It crashes in fast, like a wave that’s been building.
I sit up, my heartbeat sending a machine into a frenzy. I start yanking at the tubes and wires in my face, my arm, my chest. So many fucking ties binding me to life.
The squeaks come faster, and a hoard of nurses rushes in, shoving me back when I fight, pinning me to the bed, banging on the button to give me more meds, to sedate me. I don’t want to go under. There’s something important—
And then it’s gone.
When I wake again, I’m groggy, but I open my eyes this time. My brother is sitting beside me, scrolling on his phone, that damn sucker tucked into his cheek.
“Where is she?” I ask.
His head jerks up, his gaze flying to mine and then to the door, where Dad’s standing, his phone held to his ear. Baron takes his sucker out and puts a finger to his lips, turning his back to Dad so only I can see.
“Who?” he asks aloud.
So, he didn’t tell Dad.
Dad makes a ‘hold on’ gesture to us and then steps into the hall.
“What the fuck am I doing here?” I demand.
“You tell me,” Baron says. “We dropped you off at home and went out, and the next day when we woke up, we see all these texts from Dad saying you were in the ER with a concussion and a fractured skull.Again.”
A little more comes back. Calling Dynamo. Meeting Colin alone at the Slaughterpen. Throwing just enough punches to make him think I was trying. How right his fists felt connecting to my face, almost orgasmic.
“When?” I ask, pushing up.
I have to get her.
The thought is quick and clear, a blow to the solar plexus.
“A couple days ago,” Baron says, shoving the sucker back in his mouth.
“Fuck,” I say, yanking the tape off my hand and jerking the IV free. Blood spurts from my vein, and my brain doubles back.
Blood on Duke’s mouth.
Blood on Baron’s dick.
Blood on her thighs.
“What are you doing?” Baron demands. “Chill the fuck out. You’re drugged out of your mind right now. Just go back to sleep.”
“Where’s Harper?”
He glances at the door and lowers his voice. “Where we left her. She’s probably dead by now.”
I shake my head. No. She can’t be dead.
“I have to get her.”
“You wanted her dead,” Baron reminds me. “You were going to kill her. I’m the one who told you not to. Remember?”
I don’t want to remember that because then I have to remember what she did, the truth Baron showed me on her phone—hundreds of messages laid out over months, revealing the most personal, most shameful details of my life to a stranger on the internet.
No, not a stranger. An enemy.
She is an enemy.