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“But why?” Is that Serena or Annie?

“Like I know!” King says.

Someone curses under their breath. “He’s stable.”

Tank? I think it’s Tank.

“But when he’s fully awake, we need to find out why he needs medicine like this every day. The injection alone looks pretty heavy.”

I laugh. “’Cause I’m dyingggggggg. I’m leaving on a jet plane!”

“Is he high?” Junior asks.

“No opiates in his system,” Tank confirms after something pricks my arm, or does it? How long as it even been? “I think he’s just being Maksim.

I offer a thumbs up.

“He’s not really dying, though, right?” Jenna asks.

“I’m gonna live forever!” I shout.

“Son of a bitch I’m going to kill him for scaring us,” Ash says. “You guys go. I’ll stay.”

“Nah.” Rustling sounds, then the scrape of a chair getting pulled across the wood floor fills the air. “I’ll stay. You guys had plans. Go.” Silence and then. “Jenna, you too; he doesn’t need you right now.”

“Are you sure?” Her voice sounds more innocent.

I store that away for another time and close my eyes.

“I got this,” King says again. “Plus, he’s probably going to be out for a while.”

“Okay,” Jenna says.

Shuffling occurs.

I go in and out for a while—who knows how long?

When I finally open my eyes, they feel dry. I hate it. I struggle to sit up then have strong hands help me to a sitting position. When I can finally see it’s King staring me down by himself.

And I know I have no choice.

If there was anyone to tell, it would be him.

But I need to settle for zero details.

It would be best if he thought I was crazy.

So, I go with the story Nikolai told me.

That my brain is breaking down on a cellular level.

I open my mouth and whisper, “I’m going crazy.”

“What?” he leans in. “What do you mean you’re going crazy?”

“The drugs help, but soon… very soon.” I shrug. “They’ll stop working, and I won’t be me anymore.”

“How?” he asks. “Why?”

I turn and look out the window. “You see… it all started with a girl…” And against Nikolai’s wishes, I start to tell King everything.

With tears of shame streaming down my cheeks.

Chapter Fourteen

“It is one thing to mortify curiosity, another to conquer it.” —Robert Louis Stevenson

Izzy

It had been two days since the craziness that was Maksim’s house. My parents were finally back home, cleanup from the fire had been accomplished in record time, and a remodel was on the way. Things felt back to normal except for the fact that King kept acting weird during the two classes we had together, and, shock of the century, somehow I missed that Maksim broke up with Jenna—again.

Make up your damn mind!

I wanted to punch him. Instead, I attempted to check out the rest of the guys at Eagle Elite, even the ones that were older. None of them compared to Maksim, though. It’s like he ruined me, or poisoned me, or I wasn’t even sure what was wrong with me, but it made me feel homicidal.

Maksim was the reason I couldn’t even look at another guy.

And it had nothing to do with any sort of… equipment.

Honestly, it was the bugs.

I saw a stupid grasshopper and started crying a day after our whole argument in the bathroom. He’d turned from my best friend, my everything—into someone I no longer recognized, as if he’d died.

And that’s when I realized that I was grieving him even though he was alive. I was grieving every single breath he no longer took that was directed at me, grieving all those smiles I no longer saw, grieving as if he was going to die soon, and I couldn’t do anything about it.

He was lost to me.

I just wasn’t sure how I was going to be able to process it without shedding a lot of tears, being honest with myself about how important I was to him compared to how important he was to me, and a shit ton of ice cream.

It had been two days of hell at Eagle Elite, trying to do the right thing and get my stupid degree so I could help the Family make more money they didn’t need, and I was over it, so over it.

The last year hadn’t been as intense as the one previous, meaning other than the fire, we weren’t getting bombed on a weekly basis—long story.

My parents had come home freaked out that I’d nearly been the single partier at my own barbecue, and Mom actually smacked Dad in the face for cutting down the tree, which of course brought up the whole topic of Maksim sneaking in, which made my chest hurt and my eyes well up with tears.

Dad wasn’t happy that I started crying over a tree, but by the time he finally got the words out of me, all I had was, “Done.”

Because that’s what I had to be. Done.


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