“No, I couldn’t get in to see them,” Pix says in exhaustion.
“Well, we need to find them quick. It’s been two days.”
“Has she stopped?”
“No. Not yet,” Meg says and sobs.
“What is she doing?”
“Punishing herself for getting hurt again.”
They come and talk to me, but I keep my eyes down. I keep my focus. Refusing to stop. I’m on the treadmill, running now.
“Should we sedate her?”
“Try it,” I say in a hoarse voice. “Just you fucking try it.”
“There, you want to risk that?” Meg says, throwing a hand at me.
Pix is quiet. “I’m going to go and see if I can find them.”
He disappears, but I ignore him, focusing on keeping my body moving, on the pain inside me. On their faces right there and the words they gave me. Those words I believed.
“Bonnie, you have to stop!”
My mum is crying, but it sounds so far away.
I get off the bike, and my legs tremble. I walk to the wall and start climbing.
“Are you out of your mind?”
Someone grabs my ankle. I whip around, throwing all my weight at them. They fall backwards but roll out of the way of the knife I slash at them.
“Stop it,” the deep growl says, but I ignore it, lunging forward again and slashing some more.
He seizes my wrist and throws me forward, and when I blink, my knife is in his hands. He hefts it and throws it at the wall without looking.
I blink and really look at him.
“You!” I hiss.
“Yeah, me. What are you doing?” he snaps.
I attack him, swiping his legs out from under him and getting him in a chokehold. He snarls, but before I can finish the kill, I’m ripped off him and pinned to the mat.
“Did you just give up on us that fast?” Cyn snarls.
“YOU LEFT!” I roar.
Kota crouches in front of me. “So, you decided everything we said meant crap, and we weren’t coming back? Didn’t you check your phone?”
“You left me!” I scream again, and all the pain wells up.
“Fuck this.”
Rory knocks Cyn off me and rolls me onto my back. He grabs my wrist and pins it to the mat, then the other.
“You’re not ever going to believe us, so let me show you,” he says in a dark voice.
