“Oh my, God,” it stilts out of me in less than a whisper. It’s all happening again, only now I’m wondering if Aubree had her foot in both disasters. She was Steph’s best friend. She told me herself she hated seeing us together.
Fuck.
Hours drift by while an entire team of medical professionals work on Baya before they finally call us back. Cole joins Laney and me as we head in to see her.
There she is. Baya lies helpless with tubes and wires coming out at every angle—her beautiful face scratched along one side with a giant red welt.
“She okay?” I ask the doctor, staggering toward her.
“She’s fine. Just a few scrapes and bruises on the outside.” He sighs as if the worst is yet to come. “She has a small contusion to the back of her head. We pumped her stomach. There was a high dose of benzodiazepine in her system. It’s similar to an extreme dose of valium.”
“That’s a fucking roofie.” Cole’s eyes are on fire.
The doctor nods and proceeds to tell us she’ll be fine in the morning, but they’ll need to keep an eye on her and might ask her some questions when she comes to.
“It was Aubree,” Laney seethes as the doctor leaves the room. “That stupid bitch.” She lets out a frustrated breath. “I knew—IknewI should have gone with her, but Aubree made her promise to go alone, and she was too afraid to risk it.”
“That’s Baya for you.” Cole takes a step into his sister and gingerly picks up her hand. He leans in to kiss her and stains her yellow gown with tears. “She’s used to doing what she’s told.”
I run my fingers through my hair as I go over and press a kiss to her cheek. “Baya.”
“You think someone slipped it to her at the bar?” Cole looks over at me as if it were a possibility.
“No.” An entire wall of words demand to break loose from my throat. I tell him about the notebook Holt found in Aubree’s room, about her seemingly innocent obsession with me since high school.
“We need to call the police,” Laney’s voice shakes as she says it.
Cole holds up his phone. “Already did.”
In the morning, I rouse to a kick in the face by way of Cole’s shoe. We slept head to toe on a crappy cot the hospital provided, even though we promised the staff only one of us would stick around last night.
“Dude.” I nudge him away before leaping to my feet to see how Baya is doing. The cops let Aubree go last night because there was no evidence she slipped Baya anything. They said she could have gotten the roofie from the bar. I tried shoving the notebook up their ass, but they said Aubree was a third-rate stalker at best.
Baya is still asleep. They’ve already removed her breathing tubes, and the welt on her face has significantly gone down. The doctor said she was lucky she didn’t slice her head open when she fell. The rocks in the stream are sharp as razors.
“Someone was looking after you, that’s for sure.” I touch my lips to her cheek. I’d like to think it was her father or Steph. That Steph really didn’t hate me. That she cared about the people I loved and wanted them safe, too.
Her lids flutter.
“Baya,” I pick up her hand as her eyes struggle to open.
Cole pops up beside me and shakes her shoulder. “Baya, wake up.”
“Enough.” I flick him off. “Give her some space.”
“Bry,” she whispers. Her lips curve into a smile. Baya takes in a deep breath, and her eyes spring open. “Cole.” She looks right at him, and her eyes swell with tears.
“Baya,” Cole leans in and kisses her forehead. “You’re okay.”
“What happened?” She glances around, startled. “Where am I?”
“You’re at the hospital.” Cole glances at me for support.
“You were with Aubree, last night,” I say. “Do you remember anything?”
“That’s right.” She squeezes her eyes shut. “The bridge—the Jell-O.”
“Jell-O?” I look to Cole a second. “Was it a Jell-O shot?”
