“Yeah, but, shouldn’t they just be hugging it out?”
“I don’t know, man. Guess it’s all about state of mind. He was having a chill time, until he wasn’t, and that shit with Ezra and Haven, that’s what triggered him. Unresolved?—“
A phone rings. “Sorry, man. One sec.”
Kruger crouches beside me. “Dude, we gotta go. This rain is nonstop. Can you stand?”
I try, but my legs are rubber, the ground a fucking bouncy ball. I can’t feel my hands or my feet, and I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not.
iPhone is back. “The fuck was in that weed?”
“Don’t blame the tree, bro,” Kruger grumbles. “Blame the mind.”
We weave our way through the forest and back over the lawn toward the country club. When my head rolls back and I see all the bright lights and the straight-up walls and the white paint, all I can think about is that fucked up wallpaper, and I fight them.
“Geez, relax, bro.”
“We’re going to my truck,” iPhone says.
It takes an eternity to get there. An eternity of squelching over muddy, drowned grass and trying to use legs that have forgotten how to walk as iPhone and Kruger’s hands dig into my biceps as they try to keep me up.
But we’re finally there, and I’m being half-pushed, half-rolled into the back of an Escalade.
I lie on my back, staring up at a light gray, featureless ceiling. Then iPhone appears, craning over the backrest. He’s working his jaw so hard, it’s like he’s trying to grind his teeth into a straight line.
He pats my chest. “Got hold of Mel. She said Rooke’s got her.”
I frown at him. “Rooke’s got who?”
iPhone frowns right back. “Your girl, Haven.” Then he looks up past me, nods, and pats me again. “We’re heading back to the frat house.”
I catch his wrist as just before he can slither out of view, grimacing when my aching knuckles protest the sharp movement.
“No.”
“Yeah.” He reappears, jaw clenching. “Yeah, man. Safest place for you right now.”
“Haven.” Seeing how high he’s rolling makes me feel even more fucked. But I push through, because this shit’s important. “Gotta find Haven.”
“Told you, Rooke’s got her.”
Rooke.
The moment she needs saving, she goes to him, not me.
Never fucking me.
“Why?”
“Why?” iPhone parrots back. “Man…I dunno. Hospital?”
Hospital.
I sit up like Dracula rising from his fucking coffin. “Take me there. Now.”
“Probably where Ezra’s headed too,” Kruger calls out from the front a moment before the sweet scent of weed fills the Escalade’s cab. “Dude, you okay to drive?”
“No fucking way, man,” iPhone says, disappearing again. “You?”
