“No! Yes, I mean…shit…can I call someone?”
“You’re allowed one phone call, so choose wisely.”
I went to pick up my phone from the desk but it was quickly swiped away from me. “You’ll need to use the station’s phone.”
“Okay but I need a number out of my phone.”
“Name of contact?” he asked, hovering his finger over the touchscreen. “Ah, you’re out of luck. This phone is flat.”
“Shit,” I murmured, slamming my hand down on the desk. The officers who escorted me in stepped quickly into my side, no doubt preparing to take me down if I lost my temper. I held my hand in the air, muttering an insincere apology. “Okay, okay,” I relented, pondering. I didn’t have Mason’s number committed to memory, and it was only when I thought about that I remembered I didn’t even have the decency to call him earlier like I said I would. “Can I make an international call?”
“Go ahead.” The officer nodded and slid the desk phone over to me. Elle was my only option. She’d had the same number ever since I’d met her and I knew it was lodged in my brain somewhere. Trouble was, I just had to hope the alcohol had cleared enough to let me find it.
Taking some deep breaths, I mentally scoured my mind for her number. When I was sure I’d remembered it correctly, I repeated it a few times in my head to make doubly sure before slowly dialing it into the keypad.
“Hello? Elle Wilson,” she answered formally to the strange number calling her.
“Elle, it’s Ryder. I’m in trouble.”
Chapter Eleven
~Mason~
RYDER HAD BEEN gone for hours and I was starting to worry. I’d tried calling and texting him several times but each time I was greeted with his voicemail. Something went wrong. I knew it had. I could feel it in my gut. If the reconciliation between Ryder and his parents had gone well, he would’ve been here right now, or at least called.
When my cell started ringing from the table in the hotel room, I shot up to get it, panic surging through my veins. By this point I had visions of him lying bloody and beaten in the street, or hurting himself again, or maybe even collapsed behind a dumpster, out of his mind on crack.
“Elle?” I answered, puzzled as to why her name was flashing up on my screen.
“Mason it’s Ryder. He’s been arrested.”
“Arrested? What the hell for?”
“Possession.”
I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose. “Jesus Christ. What the hell is he playing at?”
“He says it’s not his.”
“And you believe him?” Because in that moment I didn’t know what to believe.
“I don’t know. I’ve been here before with him. He’s a good liar when he wants to be.”
“I need to get down there.”
“There’s no point, hon. They won’t let you see him. But I’ve called Sawyer and he’s employing the best lawyer he knows over there. He’s also flying out with Jake as soon as he can. I can’t come until next week, but Jake knows the law better than any of us. He’ll sort this.”
“Unless Ryder’s guilty. He can’t sort that.”
“Don’t give up on him, Mason.”
“I’m not,” I said after a heavy sigh. “I couldn’t even if I wanted to.”
“Look, hon, I have to go, but keep me updated, okay? And when you get to see him tell him I love him no matter what happens.”
“Of course I will. Goodbye, Elle.”
Ending the call, I threw myself onto the bed. Rolling on to my back, I couldn’t stop the tears that rolled down my cheeks, stinging as they left my eyes. I didn’t know what to do. I was in a foreign country with no friends or contacts and I didn’t know the law or how it worked over here. I had no way of helping him, no way of talking to him. Would he really be so stupid as to go back to the drugs? The evidence pretty much spoke for itself, I supposed. Regardless, all I could feel was concern. And fear. And gut wrenching helplessness.
I could only assume Ryder’s reunion with his parents didn’t go well, that it’d brought painful memories to the surface. Now he was all alone in a cell, not knowing whether anyone was coming to help him. Was he scared? Angry? Wanting to hurt himself? Whatever was going through his mind it killed me inside to know I couldn’t wrap my arms around him and absorb some of his pain.
“Oh, Ryder…” I muttered to myself, clutching a pillow close to my chest.
I spent the rest of the night awake. Every so often I would walk around the room, look out of the window or draw pointless doodles on the notepad on the nightstand. I needed to see him. Surely they couldn’t stop him having visitors? Didn’t that go against his human rights or some shit like that? With that thought, I decided that as soon as daylight rolled around, I would phone the police station and ask when I could see him.