She Runs Away (The Sheridan Hall Series Book 2)

by Jessica Calla

  Chase and Juliet try too. “Where was he? Where was he going?”

  “He was at my dad’s. My dad would have sent a car, but maybe he drove the Buick? Do you think he was dumb enough to drive through this?”

  I ignore all the terrible possible scenarios scrolling through my mind and call my dad. He picks up on the first ring. “Amelia, please honey, let me explain—”

  “Not now, Dad. Where’s Ben? Is he there?”

  “No, he took the car back to the dorm.”

  “What car?”

  “He met my car at the Fieldhouse. He needed a ride back.”

  “You let him go? In this weather? Why didn’t you keep him there?”

  Chase and Juliet look to me for answers. I shake my head and hold up my hand.

  “I tried to stop him, princess. He wanted to get to you.”

  “Can you call the driver?”

  “Why? What’s going on?”

  “He’s not at the dorm. Nobody knows where he is. Daddy, where is he?” The room spins, and I grab my head. Chase pulls a chair to me and makes me sit. “We have to find him.”

  Then the lights go out.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Ben

  Jules’s ring tone chimes with a text as soon as the driver makes it through the tunnel to the Jersey side of the Hudson.

  Megan’s here with us. Don’t come. She’s made it clear that you aren’t welcome. Call you later.

  I tap Steve, the driver, on his shoulder and direct him back through the tunnel to New York.

  He’s listening to the news on the car radio. “The weather’s too rough. They want everyone off the roads except emergency vehicles. You’re almost back to the dorm. I don’t think it’s wise—”

  “Please. I need to get to Meg.” I have to explain, to apologize, to see her and know everything can be okay with us again. I text her.

  Please talk to me.

  When I look up, I notice that Steve isn’t attempting a u-turn.

  With each foot he drives, my impatience grows. “Come on, man. Take me back. It’s important.”

  Steve laughs. “Kids. You think I’m going to risk it for the sake of your love life? I’m not driving back to the city in this, not even for Big Joe.”

  I punch the back of the front seat. “Turn around!”

  He shakes his head and chuckles. “Sit tight, college boy. I’ll have you home as soon as I can.”

  Bastard. I mentally calculate the mileage from that point to Chase’s house. I probably can walk it, but not in this weather. I have to get to Meg, storm or no storm.

  I clench my jaw as I pull my wallet from my back pocket and check the contents. “How much?” I yell to the front seat. I have a couple of twenties and some singles.

  Steve smirks but pulls into the shoulder, glancing back at me and the wallet. “That’ll do.” He takes my money then swings the limo around and heads into the tunnel.

  Since the tunnel is clear, Steve drives aggressively. He slows down as we emerge into New York again and the blizzard hits the windshield.

  The last thing I remember is the minivan sliding from the side street right into the passenger side of the limo. “Watch out!” I yell.

  Then it all goes black.

  ***

  I wake up in a hospital. People rush around me but nobody sees me. I open my mouth to call to them but can’t find air.

  A woman appears in front of my face, flashing a light in my eyes. “Hey, sleepy head.” I follow the light back and forth. “You’re going to be okay, Mr. Riley. You were in a car accident. Hit your head. Can you hear me?”

  I nod but wince from the knife slicing through my brain. “Ah,” I groan, grabbing my temples. Tubes stick out of my arm.

  She places a cool compress on my forehead, and I feel instantly better. “You got a bump. Maybe a mild concussion. Just rest. We’ll take good care of you.”

  I shut my eyes, and it all goes black again. I need to get to Meg.

  Megan

  The day drags as we pace Chase’s apartment. We play cards by candlelight, finish the pizza, and try to eat everything in the fridge before it goes bad. I don’t know if Ben is still missing because the power is out and cell service is dead. I only pray that my father got in touch with the driver and knows that Ben’s safe somewhere.

  Chase, Juliet, and I sit around a candle in Chase’s kitchen. I’ve never felt so helpless.

  “God, this sucks.” I stand and pace, holding my phone, waiting for someone, anyone to get through.

  “What are we supposed to do? Just sit here all night?” Juliet asks.

  Chase taps his thumbs nervously. “Why don’t we go out?”

  Juliet and I turn to look at him. She grimaces. “Um, in case you haven’t noticed, there’s a blizzard outside.”

  Chase moves toward the window. “It’s brighter out there from the moonlight than it is in here. And the wind looks like it’s dying down.”

  We continue to stare at him like he’s crazy.

  Chase holds up his dead cell phone. “We can’t do anything about Ben until the power or the phones come back. Let’s see what’s going on in the city.”

  Even in Juliet’s model-sized clothing, my gut presses against her waistband from one too many slices of pizza. I’m bloated and can’t sit still anyway. A walk in a blizzard may do me good. “I’m in.” Chase high fives me.

  Juliet passes, and Chase and I bundle up and open the back door to the metal staircase that leads to the alley behind the building.

  We’re only half a foot out of the apartment and already we face two feet of untouched, pure white snow. He barrels through and I follow. It’s wet and heavy, but once we make it to the street, it’s easier to move. We’d heard the plows go past more than once, which makes it easy to forge a path.

  Chase looks around the empty, dark street. “It’s never been so quiet.” His bluish eyes are wide and glimmer in the moonlight. Snow continues to fall, turning his dark hair white until he shakes it out. I make a mental note to tell Juliet how dreamy her boyfriend is.

  I point down the block. “Want to walk?”

  “Sure.” He takes my hand and leads me to the middle of the street. “Not sure I’ll ever get the chance to do this again.”

  “Hold my hand or walk down the empty street?”

  He laughs. “Both, I guess.”

  Once we’re steady and able to move a little more freely, I let go of his hand and jam mine in my pockets. The cold air is refreshing, and I breathe deeply. Despite the hum of plows in the distance, the snow is falling so fast that there’s a light dusting again.

  I spin and look behind us to the footprints we made in the road. I pull out my phone. Still no service, but I take a picture of the scene behind us. “Do you think Ben’s okay?”

  “He’s fine. He’s probably sitting in traffic somewhere. As soon as service is restored, you’ll get about twenty texts.”

  “I hope so.” I hate not knowing where he is. I hate that I can’t get in touch with anyone.

  “What’d he do?” Chase asks.

  A glance at Chase reveals that he’s concerned, not nosy, so I confide. “He conspired with my father behind my back and disrespected me.” Saying it out loud makes my blood boil all over again.

  “That’s vague.”

  “It’s a long story.”

  Chase waves to a store owner shoveling his sidewalk. “We’ve got nothing to do, and I’m all ears.”

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “Sure.”

  “Do you like that Rob’s your dad?”

  “Yeah, I do. It’s kind of cool to know he has my back, you know?”

  My dad always has my back. I don’t know where I’d be if he didn’t. Chase grew up differently though. “You managed nineteen years without him and you did pretty well.”

  Chase laughs. “Meg. I’m in therapy, and I’m an alcoholic.”

  “But you’re a talented artist.”

  “Well, thank you.” Chase�
�s smile warms me.

  “You’re welcome.”

  We walk a little further, waving at crazy people out in the snow, doing the same thing as us. I glance at Chase again. “So, you know my dad, right?”

  “Big Joe. Hall of Famer.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I say. “Turns out I have a mom too.” I tell Chase I was raised by Aunt Annie, but all these years, my birth mom lived across the river. “She says she’s been trying to get to me, but my father has been keeping her away.”

  Chase furrows his brow and meets my eyes. “Why would he do that?”

  I shrug. “I don’t know. But recently, Ben and I met her—and the little brother I didn’t know about.”

  “Wow, Meg, that’s crazy.”

  “I didn’t want my dad to know since he’s a total control freak worrier, but Ben’s been telling him everything behind my back.”

  Chase stops walking. “Ben must have had a good reason.”

  “My dad thinks my birth mother isn’t who she seems. I told Ben that, and he ran to my dad to tell him she contacted me. He says he thought I was in trouble. But we both met her, Chase, and she’s just a sweet woman raising her son. She’s not trying to harm me or my dad.”

  “Maybe you can’t see the danger because you want it so badly,” Chase says. “Did you ask your dad why he’s so concerned?”

  “Sort of.” Had I? “I asked him to tell me what the deal was, and he won’t. Then today I walked in on him and Ben and flipped out. They tried to talk to me, but I disappeared.” I sigh. “What am I gonna do, Chase? I feel so lost.”

  Chase picks up some snow and forms it into a ball as he speaks. “If I were Pooja, I’d tell you to—”

  “Be honest,” I finish.

  “Juliet would say—”

  “Fuck them both.” He laughs at my impression.

  “Yeah, probably,” he agrees. “Then she’d think of some wacked out plan to fix it all.” Chase tosses the snowball down the street.

  “She’s an interesting woman.”

  “She is,” he agrees. “Ben though. Ben would say something amazingly on point, like, ‘why don’t you just ask them?’” Chase does a terrible Ben impression, but it makes me giggle.

  I scoop up snow for my own snowball. “He would. He makes everything seem doable, right? His brain is always set to do the right thing.”

  “That’s an interesting way to put it,” Chase says. “But if Big Joe is telling him you’re in danger, he has to do something, right? That right thing? If Juliet were in danger, I’d do whatever I needed to keep her safe.”

  I throw my snowball as hard as I can, the way my dad taught me, and it flies through the night air. Chase claps, clearly impressed.

  “One thing I know about Ben, from Juliet, from November with Frank, is that he saves people. I don’t know if he does it on purpose or if he can’t help himself, but he’s like a superhero. I used to hate that about him, but I’ve learned to accept that it’s just his nature.”

  Chase isn’t wrong about Ben, but I can’t help but feel disappointed. “It’s really difficult for me to trust people, and I was just letting Ben in. I never asked for a superhero.”

  “Then you picked the wrong guy.”

  “Ew.” I shove him.

  “He’s actually not all superhero. He’s human too, and maybe he fucked up. You’ll have to get over it.”

  “Really,” I say. I grab a handful of snow and throw it at him. It hits him in the cheek.

  “Cheap shot, Smith. Good thing you’re a runner.” He scrapes snow off of a car and starts to form it into a ball.

  I squeal and run as fast as I can, which isn’t fast at all on the ice, grabbing and packing snow as I go. Soon, I’m crouching behind a pickup truck creating an arsenal of snowballs.

  Chase and I slam each other with snowballs until the two of us are freezing, soaking wet, and shaking. We make our way back to the apartment and notice the streetlights blink. My cell phone beeps, too. “Service!” I hold it up to show Chase and then run into the alley behind the gallery. I stagger up the frozen metal stairs, push open the door, and fall into the apartment.

  “Juliet!” I yell. Candles light the kitchen. I grab a flashlight off the table and hold it to my phone.

  Juliet runs in as the lights flicker again. “My phone,” I say, handing it to her with the flashlight. “Anything from Ben?” I rub my hands together to get the feeling back. Chase stomps in behind me, and the two of us peel our wet outer layers off.

  Juliet reads the screen. “Your dad, Maggie three times, Pooja, the Fives… nothing from Ben.”

  “Nothing?” I don’t bother to hide my disappointment. “Try yours,” I say as I call my dad.

  “Princess,” he answers. “Are you alright?”

  “Fine, Daddy. Ben. Where is he?”

  “I talked to the driver. They were in an accident.” I gasp as Chase and Juliet stop moving and turn to me. “An ambulance took Ben, they said to Memorial, but when I called, he wasn’t there.”

  “Oh no! Did the driver say if Ben was okay?”

  Juliet grabs my arm.

  “He was unconscious. I’m working on tracking him down, okay? Don’t panic. It’s this weather.”

  “Call me if you hear anything. Anything,” I say and hang up. After I tell Chase and Juliet about Ben, I pace the little kitchen, silently praying. Please don’t let him be hurt, I repeat over and over. Not because he was trying to save me.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Ben

  When I wake up and see a fuzzy Grady Pisko sitting across from me, I think I’m dead. Or dreaming. When I try to move, my brain throbs against my skull. If I am alive, I’m going to die any second.

  I touch my scalp and feel a bandage and a blinding pang of pain. Pisko is still there, though now he’s speaking. “Benjamin Riley. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  Widening my eyes to focus, I sputter a response. “You’re real?”

  “You must have banged your head harder than they think.” He holds out a hand. “Grady Pisko. Nice to meet you. How do you feel?”

  I reach out to shake it. “Huh? I mean, of course I know who you are. How do you know who I am?”

  “Joe sent me. I live closer to General than he does. With this weather, the streets are closed, and it’s difficult to get anywhere. He asked me to come check on you.”

  “Check on me?” Uncle Pisser, Megan calls him. “Thank you, sir.”

  Two nurses rush in and strap a blood pressure cuff on me. They give Pisko an up and down glance as they fiddle with the machines.

  The cuff squeezes against my bicep, but I don’t move.

  “You going to keep staring at me?”

  I’m afraid if I don’t he’ll disappear, and I have about a hundred things I want to ask him. He’s tall and thin. I glance at his hands—hands I’ve seen catch some crazy throws. The hands that won the Championship. “Big Joe was hard enough, but you too? You’re the greatest wide receiver the ‘Stangs ever had. Maybe in the history of football.”

  “Thanks, man. You’re as smart as they say,” he laughs. “Now that you’re awake, there are a couple of calls I have to make.”

  “Megan? Is she okay?” How long have I been here? I lift my head to look around the room for a clock or my phone.

  Pisko taps out a text. “She’s fine. Staying with friends in the city. She’s worried about you though. Let’s let the nurse check you out, and then I’ll call her, alright?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I need to hear Megan’s voice, to know she’s okay, to hear her say that we’re okay. The nurses tell me my vitals look good—I may have a concussion, blah blah, tests, blah blah—and as soon as they’re gone, I ask Uncle Pisser to call his niece. He hands me the phone while it’s ringing.

  “Uncle? Is he awake?” Megan voice is loud and shrill. She sounds frantic.

  “It’s me.”

  She exhales into the phone. “It’s Ben,” she says. Other sighs of relief sound in the background. “
Oh, thank God, Ben. We’ve been so worried about you. Phone service was out. Nobody knew where you were. Are you okay?”

  “Car accident. A minivan slid into the limo. I hit my head against the window. The nurses just left and said it’s a good thing I have a hard head,” I’m joking, but she doesn’t laugh. “Your uncle came to save me.”

  “Let me talk to him, just for a minute,” she says.

  I hand the phone to him. “She wants you.”

  I hear her yell at him. Something about me seeing a doctor. Making sure I get an MRI. Pisko repeats, “Okay, okay, calm down” about six times before he gives me the phone back.

  “Really, I’m fine. Like I have a headache.” I rub my temples and attempt a topic change. “Where are you?”

  “I’m at Chase’s apartment. I’m going to stay here tonight.”

  “I’m glad you’re safe.”

  “Don’t worry about me,” she says. “You’re in the hospital!”

  “They’ll let me out soon enough. Can we talk about before?” My head throbs, but I keep talking. “I’m sorry—”

  “I don’t want to talk about it. I wanted to know you’re okay.”

  Shit. “What does that mean? You’re still mad?”

  There’s a pause on the other end and then a sigh. “My dad promised to get you back to the dorm safely. Let me know when he does that.”

  “Meg—”

  “I’m glad you’re going to be all right.” The phone disconnects, and she’s gone.

  “Dammit.” I look at Pisko’s phone, trying to figure out how to get Meg back.

  “What’d you do?” He reaches for a plastic bag I haven’t seen before, digs through it, and hands me my phone.

  “Why do you assume I did something?” He tilts his head as I flop back onto my pillow. “I didn’t do anything except try to keep her safe.”

  “Uh-huh.” He raises his eyebrows and leans back in the visitor chair. “So what’d you do?”

  I give in with a sigh. “I fed Mr. Smith information about Megan secretly seeing her mother. She didn’t want him to know.”

  He nods slowly. “She’s pissed, huh?”

  “You can say that again.”