The call is disconnected shortly after, and we pull into the lot. The drive back seemed to take hours, but it couldn’t’ve been more than six minutes.
The sun beats down on the gravel, making the air above it shimmer; it smells like hot metal and dust and the faint sweetness of cut grass. The rig sits in front of us, there’s movement behind the open curtains, and I see Linkin’s face through the window.
“What are they doing here?” I ask, quieter than I mean to.
He kills the engine, and the SUV goes suddenly, blessedly still. The click of the cooling motor sounds enormous in the hush. “Rowan texted them after he got the call,” Lucian says, thumb brushing across my knuckles. “Alex didn’t tell us much, so Rowan just told them to wait in your rig. You can tell them as much or as little as you want. I will handle the rest.”
I don’t answer. I’m watching the rig like it’s a living thing, like it might decide to close its doors and drive away without me. I feel like I’m at a crossroads, before and after the attack. “If you want, you can go shower,” Lucian adds, softer. “I can talk to them. When you come out, they’ll already know.”
I nod, the motion small and stubborn. He makes me wait in my seat as he walks around to the passenger side door. Lucian helps me down even though I don’t need it, and I let him because the contact steadies me. Our fingers stay laced as we walk toward the rig, the gravel crunching under our feet.
We barely reach the steps before the door flies open. Linkin stands there barefoot, hair a mess like he has been running his fingers through it since they got the text. He takes in my dirty and slightly torn clothes and the scrapes along my body, and his face goes pale.
“C’mere ‘Leste,” he says, voice low.
I step into him without thinking, and he wraps me in his arms as his chin rests on the crown of my head.
Lucian follows and shuts the door behind us, the sound a soft, decisive click that separates the inside from the outside. Korbyn sits cross-legged on the floor, chewing her thumbnail so hard the skin is white. Shiloh leans against the fridge with her arms crossed, watching me like I’m a fuse and she’s waiting for the spark.
I give Lucian a look that says I’ll be quick, and head down the hall toward the bathroom.
Linkin’s voice is tight when he asks, “What the hell happened?”
28
Celeste
The water hits my back in a relentless sheet. Every nerve ending is screaming at me, but I stay under the stream anyway, letting it beat down on me like it can cauterize the parts of me that were left gaping open after the attack. My hands keep moving; motion is the only grammar left to me. The loofah rakes over my skin until the rhythm becomes a litany I can mouth without thinking, each pass asking the same impossible questions that curl back on themselves and offer no answer. If I abrade the places that hurt, maybe the edges will dull, and the scene will sand down into something I can carry without it cutting me open every time I breathe.
I don’t feel clean, I feel stripped raw. Like the water is washing away everything except the parts I don’t want to look at.
The pressure builds in my throat again. I brace a hand against the tile, forehead dropping forward, trying to breathe around the pressure building in my throat.
The curtain rustles behind me. I can’t turn. I can’t stand the thought of seeing myself reflected in anyone’s eyes right now. I don’t want to see pity, worry, or anything that might make the tightness in my chest snap.
A hand reaches past me and twists the faucet off. The sudden silence is jarring, like the world has been muted.
“Baby,” Korbyn murmurs, her voice soft enough to slip under my guard. “The water’s freezing, please come out.”
Freezing.
I blink, disoriented. I hadn’t noticed the shift from scalding to cold. I hadn’t noticed anything except the noise in my own head. I don’t know how long I’ve been under the spray, like I’m trying to dissolve. Time feels warped and stretched thin, as if I stepped out of reality without meaning to.
I turn toward her, every movement heavy, like my limbs are soaked fabric instead of muscle and bone. My body feels unfamiliar, weighted, as if I’m moving through someone else’s gravity.
Korbyn wraps the towel around me with a gentleness she’s always used, then pulls me straight into her chest. Technically, she pulled herself into my chest since she’s half a foot shorter than me. Her face ends up pressed right into my boobs, and for a second, the absurdity of it almost cracks something in me. Her arms tighten, and I’m thankful she doesn’t ask a single question. Not about what happened or how I’m feeling. She just holds on like she’s stitching me back together with her bare hands.
I don’t have answers. I barely have thoughts, and the thoughts I do have ricochet between anger and fear. This ache keeps expanding, pressing against my ribs like it’s trying to make room for itself.
When she finally pulls back, she gives me her signature smirk that could probably stop a moving vehicle. “Come on, let’s get you dressed. Shiloh made you tea.”
I nod, because nodding is easier than speaking, and follow her out of the bathroom and change without looking at the bruising forming on my body. My stomach twists at the thought of walking into the living area and facing everyone after Lucian told them what happened. I can already imagine their faces: worry, anger, pity, all of it too heavy for me to carry right now. My pulse kicks up, sharp and fast, and I have to swallow around it.
Once I’m dressed, we step out of the room to hear hushed whispers coming from my kitchen. Korbyn’s hand slips toward mine, and our pinkies curl together like they always do when the world gets too sharp. My heart stutters as her gesture says what she isn’t.
No matter what, we are in this together.
Linkin is the first to move. He shifts on the couch, scooting over and patting the space between him and Lucian like he’s offering me a seat at the safest table in the world. “Right here,” he says, voice soft but steady. “This is the best spot in the world. You can sit between us.”
