“Your turn, Yellow,” Austin said softly, standing beside the open door.
I didn’t answer. I just climbed in. I glanced around the car’s interior, sleek cream leather, a futuristic dash that looked like it belonged in a spaceship. A far cry from my dated Honda. I lifted Cherry’s head and slid underneath her so she lay across my lap. I moved gently, but I doubted it mattered. She was so far gone that nothing I did could wake her.
Austin and Levi were speaking in low voices as they got into the front seats. I didn’t try to catch what they were saying. My focus stayed on Cherry. Her features blurred in my vision, the brightred anger flooding my brain slowly washing into something paler.
I was trying to breathe through it. The fury at Brandon. The disgust. The helplessness. But emotions wouldn’t help me now. I knew that. I’d learned it long ago. Rage didn’t bring clarity—it made everything bleed together, like colors on a canvas that were never meant to mix. A mess of abstract emotion, smeared and unreadable. Forgotten in the attic.
I inhaled through my nose. One breath. Then another. With each one, my blood calmed a little more. There was only one thing that mattered. Cherry.
“Yellow?”
Austin’s voice snapped me back. I looked up. Both he and Levi had turned in their seats to look at us, but their expressions couldn’t have been more different. Austin was staring at me, brows pulled together, jaw clenched like I was a riddle he couldn’t solve. Levi’s eyes were on Cherry. His expression was unmistakable, he was furious. Like he’d just watched someone hurt a child.
“Let’s bring her in, okay?” Austin said when I didn’t respond. “She’ll be more comfortable in a bed.”
I nodded, pressing my lips together. These boys were still strangers, and yet I felt something close to gratitude. If they hadn’t helped, I’d still be panicking. Still stuck in that bedroom, trying to make Cherry wake up. Levi opened Cherry’s door as Austin opened mine. I didn’t look at Austin. I kept my eyes on Levi, watching as he lifted Cherry with care. She draped over his shoulder like a doll, limp and fragile. He didn’t look at me once, his eyes stayed on her.
“Come on,” Austin said, reaching for my hand. He pulled me gently from the car, like I was the one who had been drugged. Like I was the one who needed saving. And the way he looked at me, as if I was breakable, made me feel like maybe I was.
Once I was out of the car, I looked up at the house we had pulled into. My jaw wanted to drop, but I didn’t let it. Austin’s house was unlike any place I had ever been in before. It was gigantic, not just big, but expensive. Sleek and modern, painted in layered shades of black like a card sample of dark paint. Every line was sharp. Every detail screamed curated wealth. I tried to keep my eyes from widening as we walked toward the front door. I wasn’t sure I’d ever met someone as rich as Austin. Which made it even more confusing. My brows furrowed as I tried to piece it together. He was rich, but I met him in front of a drug house. He goes to West Bridge, but he was slumming it at a Hawking party. Why?
Austin unlocked the door and opened it, snapping me out of my thoughts. The interior was just as lavish as the outside. It looked like something out of a design magazine, clean and minimalistic. I opened my mouth to say something, but Austin and Levi were already halfway up the stairs. They didn’t seem interested in my reaction. I followed, shaking the materialism out of my head.
“This one,” Austin muttered when we reached the next floor. He nudged a door open with his foot, revealing a large room with a bed in the center.
Levi stepped inside first, Cherry still draped over his shoulder. I trailed behind. He laid her down gently on the bed. Her red hair spilled across the white linens, brilliant and jarring—like blood against snow. I sat beside her, rearranging the pillows around her body.
“Should… does she want something to sleep in?” Levi asked. It was the first time I’d paid attention to him speaking.
His voice was deeper than I expected, smooth and grounded, and it suited him. Levi had close-cropped dark hair and warm brown skin that caught the light easily, the kind that looked sun-touched even indoors. He was solidly built, broad-shouldered, with strength that felt earned rather than styled. He moved easily, like his body had always been something he trusted. He was the opposite of Austin in most ways. Where Austin burned, Levi steadied. But they shared the same quiet gravity.
“Yellow?” Austin said when I didn’t answer. My eyes drifted to him. He was looking at me like I was porcelain with a crack spidering down the center, like he was waiting for me to break. “Do you want to change her into something more comfortable?” he asked, his hand stroking his chin absently.
I hesitated. She probably would be more comfortable in something else, but I didn’t want to violate her privacy, especially when I couldn’t lift her on my own.
“She’ll be okay,” I said softly.
“Alright. Do you want something?” Austin asked. I gave him a puzzled look. “To sleep in,” he clarified.
I looked down at my yellow sundress, as if remembering what I was wearing. It suddenly seemed too bright for tonight. Too out of place.
“It’s okay,” I replied. “You’ve helped enough.”
“I’ll be downstairs, A,” Levi said, casting a quick glance between us. Austin didn’t respond as Levi left the room.
“We didn’t actually do much, Yellow,” Austin said, shaking his head. He glanced around before walking over to a chair besidethe bed. He sat down heavily, elbows on his knees, his head lowered.
“You did,” I told him with a sigh. “You don’t even know us. But you helped.”
He tilted his head at that, like he didn’t understand why it mattered. “I don’t like seeing girls treated like that.”
“No one should,” I said. “But people do. They turn a blind eye.”
“Not me,” he said sharply.
“So it seems.” I stroked Cherry’s arm gently, pulling the blanket up around her.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
