“What's going on?” I ask uneasily as I lick my dry lips. My mouth is disgustingly dry as well and I am desperate for some water but first I need answers. I seem to be lacking some serious information and I can't remember how I got here. “Was I in an accident or something?”
Tate's lips tighten slightly as he studies me with a hard glint in his eye. “What's the last thing you remember?”
“Um...” My mind goes blank and I struggle to remember anything recent. My memory comes back slowly and I remember going to work today. I don't really remember the actually shift though. “I went to work,” I say slowly.
“Do you remember the conversation we had in the break room?” Noah asks.
“No...”
Tate looks irritated. “So you don't remember anything from this evening? Nothing to explain what the hell you were thinking.”
My eyes widen at his tone and my eyes shift uncertainly from my brother to Noah as I try to sort out why he'd be so mad.
Noah shakes his head at Tate and gives him a deliberate look. “Go easy on her. Remember the doctor warned us the Rozerem can cause memory loss.”
“What are you guys talking about?” I ask with confusion. I sit up slightly but I don't seem to be in any pain and I look myself over one more time for any injuries. “Was I in a car accident? Why am I here?”
Tate fixes me with a black look. “You're here because you decided to drive while you were doped up on shit. You went off the road and hit some garbage cans. You're lucky you didn't kill someone.”
“What?” I whisper as I search their faces. Both of them are grim and considering I am sitting here in a hospital bed—obviously it must be true. I struggle with the knowledge and look at them anxiously. “I didn't take anything. I swear!”
“You passed out at the scene and the medics brought you to emergency. You had traces of an amphetamine in your system, more likely that ecstasy you like to take. There was also a strong sedative in your system—Rozerem. Whoever the fuck gave you your drugs mixed the pills up. You're lucky you didn't kill yourself,” Tate says flatly.
I can't help but stare at him with disbelief. The accusation in his eyes is enough to make me cringe inside. “I'm so confused,” I say weakly as I gaze at him. “Tate, I've been clean for weeks. I had no reason to take anything tonight.”
“No?” Tate asks tightly as he pulls out a small little plastic packet with several small pills still inside. “Look familiar? This was in your pocket when you were brought in. Marley was the attending nurse and she's the one who came across them. She opted to hide them rather than give them to the officers that were tending the scene. Thanks to you, you put her in a difficult position and here I am a damn cop and I have drugs on me! Bloody hell, Blayre!”
Noah quickly grabs the packet out of my brother's hand and shoves them in his pocket before he gives my brother a hard look. “I'll flush these and you get answers. Calm down before you say something you'll regret,” he warns before he turns and walks toward the hospital room door and disappears into the hall.
“I didn't...I couldn't have...” My voice falters. This isn't really happening, is it?
Tate looks like he's close to erupting. “The labs don't lie. Were you with Cole tonight?”
“Cole? Of course not! I told you we are over.”
“Then where did you get the drugs?”
“I told you, they can't be mine!” I insist as anger begins to rise within me. I am finally getting my life back on track, I wouldn't mess it up like this.
“They were in your fucking pocket!”
“I know!” I holler back with frustration. “I don't remember how they got there! If I did, I wouldn't be this confused, Tate.”
“It's that Rozerem that's got your head messed up right now.”
“What exactly is that?”
“It's the sedative that was mixed in with the ecstasy. The pills look similar if you don't look at them too closely. You had both in your system and Rozerem is known to cause short term memory loss.”
I reach up with shaky fingers and run them over my face with frustration. “I want to remember tonight but I can't.”
“I can't believe you did this. I thought you were finally getting straight,” Tate says tightly.
My hands drop and I look at him as tears blur my vision. “I'm sorry. I don't...”
“I can't even look at you right now. I need to cool down before we have this out,” he says simply before he turns and walks out of the room.
The door slams shut and I flinch where I sit on the bed. A couple sobs work their way up and out of me before I wipe angrily at my tears and try to hold it together. I need to think but it's hard to do when I keep seeing the disappointment in their eyes. It hurts something fierce to know that I've failed them like this. And it's not just them. I failed myself as well. Whether I like it or not, I had obviously done something stupid tonight and Cole was definitely involved in this mess. There's no one else I would have gotten drugs from.
So why had I sought him out? Noah had asked me if I remembered our conversation from earlier, did that mean I might have left work upset? My lack of memory has irritation sweeping through me. If only I could remember! None of this was making any sense to me.
The door to my room opens and I look up to see Noah step inside, his eyes scanning the room—looking for my brother.
“He can't stand to look at me right now,” I say bitterly when his eyes rest on me.
Noah sighs and pulls up the chair to sit near my hospital bed. “It's just fear talking, Blayre. He was on duty when the call came over the radio asking for medical assistance because you collapsed at the scene. By the time I got here, he still hadn't calmed down. He's not thinking rationally.”
“I don't remember any of it,” I say miserably as my fists tighten on the hospital sheets as I gaze at him.
“And that makes it worse because you can't explain to us where your head was tonight.” His eyes search mine. “I thought you were done with Cole. You pretty much said that yourself the other night.”
“I am! Or I was. I don't know!” I say with exasperation. “You say we spoke during my break. Were we fighting?”
He shakes his head. “No. It was just mediocre stuff. We talked about the restaurant and you were joking around that Eddie was going to swipe you a burger and fries and a bottle of beer on your way out if you got Becky to ask him for a ride rather than taking the bus. Just stupid shit.”
“So I wasn't upset or anything?” I ask slowly.
“No. If you were, you didn't show it.”
I can't help but groan again as my head drops back onto the pillow and I gaze up at the ceiling. “Is this memory loss temporary or permanent?”
“Probably permanent.”
“Great,” I say with a sigh as I look back at him again.
“There has to be a reason you went to him tonight. Did he call you?” Noah asks as he watches me intently.
“I don't know. Where's my phone?”
“Hold on.” Noah rises to his feet and goes to a small cupboard closet. He pulls out my purse and comes back over, handing it to me.
I dig through it and pull out my phone. I glance at the last incoming number and frown. I don't recognize it.
“What?” Noah asks.
“It doesn't matter, he didn't call,” I say as I shove the phone back in my purse and set it aside.
“You should call him.”
I stare at him. “Seriously?”
“Ask him what went down tonight,” Noah says steadily. “Get him to admit he sold you the drugs and Tate can haul him in.”
That would be bad. Really bad. Like it or not, I have to protect Cole or our secret will come out. “I must have gone to him but I can't point the finger at him because I have no memory of any of it. It is what it is,” I say with resignation.
This causes Noah to frown. “Something just seems off to me.”
It seems off to me too but I'd have to figure it out later. Right now, I have t
o do damage control. “I had a slip up tonight. It won't happen again.”
“Tate's going to be watching you like a hawk for now on, you know that, don't you?”
“Yeah, and I deserve it.” I look at him sadly. “I'm sorry. I don't know where my head was tonight when I went to him.”
Noah falls silent, his eyes turning resigned. “Somewhere inside you, you still crave him and what he can offer,” he says softly.
“It's not like that, Noah.”
He gives me a look that clearly states he doesn't believe me. “I wish I was enough to make you forget him.”
“You are!”
“Then why run to him tonight?” he presses.
“It was a moment of weakness, I guess,” I say lamely.
He looks away briefly before he looks at me with disappointment clear in his eyes.
“I told you I'm no good for you.”
“Don't say that,” he says tightly. “I think right now you are very confused. Do you even know what you want, Blayre? What you really want?”
“No,” I say truthfully.
Noah doesn't say anything, he simply looks at me with brooding defeat.
“How much trouble am I in?” It's pointless to continue the conversation so I switch the topic.
“Your alcohol level was way below the legal limit. You would have had a lot to answer to about the LSD if it weren't for the fact that Vince was one of the officers on the scene and Marley's good friends with the doctor who tended to you. As far as anyone's concerned, you mistakenly took the Rozerem in place of something else. You need to come up with an explanation before Vince drops in to get your statement.”
Relief sweeps over me. “I don't deserve any of you.”
“People care about you whether you want them to or not.”
I look down at my clasped hands.
“You were lucky tonight. You could have seriously been hurt.”
“I could have hurt someone,” I say as I reluctantly look at him again.
“That too.”
“Noah, I swear I am done with Cole,” I insist. “I give you my word.”
Regret flickers in his gaze. “I wish I could believe you.”
“I get that you don't. I messed up tonight.” And somehow, in some way, Cole had a hand in it. On Monday I am tracking him down and getting to the bottom of it all.
It's a while before Tate comes back and his expression still hasn't changed. He still looks mad and disappointed. Noah excuses himself to give us privacy and Tate sits down in the seat Noah had just vacated. “You scared the hell out of me tonight,” he says.
“I'm sorry. I know sorry doesn't cut it, but I am.”
“You should be sorry. You could have killed someone tonight because you refuse to take the initiative to pull yourself together.” His words have me flinching but he doesn't seem to notice or he doesn't care. “What other 'accidents' have to happen before you wake the fuck up and do what needs to be done?” he asks quietly, his eyes on mine.
“Don't. Don't use this as an excuse to shove rehab down my throat.”
“I can and I will! You're destroying yourself and those around you!”
“Tate, please—”
“No! I'm done playing Mr. Nice Guy with you. Marley and Dr. Heberts put their jobs on the line for you tonight. I put myself at risk for you tonight as well. Show some damn gratitude and look into rehab. Get the help you know you need.”
My eyes burn with tears and I look away.
“I love you, Blayre, but I'm done watching you do this to yourself. When you want to talk rehab, you come to me. Until then, I am watching your every move and I am no longer turning a blind eye to all your shit,” he says simply before he stands up and walks away without a backward glance.
Acceptance
Things are what they are, moving
on is a must
Life sucks.
It's Saturday afternoon and after a full morning of solitude in my room, I move out to the patio to stare at the pool. Tate's avoiding me, not that I blame him. He is still quite angry with me and even more pissed I'd lost my memory and can't pin anything on Cole. And Noah...he wasn't avoiding me but his eyes have lost the playful glint that's usually swirling around somewhere in their depths. Now he just looks sad.
I draw my knees up to my chest and drop my cheek down to rest on my knee. I am stuck between a rock and a hard place. The only way to salvage my relationship with my brother is to face my biggest fear and seriously consider rehab.
I don't know if I can, though.
Tate's the only family I have but I don't think I can take one step inside a rehabilitation center. This in turn leaves me frustrated that I would allow my fear to override my relationship with my brother. And as for Noah...things have changed. He's starting to pull away from me and it bothers me much more than I ever thought it would. It's selfish because I am fine as long as I'm the one keeping him at arm’s length—it's what I do.
But turn the tables...
I know the best thing I can do for him is to let him go. I still haven't figured out why he sticks around after all the times I've rejected him and I know I haven't exactly been fair to him. I've made a mess out of every aspect of my life. I'm fully aware a lot of it is my own fault. My decision making lately has been absolutely terrible. But last night...
I need answers.
What the hell had gone down last night because clearly I'd met up with Cole. Had we partied? Had sex? I'm so angry at the entire situation that I want to scream over the fact that I didn't remember a damn thing. There's not a single thing I can say to my brother to make any of this better. I don't even have a crappy excuse. There's just a blank night where I'd obviously done something stupid and now the two most important people in my life are disappointed in me. I'm not even sure where that leaves me with Tate. He's stubborn and he made it clear he wouldn't be happy until I sought the help he felt I needed.
My initial reaction today after coming home from the hospital was to call Cole, but something was holding me back. I couldn't really put my finger on it. I want answers but I need to figure out how to go about getting them. Cole has a reason behind everything he does, that I know. Just because I ask doesn't mean he's going to be upfront with me. Last night had more likely been another one of his stupid games and I'd paid the price for it.
As I stare moodily at the water I wonder what to do next. The pool has no answers for me and eventually I make my way inside.
Noah's in the kitchen and he looks up from the salad he is making. His eyes run over my pale, drawn features. “What can I do?” he asks simply, his eyes on mine.
“Nothing,” I say softly before I turn and walk away. When I reach my room, I lay down on the bed and stare up at the ceiling. I spend most of the afternoon and evening studying the ceiling and every single bump or tiny crack.
***
It's not until late that night—or early morning that all the puzzle pieces begin to fall into place.
My heart pounds erratically in my chest as I wake up abruptly from the nightmare that had me caught up in its frightening grip. The sound of gunfire still echoes in my ears and I slowly sit up. My legs are tangled in my sheets from tossing and turning and my shirt is sticking to my damp chest. With shaky fingers, I push my hair away from my face and try to calm down.
There are two nightmares that haunt me consistently. Either I am haunted by the fire or the robbery. There seems to be no favoritism when it came to them. I dread both when they creep up on me at night and just moments ago I'd been back at the convenience store parking lot. As I draw in deep breaths of air and try to calm myself, I realize my heart is still pounding anxiously.
I'm scared. I feel it in my bones, in my very being.
Something is incredibly wrong.
Then it all clicks into place and my mouth falls open with dawning horror as I stare into the darkness of my room with stunned disbelief.
Cole is trying to kill me.
He had to be and now las
t night was beginning to make more sense. Cole was methodical and calculating—he's completely ruthless. There's no way the drugs would have gotten mixed up because he was smarter than that. Which means he'd deliberately given me both and sent me on my way...in my damn car. He had known that combining both drugs would mess me up too much to drive or even think coherently.
There's a part of me that wants to deny my suspicions but I can't. Blake had started pulling away from Cole and now he's dead. How convenient was it that Cole was out of town the weekend Blake died? And what about having that car instead of his motorcycle? Had he used the car to run Blake off the road? How had I not seen any of this earlier?
I broke up with Cole and now that he doesn't have me where he wants me, he doesn't trust me. I'm the last one who knows his secret and last night he'd doped me up in hopes that I'd crash my car and die. It all makes sense. He must have slipped the drugs in my pocket somehow so that there would be evidence on me when they found my body. I would have been written off as a teen junkie doing drugs who had done herself in with the sheer stupidity of driving while high. Somehow, I'd fallen into his trap last night.
Oh shit.
There is a very real possibility he’ll come after me again. When he finds out I didn't die in the crash—he's probably already figured it out by now—he's going to come after me because even a moron could figure out what he's up to. He'll know I've figured it out and I'll become even more of a target until he can silence me.
After a long minute, I begin to calm down as I accept the inevitable. All my actions have led me here to this point. It's imperative I figure out my next step now that I know Cole is after me, but right now I just want to feel safe. Something is going to go down soon, which means my time here with Tate and Noah now has an expiration date.
Before I even realize what I am doing, I am creeping out of my room and entering Noah's dark bedroom. The only hint of light comes from the moonlight streaking in through his window and I gaze down at him. He's sprawled on his back, bare chested and clearly in a deep sleep.
Unraveled (Twisted Series) Page 17
