Chapter 52
Adela
The road goes nowhere.
I've been walking for long enough that my feet no longer register the cold of the asphalt the way they did at the beginning, which I understand is not a good sign, and the road stretches out in front of me in both directions.
No sidewalk. No lights. Just the dark and the sound of my own breathing and the distant tree line that doesn't get any closer, no matter how long I walk toward it.
One car passed me twenty minutes ago. Maybe thirty. I don't have my phone, so I don't have a clock. The car didn't slow down for me. Didn't even drift to give me space.
I keep walking.
And my mind won't stop replaying Cody's voice. The things he said while I was blindfolded, but especially the last thing he said to me.
I was waiting for you to come out, so I could give you a ride home, Adela.
He wasn't upset that I left him tied to the bed, blindfolded.
Am I making a bigger deal about something than it really is?
I wrap my arms around myself and keep walking.
I think about how this morning started.
Theo. Barnes and Noble. The park. It was slow and quiet and so different from anything I'd had in so long. When I just lay there and let him read to me, it was perfect. Then I kissed him.
My mind skips to Beckett’s kiss.
He was waiting at my place. He looked at me like he had truly missed me. If I had Cody and Beckett side by side, I would believe Beckett actually missed me. Cody just sees ownership.
Last night, I told Cody I was working this morning. I lied straight to his face the way I've been lying to his face for weeks now, the way I've gotten good at it because the alternative was this. I knew that if he knew the truth, he wouldn’t accept it.
But his hands.
He wasn’t gentle with me tonight, and instead of being horrified like I was when I was watching the videos of him, I was turned on. I shiver when I think about how much he’s claimed me and whispered, “You’re mine.”
I am his, and I always will be in some way.
I press my palms against my arms and try to generate heat that isn't there.
No phone. No shoes. No jacket.
Maybe I should have listened to him.
Maybe I should have just come out.
Maybe the version where I walk out to the car and let him drive me home ends better than this one.
Maybe he'll come back for me.
I pause. Should I turn around and wait for him?
And then headlights appear in the distance.
I don’t take another step. This is my chance.
The lights are coming faster than the other car, faster than seems right for this road, and for a moment I think it's Cody.
He came back for me.
I stand still, waiting as the lights keep traveling towards me.
It’s not Cody’s car, but that’s okay. I need this one to stop for me.
I raise my arms and wave them. Wide, overhead, unmistakable. I put everything I have into it — I need this car to see me, I need this to work, I need this person to stop.
The car slows.
Relief moves through me so fast it makes me dizzy.
But it doesn't stop completely.
It slows, and I watch it slow down. I'm already stepping toward it when I think I see hands in the windshield from the passenger seat. It’s not a wave hello, not the wave of someone glad to see me. They’re waving me away, waving me out of the road. The driver is just a shadow.
I don't move.
The car keeps coming, slower now, rolling toward me, and I think they'll stop, they have to stop, they can see me—
The scream tearing from my throat doesn't sound human.
Pain explodes through my body, hot and blinding, throwing me onto the pavement. Gravel cuts into my palms as I claw at the ground, trying to move, trying to breathe. I have to get out of here before they come back.
A car speeds away at the end of the street, taillights shrinking into the dark.
I try to stand.
Another scream rips out of me instead.
The pain is unbearable — a violent pulse radiating from my leg. I force myself to look down, and the world tilts.
Blood pools beneath me.
And through the pain where blood pours out—
Bone.
A broken shard pushing through torn skin.
My stomach lurches.
A scream explodes again.
The world flickers white, then red, then nothing at all.
Darkness swallows me whole.
Beckett
I don't wait. I can't wait. The image of Adela on the road is already burned into me — the way her body went down, the way the car didn't stop — and every second I spend in this car is a second I'm not next to her.
"Slow the fuck down!" Theo screams at Nessa. Then his hand on the back of her neck, and his voice again, lower and harder, "Slow the fuck down and let us out."
The car is still moving when I go.
I open the door and jump.
I hit the asphalt and roll, the road tearing across my shoulder and forearm, and the pain registers somewhere distant and unimportant because the adrenaline has already made that decision for me. I'm on my feet before I've fully processed being on the ground, and then I'm running.
She's maybe a hundred yards back. Maybe less. It felt like more when I was watching it happen through the windshield.
I reach her, and my knees hit the pavement.
Her leg.
I look at it for one second, then stop because I need to be useful. Compound fracture, the bone visible through the skin, blood spreading dark and fast beneath her.
"You're okay." My voice comes out steadier than I feel. "You're okay. Adela. Can you hear me?"
She's unconscious. Her face is slack, her breathing shallow but present, and I check her airway first — clear — and then I run my hands carefully along her neck and spine before I move her head, checking for the resistance that would tell me not to move her.
Nothing obvious. The leg is the priority.
The leg is catastrophic and needs to stop bleeding now.
Theo appears behind me. Already on the phone, already talking, his voice fast and demanding.
I pull my jacket off. I don't have anything better.
I fold it and apply pressure above the fracture site — not on it, above it, as proximal as I can get — and I keep my hands steady.
I keep the pressure firm, and I talk to her even though she can't hear me because it's the only thing I have left to give her right now.
"You’re going to be okay, Adela. Stay with me. You're not alone. I've got you."
Headlights come around the corner.
The car stops.
The door flies open, and Cody is on the road, moving fast, his face doing something I've never seen on Cody's face before — uncontrolled, wide open, the expression of someone who was not prepared for what they're looking at.
"What the fuck happened!"
Neither of us answers him.
I've already gathered her up, as carefully as I can, one arm under her shoulders and one under her knees, keeping her leg as still as possible, my jacket pressed against the wound. She makes a sound when I lift her — small and involuntary — and it moves through me like hope.
"Just drive," Theo says. He has the back door open. I get in with her across my lap, her head against my chest, and I maintain the pressure on her leg with one hand and hold her steady with the other. Theo gets in beside me. Cody gets behind the wheel and turns the car around in one hard motion.
"What the fuck happened!"
"Why the fuck would you leave her out here alone?" Theo's voice is flat and very quiet.
"Who hit her—"
"Hit and run."
"And where did you two come from—"
"Nessa."
The car goes silent.
I watch it move across Cody's face in the rearview mirror.
The pieces are assembling. Nessa, the road, the hit and run, the two of us appearing out of the dark.
I watch him arrive at the answer of his own mistake, and I watch what the answer does to him.
And then I watch him close it off, close all of it off.
He turns on his hazards and drives fast.
I keep the pressure on her leg.
I keep my eyes on her face.
I keep talking to her, telling her she is going to be okay.
Just a little longer.