And then, other times, like this exact moment as I hear Dean’s voice ringing in my ears, I wish more than anything that my mother had scooped me up in her arms that day, and ran as far and fast from this fucking town as she could.
Or better yet, that none of us had ever come here at all.
If only wishing did anyone any fucking good.
1
ATHENA
“Athena. It’s your mother. We have to go, now.”
The words don’t sound real. They ring in my ears, telling me a truth that I don’t want to listen to. That I don’t want to know. I feel a sinking in my stomach, like the afternoon that bus rounded the corner and I saw smoke billowing into the sky without even knowing where it was coming from, and I want to fall to the floor like I did to the street that day.
I want to cry.
I want to scream.
But I don’t.
“What’s happened to her?” My voice sounds clearer than I would have expected, stronger. Beside me, I can feel Jaxon hovering, waiting to catch me if I start to fall. But if I were going to, it would have already happened.
“Athena, we just need to go. Come on, please.” Dean’s face is pale, his eyes pleading. “Get dressed.”
Something about the tone of his voice jolts me into action, a knee-jerk response now to him giving me an order. I nod dizzily, reaching for my clothes on the floor, kicking off my jeans so that I can slip my panties back on. I see Jaxon stuffing himself back into his jeans out of the corner of my eye, and it suddenly feels like a lifetime ago that he had me pinned up against his bedroom door, fucking me frantically, instead of just a few seconds ago.
I drag my jeans back over my hips, breaking a nail on the button as I try to do it with fingers that feel thick and numb, but it doesn’t matter. All that matters is getting to my mother, before whatever terrible thing that’s in Dean’s face happens.
If it hasn’t already.
“I’ve got the car out front,” Dean says. “Come on, let’s go.”
I couldn’t have said how long the drive takes. I sit in the back sandwiched between Jaxon and Cayde as Dean drives, and once I realize the direction we’re going in, it’s as if having them there is the only thing holding me upright.
We’re going to the hospital, I know it. I can see the signs as we pass, and I feel like I might faint.
Not my mother. I can’t. I can’t lose her.
It feels like some kind of sick twist of fate that these three boys, the sons and descendants of the men responsible for every terrible thing that’s ever happened in this town, are the ones by my side as we walk into the hospital. The clean, cold scent of it makes me feel sick, but I push forward to the reception desk, giving the tired-looking woman there my name and my mother’s name.
“I think she’s here,” I say hurriedly. “I—”
The woman’s expression changes almost immediately, softening to something sympathetic and sad that makes my guts twist. I know that look; it’s the look people gave me and my mother right after we found out that my father was dead. It’s the look my mother got when she found out that she couldn’t see his body, that it was going to be a closed-casket funeral because of what they’d done to him.
That the last time she’d kissed him goodbye was going to be the last time she’d ever see his face, and she hadn’t even known it.
What if the last time I saw my mom, when I dragged information out of her that she didn’t really want to tell, is the last time I’lleversee her?
“She is here,” the woman—her nametag saysDeborah, I notice dimly—“But you can’t see her, Miss Saint. I’m sorry. She’s not in any condition to receive visitors.”
“She’s with us,” Dean says sharply, stepping up next to me. I feel Cayde do the same on my other side, Jaxon bringing up the rear. “Don’t you know who we are?”
“I do,” Deborah says crisply. “At least you, Mr. Blackmoor and Mr. St. Vincent. But that doesn’t change anything. Her mother is in the burn ward. She’s in critical condition, and she can’t have visitors.” Her voice softens as she looks back at me. “You wouldn’t recognize her right now, Miss Saint. And she wouldn’t be able to respond to you, if she even knew you were there. It’s better that you don’t see her like this.”
My knees turn to water. They’re not knees anymore, they’re liquid, gelatin, something formless and unable to support me. I feel myself start to fall at the same moment that Dean and Cayde reach out to catch me simultaneously, and I feel like I’m going to be sick.
Burn ward. Critical condition. Burn ward.
Iamsick, all over the spotless white floor that smells like lemon cleaning chemicals. I feel hands in my hair, pulling it back, the yelp of the woman behind the desk, a ringing as she presses some button probably, getting someone to come and clean up my mess. But I can’t even feel bad about it right now.