Going Under (The Blackhawk Boys Book 3)

by Lexi Ryan

  When the silence has stretched out for too long and our beers are empty, Dante looks at me. “Alex told Mom she had another date with Logan last night.”

  I squeeze my eyes shut. “Yeah. I’m aware of that.”

  “Is he an okay guy?”

  “Yes.” I rub the back of my neck, but it doesn’t help the tension knotted there. “I don’t think I could have turned my life around without him.” Dad introduced me to Logan, who, like me, had battled his addiction in his teens. Logan was twenty-two when he became my mentor, but he’d gotten sober while he was still in high school, and he understood it was different for me than for my dad. “It’s good to have someone who’s been through this before.” And he helped me through the worst of it, listening when I needed a confidant.

  “But you don’t want him with her,” Dante says.

  “It just sucks to see her with someone else.”

  “You never cared when Martina dated someone else.” Dante bringing up my history with his dead sister only makes this weight on my chest a little heavier. Everything he knows, he learned from me. Some he plied out, other bits I told him freely, but eventually it was clear that he could forgive me and Dad for the part we played in the fire, but he agreed it would be different for Alex. Knowing would hurt her more than it was worth. Were we wrong about that?

  “I wasn’t in love with Martina,” I mutter before snatching back my beer. “I wasn’t anything with Martina.”

  “You’re in love with Alex.” It’s not a question, but he leans back in the booth, staring at me as if he just had some great revelation.

  “You’re just figuring this out?” I wince. I’m being an ass. “I don’t know how to not be in love with her. I’ve fucking tried.”

  “I’m not sure if I should hug you or punch you in the face, man.” He exhales heavily and scans the faces in the bar. “I miss Martina. She always kept everything in perspective. If some of us were fighting at the dinner table, Martina would be the one to crack a joke and make us realize whatever we were fighting about wasn’t that important. Some days I forget she’s not around. Something will make me laugh, and I’ll think, I’ve gotta text Martina about that. Then I remember, and it’s like being sucker-punched. Every time. And yet I know what I feel is nothing compared to what Alex feels. Two people couldn’t have been more different or closer.”

  “What was their relationship like?” On one hand, I know they were close, but it seemed like Martina kept her twin at arm’s length.

  “She always thought Martina was better than her,” he says. “Any mutual friends they had, Alex assumed hung around for Martina. She thought boys were more interested in Martina, and some were. But she never saw how much people loved her for being her and not just for being Martina’s sister.”

  That much was clear from the first day I met her. Alex had no idea how much I liked her. The two classes where I sat next to her were the best parts of my day, but if I’d admitted as much, she wouldn’t have believed me anyway. “Martina didn’t tell her anything.”

  “She had her secrets.” Sighing, Dante drums his fingertips on the table. When he lifts his eyes to mine, they look tired and older than his twenty-three years. “But then, so do you.”

  “You and I both know that keeping secrets from someone doesn’t change how much we love them. Lying isn’t always cruel. Sometimes we hide the truth to protect people we love.” I said the same thing to Alex when she told me about her uncle, but I flinch when I realize it was the speech Dad used to give me about making sure Mom never found out about our “side business.” Maybe I’ve been trying to convince myself of something that’s never felt right.

  Dante scratches his jaw. “We lie to the people we love for two reasons—because we’re trying to protect ourselves or because we don’t believe they can handle the truth.” Dante swallows hard and pulls his hair out of his face. “Maybe you need to give Alex more credit. She’s strong. She can handle it.”

  “But I thought you agreed I shouldn’t tell her.”

  He props his forearms on the table and leans forward in the booth. “That was when you wanted to keep your promise to your dad. When I believed his bullshit about being a better man.” He shrugs. “And maybe I was protecting myself too. What if she couldn’t handle it? I didn’t want her to be angry with me for working with you guys, for being your friend, for knowing and not telling her. I lost one sister. I couldn’t face losing the other one.”

  “But now?” My heart beats double time at the thought of telling Alex the truth, and I’m not sure if it’s with fear or something else altogether.

  “Now I’m not interested in protecting your father, and I don’t think you are either.” He draws in a breath and studies me. “I think Alex can handle it. Martina was my sister too, and I forgave you. You were a kid, Bash. Your dad was the one who started it all. He pushed you right in the deep end.”

  “I can’t do that,” I whisper. “I can’t put it all on him. I made my own choices.”

  Dante folds his arms and leans back in the booth. “Then own up to them.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Sebastian

  By the time I leave the Cavern, news of Dad’s arrest is all over the radio, and instead of going back to the apartment and sleeping on Dante’s advice, I drive straight to Mr. Patterson’s house to see Alex.

  I ring the bell three times and knock on the door twice before I can accept that she’s not home. Does that mean she’s still out with Logan? Will she stay with him? Will he be the first person she lets see her scars?

  The idea makes me so sick to my stomach that I can’t leave. I sink into one of the chairs on the porch and wait.

  It’s after eleven when Alex gets home. She parks her car next to mine in the driveway, and she looks so gorgeous walking toward me in the moonlight that I wish I had my camera to capture this moment.

  “What are you doing here?” she asks as she steps onto the porch. She looks at her watch.

  I stand and study her in the porchlight. I’m torn between the need to protect this moment, to preserve the peace between us, and a guilt so heavy it feels like gasping for oxygen and pulling water into my lungs. “Dad was arrested today. The cops got a warrant on a tip and found evidence. They found drugs. He’s dealing again.” The words tumble from my lips, and when I hear them I’m stabbed in the gut with the reality. I swallow again and again once the truth is free, gasping for air as if I could suck it back in and make it not so.

  Alex lifts onto her toes and loops her arms behind my neck, pulling me down to her. I breathe her in as she tunnels her fingers into my hair and whispers against my ear. I’m so lost in the sensation of being entirely unraveled that I only process some of her words. “I’m so sorry… Had no idea… Not your fault… Allowed to be scared.”

  Then she turns her head and sweeps her lips over mine. She’s kissing me and I’m kissing her. Not because I want to—though I do, I always want to kiss Alex—and not because she’s so close and the sounds she makes when I touch her make the rest of the world slip away—but, fuck yes, that too. I kiss her to stop the compassion spilling from her lips. I don’t want her to comfort me. I don’t deserve her comfort or even her presence, and her sweetness is destroying me.

  When I break the kiss, we’re both breathless, and I back away. “Last night, you asked me what I did that was so horrible that I couldn’t be with you.” I take a deep breath and nod. “This is it. The same shit Dad’s involved in now.”

  She frowns and takes a hesitant step toward me. “You already told me about the drugs. Remember?”

  “But I didn’t tell you I killed Martina.”

  * * *

  Alexandra

  You know those dreams where you’re in one place and then suddenly and with no explanation, you’re in another? I had one last night. I dreamed of my sister. It was autumn, and we were sitting on Mom’s deck playing cards and drinking from Mickey Mouse straws. The leaves on the trees seemed to change in front of our eyes—f
rom green to every color of orange and red and yellow and in between to brown. We were laughing because when the wind would blow, they’d fall into our hair.

  Suddenly we were standing by a pile of leaves like the big mounds we’d rake up as kids. Martina giggled and jumped right into the middle of the pile, sinking to the bottom. I could still hear her laughter when her hand darted out and grabbed my hand. She tugged me down and pulled me under with her.

  But then her laughter stopped. And we weren’t in Mom’s backyard anymore. It was dark and hot, and we were stuck and couldn’t get out. She was unconscious, her face bloody and unrecognizable. I was trying to wake her up, but the leaves were too heavy and they were suffocating me. Then suddenly they were on fire.

  I don’t think I’ll ever forget what it feels like to feel my skin bubble and melt while it’s on my body. It’s the stuff of nightmares, and the only thing more painful was putting her in the ground while I had to go on living.

  I wonder if this time of year will ever get easier for me. If someday the changing leaves might make me think of football, bonfires, and hot cider. I wonder if I’ll ever again see a pile of leaves and first think of our childhood. Of feeling them crunch beneath us as we jump in, of throwing handfuls into the air and giggling as they fell into our hair, of the unadulterated joy of a candy apple from a festival. Someday, I want those to be the memories that surface when autumn rolls around. Because they’re there too. They’ve just been singed by the flames.

  Sebastian stares at me, waiting for me to say something. Are you supposed to say something when the guy you’ve loved for five years tells you he killed your twin sister? Are there words for these moments when, like in those odd dreams, you’re suddenly somewhere else? It’s as if the ground has disappeared from beneath my feet, as if I’ve left my body and am floating here watching these two kids stare at each other. When he speaks, I’m slammed back into my body with a violent crash, and I’m not sure I want to be here.

  “It’s my fault Martina started using to begin with.” He sinks onto the steps and drops his head in his hands. “I met her at a party back when I was using. She was looking for a good time and I…I offered. I could sit here and tell you that I tried to keep her from getting too deep, but I know I was the beginning for her.”

  I don’t want to believe what he’s saying. The idea of Martina and Sebastian using together makes me want to crawl out of my skin. “No.”

  “It’s true. Maybe she was looking for trouble, but I showed her the goddamn map. And the night she died, the meth lab explosion, that was my fault.”

  “Stop talking,” I blurt. “Sebastian…”

  He lifts his head and stares at me until I sink onto the step beside him. “I don’t know what went wrong or why the fire started. Hell, I don’t even know why she was there. We think maybe she broke in to steal drugs, but I didn’t have to set the fire to be responsible. It was my shit that blew up.”

  I stare blankly ahead, clenching and unclenching my fists just so I have something to think about other than the horrible things he’s saying. I want him to stop. I want him to take it back.

  “All this time I’ve been keeping quiet to protect Dad. We worked so hard to leave that life behind. I’ve been suspicious for a while now, but tonight I found out that the greedy asshole went back to it. He doesn’t deserve to be protected.”

  My hands are shaking and I’m afraid to look at him—as if looking him in the eyes will make this all too real. As if, if I can just avoid his gaze long enough, this will all be some terrible joke. “I think I want you to leave now.”

  * * *

  Martina’s Journal

  Mr. Bedroom Eyes hit me today.

  I don’t know what set him off. Things have been so good since I got out of rehab and moved into this apartment he got for me. Sex, booze, gifts, and everything else he knows I love.

  I was just teasing, joking around about the times I fucked around with Sebastian. I don’t know why I did it. I was bored and sometimes it’s like he goes for days forgetting I exist and I…

  I shouldn’t have done it. I shouldn’t have said anything.

  He apologized, and I really think he is sorry. He’s never done it before. I just love him so much, but sometimes I think he gives me drugs just to keep me controlled.

  He doesn’t know I keep this journal. I hardly write in it anymore, so that helps, but I don’t know what I’d do if he took this away from me too.

  Mom wants me to come home. Last time I talked to her, she begged me. She said she’s going to file a runaway report, but I know she’s too afraid of me getting arrested for drugs and that’s what keeps her from doing it. As long as I check in regularly, she won’t. I told her I was fine. I want her to believe that, but some days I’m not sure. He doesn’t let me out much.

  That sounds crazy—like he’s keeping me his prisoner, and of course that’s not it. It’s just that he’s so private and wants to protect me. I understand that he deals with a lot of dangerous people. But still, I get lonely.

  I wonder if Alex misses me as much as I miss her.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Alexandra

  I’m supposed to hang out with Bailey and Mia today, but I text Bailey and tell her I’m not feeling so great, then I go to Mom’s without bothering to change out of my pajamas.

  She pulls me into her arms as soon as she answers the door. “Did you see all this with Sebastian’s dad? It’s so terrible, isn’t it?”

  I nod, and a fat tear rolls down my cheek.

  “Hot chocolate and Murder, She Wrote?” Mom asks, and I nod again.

  I curl into a chair in the family room and stare vacantly at episodes of the TV mystery series I’ve seen a hundred times.

  Part of me wants to be angry with Sebastian for what he admitted to, for showing Martina the trouble she was looking for, for giving her the escape she craved. Another part of me knows Sebastian was a means to an end for her. If it hadn’t been him, she’d have found it somewhere else. She was broken and trying to cope, and none of us can be blamed for not knowing that.

  A few hours into our marathon, my phone buzzes in my lap, and I realize I’ve fallen asleep. My phone tells me I have a text from Bailey.

  I’m so clueless. Just found out about Sebastian’s dad. Fucking crazy. Call if you need me?

  “You want some dinner?” Mom asks.

  I shake my head. “No thank you. I’m going to go back to Mr. Patterson’s.”

  She reaches across the end table and squeezes my hand. “I’m here if you need to talk. I know this time of year is hard on all of us.”

  “I’m okay,” I promise, my voice a little shaky. I swallow hard. “I think I’m going to read her journals.”

  Mom’s eyes soften. “You sure you’re up for that?”

  I shrug. “I guess we’ll find out.”

  “Alex, there are things we never told you about your sister’s autopsy.” Her grip on my hand tightens. “I just couldn’t add another layer to your grief.”

  I study the lines around her eyes. She’s still beautiful, but it was as if she aged ten years in the month after the fire. “What do you mean?”

  Her exhale is choppy and her eyes are sad. “When your sister died, she was pregnant.”

  * * *

  Martina’s Journal

  I’m pregnant.

  Well, that didn’t help—spelling out the words, reading them for myself. The four tests I took in the Walmart bathroom didn’t help. The reassuring feel of Mr. Bedroom Eyes’ fingers in my hair when I told him didn’t help. Nothing will help me make sense of this.

  I’m scared.

  “You have nothing to be afraid of,” he said. “I’m going to take care of everything.”

  What do you do when you’re seventeen years old and get knocked up? Do you move out on your own? I imagine going back home, sleeping with a crib tucked along the wall between my bed and Alex’s. I imagine her helping me change the baby’s diaper, and the thought almost makes m
e smile. Almost.

  I don’t need to worry, of course. My man will take care of me. He always does.

  But the whole thing makes me miss Mom. She’d know what to say. But then she’d cry and beg me to come home. No, neither of us needs to go through that.

  I’m pregnant and I’m scared, but I have my man. Things are about to change, and maybe that’s good. Maybe this is a good thing.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Sebastian

  The BHU photography studio is a big space with a bunch of lights and tarps of various shades, and right now it feels so fucking empty because Alex didn’t show.

  I don’t know why I came here. I haven’t heard from her since Saturday night, and I didn’t expect her to come. I can’t stop thinking about the look on her face when she begged me to stop talking.

  It would have been logical to send her a text to confirm she wasn’t coming and that I needed to find another subject for my project, but I didn’t want to ask. I just wanted to be here in case by some miracle she can look me in the eye after what I told her.

  So when she walks in the door, I can’t say it’s totally unexpected, but it still makes everything inside me slow down. That’s the way I always feel when she’s close—like the whole world is going on at normal speed around us while she and I are wrapped in this bubble where nothing outside can get to us.

  “You came.”

  She hugs herself and scans the room. “I need to tell you something,” she says. “I’ve been trying to figure out how to say it.”

  I instinctively step closer. “What? Are you okay?”

  “Okay?” She breathes in deep and closes the distance between us, staring into my eyes. Fuck but it feels good to have her here. “No. I’m not okay.”