by Erin Watt
“No, because you don’t want to owe a guy like that anything. It’s like handing your bank account to a drug addict and saying ‘Don’t take anything.’”
“What’s the worst that could happen? He calls us for a favor and we say no.”
That doesn’t sit right with me either.
“Please, East. I wouldn’t ask this if I wasn’t desperate, but I swear to you if I have to stay here one more night, I’m going to end up doing something drastic.”
I clench my teeth together. I don't think Seb's serious, and it's low of him to throw out that threat when our mom actually did take her own life.
I decide I need to take a break before I do something I'll regret.
"I'm going to get you some water," I say, walking toward the door.
"I have water!" he screams after me.
I take a walk down the hall, stopping when I arrive at Hartley's old room. Head injuries are terrible. Hartley lost her memory and Sebastian lost himself. I run a hand over my own skull. We're all so fragile. One bad fall and the whole world can change. Neither Hart nor Seb asked for this, and I bet if they could go back to the way they were before, they'd do so in a heartbeat. I crack my neck. All I can do is be patient. Of course, I suck at being patient, but what are my other options?
I force myself to turn and walk back to Seb's room. He needs me, even if it's just for me to be a target. He's got to vent and I can take it.
When I return, Seb is dressed and sitting in the lounge area, looking more like a guest than a patient. He's rifling through a GQ magazine.
"What's going on?"
He doesn't answer.
"Seb? Why'd you get dressed?"
He finally looks up at me, a smug expression on his face. "I'm getting out of here."
"How?"
As he continues to smile, a flicker of dread snakes through me. "You didn't."
He shrugs. "What's the big deal, anyway? He'll come pick us up and drop us off. No one will care if you don't make a big deal out of it."
"This is wrong." I tug my phone out, but realize I can't make the call. I deleted that contact a while back and I don't know the number. I clench my jaw again. "You don't call the devil for help."
"Too late."
* * *
“I’m glad you called me.” Steve O’Halloran’s heavy hand falls on my shoulder, and I do my best not to flinch. It goes to show how dumb the system is that a guy who is charged with murder and attempted murder can walk around free. And don’t tell me that his ankle bracelet or million-dollar bail requirement is any kind of deterrent. Steve’s got access to a lot of money. He hides it, like a squirrel, all over the place. I started picking up that habit myself. I even got my dad to install the safe in my walk-in closet after Steve showed me a cool one in his bedroom.
I send Seb a killing glare, which he ignores as he climbs into the backseat. He got what he wanted and isn't concerned about any fallout—a sentiment that I recognize and am beginning to realize isn't just selfish and shallow, but actually harmful. The speech I gave Ella about pursuing fun above everything else sounds so idiotic in the face of this.
"Did you forget something?" Steve asks.
"My mind," I mutter under my breath. I wrench open the back door and push Sebastian over.
"Sit in the front," he complains. "I'm sick. I need to lie down."
"Because not sitting in your seat and wearing a seatbelt last time worked so well for you," I say sarcastically.
Seb responds maturely by giving me the finger. I buckle in and ignore the fact that the passenger seat of Steve's new Tesla is pushing my knees into my chest. It's uncomfortable back here, but I'm not sitting next to the man who tried to kill Ella. I already feel about as low as an ant's foot and I'm not going to compound it by treating him like he's a friend of the family.
"How are you two boys?" Steve asks as he motors slowly toward home. The man is a speed demon. We would be home in five minutes if he drove normally. Instead, he's rivaling Ella's pace. At this rate, we'll be lucky to get to our house before the sun rises.
"Great," Seb chirps. "Can we stop somewhere?"
"No," I bark. "We're going home."
I can't effing believe that Seb wants to spend more than two minutes with the dude in the driver's seat. Steve killed a woman, and to cover it up, he tried to kill Ella. Breathing the same air as him is making me sick.
"We can stop anywhere you like," Steve says.
Seb perks up and starts to say something until I place my booted left foot on top of his right foot and press down. At this point, I don't care that he just got out of the hospital. We are going home. My eyes convey a host of very real threats, and Seb knows me well enough to realize these are not empty promises. He might be seventeen, but he's been in the hospital for two weeks and we both know I could put him back there with little effort. He shuts his mouth and leans against the window while I remove my foot and put it back on my side of the car.
"Home is fine," I answer for both of us.
The ride home is mercifully short. As soon as the vehicle stops, I'm ready to leap out. Steve bringing us home won’t be a problem if no one knows about it.
"Time to wake up, sleepyhead. You're home." I shake Seb, who fell asleep despite the quickness of the trip. "Come on, let's go," I hiss. The longer we spend in the driveway, the more likely we're going to be discovered.
"Is he all right?" Steve twists around and pats Seb on the knee. "Hey, kiddo. Are you okay?"
"He's fine," I say, but inwardly, I'm worried. Did we bring him home too soon? I shake him harder. Maybe too hard, because he moans with pain and bats me away with a flurry of fists and legs.
"Fuck off," he growls. "Are you trying to send me back into the coma?"
"Sorry.” I hurry out of the car and around to his side.
He stumbles to his feet, grabbing on to the car and then me before taking a wobbly step forward.
Steve catches Seb's right side and instructs me with a jerk of his head to take the other. So much for my plan to sneak into the house.
"I can walk." Seb tries to throw us off, but the kid's as weak as a newborn.
Steve and I virtually carry him up the wide steps to the front door. "I can take it from here," I tell Steve.
He smiles. "I wouldn't dream of abandoning you."
I grit my teeth. "Really. We're fine. Aren't we, Seb?"
Seb's head lolls on his shoulders. "Yeah, fine," he says sleepily.
Alarm rises inside me. I narrow my eyes at Steve, feeling suspicious. "Did the doc really sign off on this?"
Steve nods. "Yes. They said his vitals were fine over a forty-eight-hour period and that we should call if there are any signs of degradation of mental ability."
"What in the hell does that mean?"
"It means if I start drooling, you should wheel me back," Seb jokes.
"He sounds good to me." Steve readjusts Seb. "Why don't you get the door, Easton?"
I don't have to, because it opens for me, and Ella suddenly appears in the opening, her mouth half open and hurt swimming in her eyes.
"What is going on?" she says angrily.
Steve forges forward, dragging Seb behind him. "We're bringing Sebastian home."
"I'm sorry," I mouth to Ella, but she's fixated on Steve, watching him carefully as if he might whip out a gun at any minute and point it at her head.
And why wouldn't she be thinking that? It wasn't so long ago that Steve did have a gun in his hand pointed at her.
Shit. I need to get him out of here. ASAP.
I thread my arm under Seb's and hoist him away from Steve. We play a short game of tug-o-Seb until Steve finally gives in.
"Why don't you get Sawyer?" I suggest to Ella.
She nods and backs up, her arms folded across her stomach protectively, her eyes not wavering from Steve. The door stands open behind me, because despite the cavernous size of this house, Ella's feeling trapped and scared.
I lower my brother onto a chair in the marbl
e-floored foyer. He peers at me through heavy lids.
"You okay, bub?" I knock him gently on the shoulder.
"My head hurts." He swipes the back of his hand across his mouth. "And I feel like I gotta throw up."
"Bathroom's that way." I point to the powder room just off the entrance.
He takes a deep breath and then another, clearly trying to battle the nausea, but the sickness wins. He turns gray-green and bolts up, racing to the bathroom. The sounds of his retching fill the big hall.
"You can go now," I inform the man who helped raise me, the one who my mother had an affair with, the one who tried to kill my best friend.
"Since Callum's not home, I think it's best if I—”
"No," I interrupt. "What's best is if you leave." I walk to the door that Ella left open. "Thanks for your help, but I shouldn't have called you. "
"I'll leave because I don't want to cause you any trouble, son. Ella looked a mite upset." He raises his voice, likely in hopes that Ella will hear him. "I've been wanting to explain, but I haven't had the opportunity. I didn't try to hurt my daughter. I never would. From the moment, I learned of her existence, I only wanted to find and protect her. That night…" He pauses and shakes his head in mock sadness. "That night," he continues, "will haunt me forever. I wanted to protect Ella, but instead, I put her in danger."
"Nice performance." I clap my hands together. "I'd give it a C. You're too much of a psychopath to pull off any real emotion, but good try. Time for you to go, though. No one here is interested in any more of your bullshit."
We stare at each other. I tense up, wondering if I'm going to have to fight Steve. I'm young and have a lot of stamina, but Steve's got that old man strength, not to mention his military training. He and my dad were Navy SEALs.
Luckily, I don't have to put it to the test. He drops his gaze and strolls toward the door, stopping when he's even with me.
In a low voice, he says, "You're a chip off the old block, aren't you, son?"
With a wink, he steps out the door, leaving me chilled and unsettled. I hate that he calls me ‘son’. I hate it even more that I suspect it's because I am his son. That’s what John Wright insisted when I showed up on his doorstep, drunk. He mocked me about DNA tests, about not being a real Royal, about how I’m really a O’Halloran…
I forcibly shove the memory from my head. Fuck Hartley’s dad. And fuck Steve. Fuck ’em.
I slam the heavy door shut and turn around to see Ella at the top of the curved staircase. Even from here, I can feel her anger and distress.
"Where's Seb?" There's no background music of vomit anymore.
"Sawyer took him upstairs. Why did you bring him here?"
There's no need to ask who she's talking about. "Sebastian wanted out of the hospital and the doctor wouldn't release him to me."
"You're an adult."
"I'm not his guardian."
"Neither is Steve!" she cries.
I squeeze the back of my neck. "After Mom died, Dad gave Steve a backup control over us. A type of”—I have to think of the word—“conservatorship. Every time he's not here, Steve's authorized to make decisions on Callum's behalf. I guess Dad never rescinded it."
Ella turns as pale as a tissue. "What exactly are you saying? That any time Callum's gone, Steve can tell us what to do? He could take me from this house?"
The knot of anxiety that set up camp at the base of my neck is spreading like a disease throughout my entire body. "I don't know," I answer honestly. "Seb—" I break off. I can't put any blame on my sick brother. He needs Ella to help take care of him. "I remembered that Steve had it at one time—he signed authorizations for me to fly when Dad was gone—so I took the chance. It was stupid and I regret it."
"I'm pretty upset you brought him here." She disappears up the stairs but not before I see tears start to fall. She’s off to call Reed. I suspect I'm going to get an earful from him tonight, and I probably deserve it. I screwed up bad.
I should've told Seb no. His threat to do something drastic was probably to run down the hall naked, not kill himself. I shouldn't have panicked. There were dozens of other choices I could've made, and while none are coming to me, I know that they had to exist.
Fuck, man. Adulting is hard.
Chapter 25
Hartley
After school on Wednesday, I find Mom in the kitchen, prepping dinner.
“Dad home?” I ask. It’s not five yet, and I’m hoping that he works regular office hours. I need to get into his office. The plan that I cooked up over lunch involved me thoroughly inspecting every piece of paper in his desk in hopes I can find some incriminating information.
“No, dear. Would you please chop these?” She rolls two pieces of fruit in my direction.
“Sure.” I wash my hands, rubbing my finger along the scar there. It’s a blessing in some ways to not remember how this happened. Then I can live without the burden of those bad memories, but it’s only a blessing if I can help my sister and prevent the past from repeating itself. “So Dylan is going to a horse show? Is that a one-day thing?”
“She leaves tomorrow after school and won’t be back until Sunday.”
Finally, something goes my way. I have a four-day window to ferret out evidence against my father. I dry my hands, grab a knife and join my mother at the counter. Standing next to her, I realize I'm two inches taller than she is. I hadn't noticed it before, but in the last three years, I've grown. I scan her face. She's grown, too—not taller, but older. Her lips are thinning. There are wrinkles at the corners of her eyes. The skin at her cheeks droops slightly. She looks tired and unhappy.
I don’t have any memories where she's laughed from her belly or been completely carefree. Is this adulthood? Or are the lines, etched so deep into her forehead that even Botox can't eradicate them, the result of Dad's behavior?
One question sits at the back of my head, in the core of my heart. It shoots up my throat and slides to the end of my tongue. Do you love me?
Desperate to know, I lift my wrist. "Do you know how I broke this?"
Her gaze falls to my scar and then flicks back to my face. Confusion fills her eyes. "Of course. You fell at school."
“Dad broke it.”
Mom slams her knife on the counter. “Is that what you’re remembering? That’s not true. That’s the lie your school told you so that they could get out of paying for their wrongdoing. Well, your father fixed that one. They paid all three years of your tuition there.” She picks up the blade and returns to chopping onions. “I can’t believe that after all we’ve done for you, that lie is the one you remember.”
My mind spins in confusion. Did Easton lie to me? No. He’s just repeating what I told him. So was I wrong? Had I gotten it completely wrong? And what does she mean by ‘all we’ve done for you’? The image of my empty apartment, my missing phone, my completely sterile bedroom combines into a larger, more alarming picture. Had she tried to prevent me from remembering the past because she feared what I knew?
“Where’s my phone?” I demand. “And my purse? Where are they? Where is all the stuff you took from my apartment?”
Mom’s hand jerks, but she doesn’t look up from the cutting board. “The police must’ve lost them.”
Her flat tone gives away the lie. “Like the police lose evidence for Dad’s cases when he gets paid off?”
“Get out.” Her voice is low and full of menace. “Get out and stay out until you screw your head on straight. I won’t tolerate you bad-mouthing your father like this. If you can’t stop lying, maybe you’ll have to go back to the hospital.”
My hand curls around the knife. “You better not be hurting Dylan.”
“I told you to go.”
I take a shaky breath, lay down my knife, and walk out. I don’t go upstairs. I don’t think I can spend another minute in this house. I grab Easton’s jacket and my backpack and leave. Mom doesn’t stop me. She doesn’t ask where I’m going. She doesn’t want to know.
; I pull out my phone and pull up Parker’s address. I’m not going to bother calling her. She could hang up on me, but she won’t be able to make me leave her house until I’m done talking. There’s no bus that stops close to her house. It takes me thirty minutes to arrive.
She answers the doorbell with a frown. “What are you doing here, Hartley?”
“Dad is hurting Dylan,” I say without preamble. “You need to come and take her away.”
Parker’s expression turns angry. “Mom called and said you were spreading these lies again. You almost ruined our family last time. Maybe no one has told you, but you were sent away because you wouldn’t shut up about your stories. So for Pete’s sake, Hartley, stop lying and we can all be happy. If anyone is hurting Dylan, it’s you.”
Her accusations rock me on my heels. “You weren’t there the other night,” I reply hotly. “Dad had his hand around her face—”
“She wasn’t taking her meds. Do you know how dangerous that is? Of course you don’t, because you haven’t been around to see Dylan go through this mess. Dad’s hand was on her face? Of course, he had his hand on her face. He wanted to make sure she swallowed those pills. You don’t know anything. Mom says that all you can remember is your lies, and I see that she’s right. Go back to New York, Hartley.” Her lips curl. “You’re not wanted here.”
Then she steps back and slams the door in my face.
I stand there for a long time, staring at the brass doorknob until the swirls on the calligraphic W etched into the center blur in front of my eyes. I don’t know what to do. I could go to the police, but report what? I have no proof.
My wrist begins to ache. I rub it. I could get my medical records. Would those tell me anything? I don’t even know the name of the school I went to, though. Or where it was. New York is a big state. Who would know?
Jeanette’s unread message pops to mind. Hurriedly, I pull out my phone and bring up the messaging app.
Hey! You doing better? Mom said you were in a bad accident and lost your memory?!!! That’s so terrible. I don’t have much info for you. We lost touch when you went to boarding school in NY. When Nana died, your parents used the money from the education fund to send you there. I can’t remember the name of it, but I think it was like Northwind or Northfield Academy. It had North in it. Your old number is 555-7891. I called it but it’s disconnected and no longer in service. I wish I could remember more. I hope you feel better!
