by Rose, Callie
Despite his curious look, it doesn’t seem worth it to try to explain anything to him. He’s not really of a generation that would probably understand or be open to whatever this relationship is that’s developing between me and the kings of Linwood Academy. I barely understand it myself, and I don’t want to be constantly justifying my choice to strangers.
“I am.” I nod to the older man as the twins loosen their hold on me, both of them turning to face him with somewhat threatening scowls. “Thanks for stopping to make sure I was okay. And for waiting with me.”
“It was my pleasure. You take care now. Ahh…” He gestures vaguely to his own forehead, then to mine. “You might want to get that checked out. Just to be on the safe side. Head injuries are nothing to take lightly.”
I can feel Dax and Chase’s posture shift as they take in the cut and growing bruise on my forehead. Dax steps forward and shakes Walt’s hand, his expression much less threatening this time.
“Thank you.”
Walt murmurs something about no thanks being necessary, and then he nods and heads back to his own car, shooting one last glance over his shoulder as he goes. As he drives slowly away, the twins both turn to me and pull me close again, worry burning in their blue-green eyes.
“Shit,” Chase breathes, reaching up to brush his fingers over the swell of my bruise. “You shouldn’t have been out driving in this mess. It’s a shit show out here.”
“That’s not why I crashed.”
I shake my head, feeling like I’m a visitor in someone else’s body, in someone else’s life. All the bullshit that’s piling up around me like the snowbanks alongside the road can’t be real. It’s too fucking much.
How was it only this morning that I went to visit Mom at the prison so we could spend a little bit of Christmas together?
It seems like a fucking lifetime ago.
“What do you mean?” Dax’s brows pull together, his usually cheerful face dark with worry.
“I went to see Judge Hollowell after I left Mom.”
“Yeah?” His eyes—a little greener than his brother’s—light up with hope. “What did he have to say? Can he help you? Help her?”
“No.” My stomach drops out like I’m on a rollercoaster, and my voice is scratchy as I say, “He killed Iris.”
“What?”
I can feel the shock resonating from Chase, and I hope like fuck I kept my shit together better than he is right now when I found out. If my face looked anything like his, Judge Hollowell definitely knows I’m onto him.
“Are you sure? How do you know?” Dax shakes his head, not so much in denial as like he’s trying to clear it. To make room for this insane new piece of information.
“I’m sure.”
I tell them everything, starting with Mom’s revelation this morning about what a monumental fuck-up Scott Parsons is and ending with the moment I wrapped River’s car around a pole. When I finish, they’re both quiet for a moment. They wrapped their arms around me again as I spoke, enfolding me in the space between them, warming me with the heat of their bodies.
“Holy hell,” Chase breathes at last. “It makes sense. It all makes such perfect fucking sense now. But I can still hardly believe it. What the actual fuck?”
Before I can answer, the tow truck I called while I was waiting for the guys to arrive trundles around the corner. I found a receipt from a mechanic in the glove box, and I told him to take it there.
We don’t speak as we wait for the guy to hook the bashed-up car to his truck and haul it away, but I can tell Dax and Chase are still trying to wrap their heads around what I told them.
When all that’s left at the scene of the accident is some broken glass and pieces of a busted taillight, we all pile into Dax’s car. Chase gives me the front seat, then sits in the middle of the back so he can poke his head forward between the two seats.
“We gotta tell Linc and River about this,” he mutters, chewing on his lip.
“Not over text. Nothing in writing.” I turn to face him too quickly, and the sudden movement makes my head pound.
“Right.” He nods. “I’ll tell them to meet us at our place. After we take you to the ER.”
“What? No, I don’t need to—”
“Fuck yeah, you do. You’re bleeding from the head, Low. You were just in an accident. I don’t care if you found out the damn Easter Bunny killed Iris; you’re getting checked out before we do anything else.”
I sputter uselessly, glancing at Dax to see if he’ll back me up—but the look on his face tells me I’m shit outta luck on that count. I’ve never been to the Lauder boys’ house before, but when he puts on his turn signal and takes a left onto a recently plowed street, I’m certain he’s not taking me to their place just yet.
Deciding it’s not worth putting up a huge fight about it, I lean back against the headrest, letting my eyes drift closed.
“He set my mom up,” I mutter. “He wants her to go to jail, maybe for the rest of her life, so he can get away with murdering the teenage girl he knocked up.”
“It’s not over, Low.” Dax’s voice is low in my ear, filling my senses as I block the rest of the world out. “We won’t let him get away with it. We’ll find a way to stop him.”
“From what you said, it doesn’t seem like he figured out you made the connection between him and the man in the mask—hell, he might not even know you saw anything at all, since he didn’t hear what you said to Dunagan the night your mom got arrested,” Chase adds.
“Maybe.”
My thoughts start spiraling again, and I blink my eyes open as the world I was trying to block out comes crashing back in. I can’t keep it away for long, no matter what I do.
The three of us fall into a loaded silence that stretches out until we reach the hospital. There’s so much to say, but I get the feeling we’re each waiting until we join up with the other two boys. We all need to be together for this.
And besides, I have no fucking idea what to say. I agree with Dax’s sentiment wholeheartedly. We can’t let Judge Hollowell get away with this.
But how the hell do we stop him?
I don’t have the first damn clue.
Our stint in the ER waiting room isn’t long, and after about fifteen minutes, we’re ushered into a room. A man named Doctor Liley comes in and examines me, asking me questions about the accident as he shines a light in my eyes and tests my reflexes.
He gives the twins—who insisted on coming in and are flanking me on either side, each holding one of my hands—the same look Walt gave them, like he’s trying to figure out exactly what’s going on between all of us.
Jesus. I wonder what kind of look he’d give us if all four of the guys were here.
After running his diagnostics, cleaning the cut on my forehead, and examining my bruise, Doctor Liley steps back.
“Everything looks okay, Harlow. That bruise will take a few days to go down, and you’ve got very minor whiplash. No need for a brace, I don’t think. Just be mindful of your activity levels for the next couple weeks and don’t strain it. You can take Advil for the pain.”
Relief floods me. I can deal with some pain. I became a master at handling discomfort during my cancer treatments, which made me feel like shit most of the time.
What I can’t handle right now is slowing down. There’s too much to do, too much to fucking figure out. I can’t waste any time.
“Thanks.”
I move to slip off the table, but Dax and Chase both tighten their grips on me, refusing to let me go just yet.
“That’s it?” Chase questions. “Just Advil? Anything else we should be doing? Or not letting her do?”
Doctor Liley’s lips tilt up at the corners, as if he finds it mildly amusing that these boys think they could stop me from doing something if I set my mind to it.
Which, you know, it kind of is.
“Just make sure she doesn’t play any contact sports for a few weeks. And keep an eye out for any changes in mood, behavi
or, or sleeping patterns. As I said, everything looks good, but those would be the symptoms of a more severe brain trauma, and we’d want to address that right away.”
“You got it, doc.” Chase gives my hand a little tug, helping me off the table. He wraps his arms around me, his blue-green eyes glinting with humor that can’t quite disguise the worry lurking in their clear depths. “Hear that, Low? No more rugby for you.”
I roll my eyes and poke him in the ribs, and Dax throws an arm around my shoulder when his brother releases me. The doctor is still gazing at us curiously as the guys escort me out of the room, but I ignore the feel of his stare. I guess this is stuff I’ll have to get used to if this thing between me and the kings really does become something real.
People seem confused and curious about what our relationship is, and I don’t know quite how to handle that. What should I tell them?
What should I tell my mom?
That thought makes a sudden pain twist in my heart. There was a time when I told her everything, but that ended the night Iris died. Now, with Mom in prison, our talks aren’t the same no matter how often I manage to visit. There are still things I can’t tell her, and alongside that, there’s a growing list of things I don’t know how to tell her.
Fuck. One thing at a time, Harlow. Get her out first. Then worry about the “Mom, I have four boyfriends” convo.
Thankfully, I still have insurance from Mom’s old job at the Black family residence, and after I check out, we slide into Dax’s car to head back to the twins’ house.
“Good fucking thing too.” Chase shakes his head. “Linc and River have been blowing up my phone. They’re on their way over now.”
“Yeah.” I glance down at my cell. “Mine too.”
I’ve been responding to their messages as quickly as I can, updating them on where we are and what’s going on, but I’ve felt their anxiety building slowly with each new text.
I know the feeling. They need to see me to be sure I’m truly okay. Nothing else will quite do.
The snow has stopped falling, and while we were in the ER, the plows must’ve all come out in droves, because the roads are a lot better. The blanket of white flakes covering lawns and buildings even looks sort of pretty, although I’ve decided by this point that I definitely hate winter.
It’s almost six o’clock by now, and I glance over at Dax as a thought occurs to me. “Were your parents mad you guys ditched out on Christmas to come get me?”
He snorts, the sound almost like a laugh but not quite. “Nah. They don’t give a shit. Didn’t we tell you that?”
“Um, yeah.” I run my hand over the back of my neck, massaging out the tight knots from my accident. “I just didn’t know that extended to things like this.”
“It extends to pretty much every fucking thing,” Chase puts in, and I can hear the eye roll in his voice.
“Yeah. Dad worked half the day.” Dax pulls onto a long driveway as he speaks. “We got up this morning and gave each other the presents we bought, then opened the stuff Dad’s assistant got for us while Mom was on the phone with a client overseas.”
“The only time they really care what we do is when they have friends over. Especially friends with kids. Then they trot us out to show us off and brag about whatever stupid awards or shit we’ve won.”
I raise my eyebrows, blinking in surprise. “Holy fuck. That’s…”
“It is what it is,” Chase says with a shrug, opening his door as soon as Dax pulls into the garage. He slams it behind him and then opens mine, and I examine his face as he helps me out of the car.
Neither he nor Dax seem particularly broken up about the fact that their parents don’t really seem to care about them. Instead, they seem… nothing about it. Blank. As if they don’t have any dashed hopes because they’ve taught themselves never to hope for more.
I hate it.
It makes me want to introduce them to my mom, to watch her pester them with questions about what kind of music and movies they like and give them shit about their uncanny ability to communicate without words.
That image makes my chest ache for about a dozen different reasons, so I push it out of my mind as the guys lead me into the house.
It’s big, and somehow even more ostentatious than Linc’s house, which is pretty fucking fancy in its own right. I don’t even know if this place is worth more than the Black mansion, but it’s more about how it’s decorated, how it’s laid out, that gives the impression of extreme opulence.
The twins don’t even seem to notice, striding inside as if the place is no more extravagant than the dumpy little house I used to share with Mom. There’s a table made of dark shiny wood under a massive mirror in the foyer, with a large vase of fresh flowers sitting on it.
Dax grabs a note that’s tucked under the vase at one corner, reading it quickly before tossing it back on the table.
“Mom and Dad left for a party.” He shoots me a look. “So I don’t think you have to worry about crashing our holiday celebrations. There’s not a Christmas goose cooking in the oven or anything.”
Before I can respond to that, the door we just entered through opens again, and Lincoln and River burst into the house. Neither of them seem awed by their surroundings either. In fact, neither of them seem to notice anything but me.
Linc’s long legs eat up the floor as he strides toward me, his face set and his nostrils flared wide. I expect him to collide with me, to knock me off balance with the force of his embrace, but instead, he slows when he reaches me, cupping my face in both hands and examining me with a wild look in his bright amber eyes.
“What the fuck?” He skates his fingertips over every inch of my face, like he’s trying to read what happened to me in the contours of my features and the rising swell of my bruise. “What the fuck is going on, Harlow? You tell me you got in an accident, but nobody will fucking tell me why—”
His grip on my jaw tightens until he breaks away, stepping back and scrubbing a hand over his own jaw, as if he’s afraid he’ll hurt me if he keeps touching me.
I don’t care if he does. My head still throbs dully, and the brush of his hand over my bruised skin did hurt, but I need him to touch me more than I need to avoid that pain.
Stepping forward, I wrap my arms around him, and that seems to be the only encouragement he needs. His arms band around my waist, hugging me tightly to him. I can feel his heart pounding hard against my chest, and I’m amazed he had the restraint not to bust into the ER and demand answers right then and there.
A gentle hand strokes my hair, and when I turn toward the touch, River’s gray gaze meets mine. His eyes are beautiful and full of emotion, just like I pictured them in the car.
He palms the back of my head and kisses me, making no effort to pull me from Linc’s embrace as he does. Lincoln loosens his grip a little to let me face River more fully, and for a moment, I let myself get lost in the two of them.
It’s like a drug, being with them like this, and I know I’m self-medicating right now, trying to block out all the bad things in my life by indulging in the things that feel so damn good. But I need it. I need River’s lips on mine and Linc’s hands on my hips, skating down over the swell of my ass.
When River finally breaks away from my lips, he rests his forehead against mine, and the three of us stand huddled together like that, softly breathing the same air for a moment.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t come for you, Low,” River murmurs, and the pain and self-recrimination in his voice make me disentangle from Linc enough to reach for him.
“You did come for me.” I lean forward to press another kiss to his lips before pulling back again so he can read mine as I speak. “You’re here now.”
Dax and Chase stand close by, their expressions unusually serious, and when the two other boys step away from me slightly, the twins lead us all into a huge living room.
Chase disappears for a second and comes back with Advil and a glass of water for me. I gulp the pills down grateful
ly, and as soon as the glass leaves my lips, Lincoln’s gaze catches mine.
“Harlow. Tell us what the hell is going on.”
So I do.
All of it.
4
It gets easier to process the truth every time I tell the story, like the repetition is grinding it into my brain, forcing it past the wall of shocked disbelief.
I watch River and Lincoln’s faces follow the now-familiar path from confusion to disbelief to anger.
There’s fear in their expressions too. Not for themselves, but for me. An echo of the fear I felt when I realized I was alone in a house with a cold-blooded killer.
When I finish speaking, Linc surges off the couch and begins to pace around the room. He’s never been one to keep his emotions under wraps unless he has to, and right now, agitation is pouring off of him in waves.
River moves closer to me, his hand finding my knee and offering silent comfort as his gaze bounces from Linc to me to the twins, watching for the movement of our lips.
Lincoln stops abruptly mid-stride and turns to me, his eyes blazing like embers in a fire.
“You’re sure he doesn’t know?”
I shrug. “I’m not sure of anything right now, Linc. I told him I was just stressed because of my mom, and he seemed to buy that. But I don’t know. I’m good at spotting tells, but he’s got a crazy good poker face.”
He curses under his breath, scrubbing a hand through his dark, almost black hair. “Fuck. We can’t risk it.”
Then he turns toward River, making sure his friend is looking at him before speaking. Of course River is, because he’s amazingly good at following conversations even though he can’t hear most of what’s being said. Good enough that I didn’t figure out he was hearing impaired for several months, and most people at our school still don’t know.
“We need to get Harlow’s stuff from your place,” Linc says firmly. “Tonight.”
“What?” I blink, my gaze swiveling between the two of them. “Why? Where am I going?”
“Far away from here,” he growls.
“No.”
