I sink my teeth into my bottom lip when she snatches a bottle of Jack Daniel’s from the counter and closes the space between us and the front door.
We slip through it, stumble down the stairs, laughing, then running, toward the end of the driveway and onto the dark road,where we each tear off our black sandals, discarding them before they cut at our ankles.
We leave them to melt on the blacktop behind us, moving toward the centerline.
“Chase!”
I know that voice.
“Chase!”
I try to open my eyes, but my efforts prove to be futile.
It’s not until a palm slaps across my face, reeling me back, that I feel them crack through a crusted barrier. They are dry as they work to peel themselves open, and my tongue is heavy, too thick for my mouth. I blink, trying to clear my vision, trying to find my way back.
“Fuck, I’m sorry, man. I thought you were dead.” Harlen inhales sharply, sucking his panic down. “What the fuck happened?”
His voice is stone cold.
Golden curls lay at the shutters of my eyes, then Harlen’s bright blue, yet stormy ones blink into view.
I look down, toward the ground.
There is bloodeverywhere.
And I wonder for a moment why there is so much, and whether it was all mine.
My white T-shirt has been stained red. Droplets and smears of crimson—that had turned black—are splattered across the cream carpet.
I squeeze my eyes closed, propel my memories forward. They come back to me almost instantly.
The drink I took from Aria.
My frenzied search for Harlen, for Jade, and for Laiken.
How everything started spinning before I could find them. How my legs and arms stopped working, my dad’s fist,no,Colton’s.
I squeeze my eyes closed harder, willing the nightmare away, begging for a replacement, yet when I pry them open the crimson stains are still there, painted across my body, a mark on my soul.
I clear my throat, a rustle in my chest. Reaching for Harlen’s gaze, and his wrist, he latches onto my elbow and helps me to my feet.
“Aria drugged me, Colton jumped me,” I tell him.
Harlen’s fingers are through his hair, his teeth clenched. “That motherfucker.”
I run my hands back through my own hair, split knuckles grazing my scalp. I don’t say anything else, because what happened to me didn’t matter, but what happened next did.
“Where’s Jade and Laiken?”
Harlen tries handing me a bottle of water.
I don’t take it.
“Last time I saw them was when they were in the kitchen?—”
The contents of my stomach swirl. I cut him off, “Was that when we saw them…earlier in the night? Maybe hours ago?”
He nods, then he pales. The drugging, the beating falling into place.
