45. Cassandra Walker
Alexa Play: Miracle by Bad Omens
Theo didn’t come back.
Not for hours.
It was almost three am by the time I heard the elevator ding, and I shot up in bed at the sound.
It’s not like I’d slept at all anyway.
When she hadn’t returned by nine, I’d texted her, and she hadn’t even opened it.
I called her twice at ten, and it went right to voicemail.
At eleven, I’d dressed and left the condo, driving to the venue I knew she trained at, only to find it locked up and deserted. Her car wasn’t in the parking lot. No cars were.
I’d even swung by Fairview on my way home, but her car hadn’t been there either.
Not having any idea of where else she could be, I’d returned home, completely at my wits’ end and nearly in a full-blown panic.
‘We will find her. She cannot hide from us,’ my monster reassured me, but it wasn’t making me feel any better.
I wanted to find her now.
But outside of driving up and down the streets of Silent Hollow looking for her, I didn’t even know where to start.
So, I’d resolved to wait in case she came home, and I missed her because I was out aimlessly driving around looking for her.
Relief like I’d never known flooded through me as her silhouette appeared in the doorway to our room, but it was immediately replaced with concern as I realized she was moving in these awkward, jerky motions.
“Theo?” I asked softly. She jumped, stumbling slightly, before releasing a weird little giggle that made all the tiny hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.
“What’re you doin’ up, princess? It’s late.”
“I know it’s fucking late. It’s almost three am. What were you doing out until three am on a weeknight? Don’t you have that big fight or something tomorrow with that chick, DeLuca, or whatever her name is?”
I couldn’t see her very well in the dark. She seemed to be having a hard time seeing, too, considering she kept bumping into shit and stumbling as she made her way toward the bathroom.
“DeLuca’s a lil’ bitch. I’m naht worried ‘bout fightin’ ‘er,” she slurred, and that was when I realized she was drunk.
“Are you… Are you fucking wasted right now?” I asked in disbelief, just as she stumbled almost face-first into the bathroom door.
“Just a lil tipsy…” she mumbled as her knees hit the floor. I leaped out of bed and rushed to help her up.
She was definitely more than a little tipsy. Once I managed to get the light on in the bathroom and had a chance to look at her face, I realized she was so drunk she might literally not even remember this conversation tomorrow… or I guess later today, considering it was three fucking am.
“Why?!”
“Had s’me pops with Jerry…”
I frowned.
I didn’t know much about Theo’s world, but I felt like getting drunk with your athlete before a big fight was pretty shitty coaching behavior on Jerry’s part.
“You’re going to be a mess tomorrow. How are you going to fight properly if you’re all hungover?” I asked, doing my best to keep her from falling again as she mindlessly struggled to get to the shower.
She was fumbling with her clothes, stripping as she half walked, half crawled across the bathroom floor. The sight of her so wrecked sent another terrifying chill through my bones.
“Wait… Did you drive like this?!”
She let out a burp that sounded like it would rather be vomit, and I wrinkled my nose as the scent of liquor filled the room.
“Nah. Uber.”
No wonder I hadn’t seen her car anywhere.
It hadn’t even occurred to me to check and see if her car was in its designated spot in the underground parking garage for our building. I’d just assumed she’d driven because… Why wouldn’t she?
Unless she knew she’d be too drunk to drive home from wherever she’d gone…
She drunkenly wriggled out of her shorts, and I frowned at the handful of cotton swabs that poked out of the edge of one of her pockets.
‘Something is very wrong.’
‘No shit!’ I snapped at my monster.
“What happened, Theo? Why did you go out and get fucking blackout in the middle of the week?”
I watched in agony as she managed to get herself into the shower. She turned the water on and curled up in a pathetic ball in the corner, resting her head between her knees as the water beat down on her.
“Theo!” I screamed, and she jerked slightly in response.
“Leave me… ‘lone,” she slurred, her eyes empty and dark.
“No! This is… Where is this coming from?” I snarled. I knew I wasn’t going to get anything out of her while she was like this, but I was so upset and shaken up that I couldn’t seem to get a grip on my emotions.
“Fuck off… ‘Sandra. Leave me ‘lone,” she repeated, and I felt like she’d just slapped me across the face.
Fury ripped through me, and my last thread of self-control finally snapped.
“You want to be left alone? Fine. Sit in here by your fucking self. But we’re talking about this tomorrow when you’re sober.”
She just buried her face back in her knees and flipped me off, which made me so angry I wanted to fucking kill her.
‘No. We’re not killing this one. We’re keeping this one,’ my monster snarled at me, and I gritted my teeth in an attempt to control my fury.
‘Yeah. We’ll fucking see,’ I snapped back as I spun on my heel and marched myself back to bed.
As angry as I was, I left the door open so I could still see her.
She was so drunk, I was worried she might pass out in there and choke on her own vomit or something.
I wasn’t getting any sleep tonight, which was unfortunate, considering work was going to be hell after that nightmare news segment.
Plus, I’d been planning on going to watch Theo’s fight after, since I knew it was supposed to be a big one.
Maybe she’ll skip the fight.
There’s no way she’s going to be feeling well enough to step into the ring after getting drunk like that…
Though as the thought formed in my mind, I knew it wouldn’t be true.
Theo would fight tomorrow, no matter how sick she was feeling.
I knew this because I was starting to worry Theo wasn’t just a masochist. I suspected Theo might have a little bit of a death wish.
Her mother had warned me she had a darkness inside her, and I’d promised I would help her fight it.
The problem was, I didn’t know how to fight this particular flavor of darkness, and I was worried that if I didn’t figure it out, I might lose Theo for good.