Nothing.
I shout his name, but the line’s gone dead.
I should call the police.
No. I’ll get there first. Then I’ll call.
The rain comes down harder, hammering the roof, blurring everything. I jam the car into gear and speed off.
For a split second, my dad’s face flashes in my mind — the hospital room, the machines, the moment I stepped out for a coffee and came back too late.
Not again.
I won’t lose someone else because I hesitated.
Chapter 59
TOM
I park a street over and kill the engine. My hands are shaking so badly as I pull the handle to open the car door. I get out, pull my hood up, and run to the lane to the side of the house.
Fifteen minutes since Pete hung up. Fifteen minutes of worst-case scenarios looping like a broken trailer in my skull. I should call the police, but instead I run down the path, cut through the trees into James and Pete’s back garden, as I did on my last visit.
My heart is in my mouth as I approach the back door, which is locked. My fingers find the spare key, still tucked under the plant pot, and I slowly unlock the door and enter.
Inside, it’s quiet. Unnervingly so.
Then, a sound tears through it.
A voice — raw and shredded. “I can’t take this anymore!” A slam. Something metal skitters.
James.
Another ragged shout. “I’ve had enough!”
My legs are moving before the rest of me votes. I move down the hall and stop dead just before the kitchen: the place is wrecked. A chair on its side. A drawer yanked open, cutlery splayed like a silver explosion.
Red smears of blood on the floor. Too many.
My stomach flips. Who’s bleeding?
Another voice from the kitchen, this time Pete. “Please,” he says. “We can find a way to make this work.”
“Don’t beg,” James snarls back, but the anger in it curdles into something else, something frayed. “Don’t you dare beg me now.”
I move, peering into the kitchen. Pete is slumped in the far corner by the radiator, arms wrapped around his ribs, face grey. James is half-turned toward him, half-turned toward his own reflection, like a man arguing with two realities at once. He’s shaking. He looks both furious and broken, rage wearing grief as a mask.
He sees me in the mirror first. Our eyes meet in that warped, splintered glass. For a beat, nobody breathes.
Then he turns, very slow, like a storm changing direction.
“What are you doing in our house?” he asks softly, which is worse than shouting.
“I’m taking him away,” I say. The words leave my mouth without permission. “This ends tonight.”
I didn’t notice it immediately, but James is holding a knife.
I freeze.
