see.