“Hey, come along now. On your feet.”
He drags me up, hauls me along. It’s hard to breathe, like trying to breathe underwater. I’m sinking deeper.
A trap. Seb tried to warn me. Is that why he didn’t return my calls earlier? Did he try to save me?
“Get him to the station,” the cop says to someone I don’t bother looking up to see, and I’m shoved into the back of a police car.
I don’t fucking care. Where we’re going. What they’ll do with me. What happens next.
Fuck this shit. Fuck everything. My heart hurts like a splinter in my chest.
Am I destined to lose everyone?
Chapter Thirty-Five
Gigi
The phone doesn’t ring all night. I text Jarett before I fall asleep, and again the moment I wake up, asking him if he found Sebastian.
Then, when he still doesn’t reply, I call him.
It goes to voicemail.
I’m starting to get really worried all over again, remembering the blankness of his expression, the stiffness of his body, all the pain he was obviously keeping inside.
What happened last night? I hope he hasn’t done anything stupid, anything irreversible.
Throwing on clothes, I hurry downstairs, thinking to head out and find him.
But where? He has no reason to be at the nursing home anymore. When is his mom’s funeral? Who might know?
“Morning, sis.” Merc is slathering a thick slice of bread with peanut butter and jelly, his eyes on the TV that’s showing the news, the volume on low. He glances at me. “What’s jumping?”
“I’m worried about Jarett.”
“You’re always worried about him.” He puts down the knife and takes a huge bite out of the bread. He frowns as he chews, looking like an oversized blond squirrel. “Wait, you’re really worried this time. Did something happen?”
“I don’t know.” I perch on the edge of the table. “He left last night to find Sebastian, his sort of adopted brother?”
“The douchebag, you mean?”
“That’s the one. To tell him about his mom passing, and the funeral. It’s today, and I haven’t heard back from Rett yet.”
“So?”
“So I have a bad feeling.”
“Practicing voodoo lately?”
“Very funny.” My stomach is all twisted up. “I just do.”
“Okay.” He puts down the bread. “And you don’t know where he’s supposed to be?”
He’s supposed to be here, with me.
“No idea. I don’t know where he’d find Sebastian. Where the gang meets? Another place? A bar or—”
“Stop. Look at this.” He grabs the remote and jacks up the TV volume. “Jesus Christ…”