No one.
It’s just a misunderstanding.
She’s going to call any minute.
Silence descends upon us. I can’t even think about Sabella being dead. It isn’t possible. Not now, not ever. She’s alive, somewhere. She has to be. I fucking insist on it.
I send out a group text to brothers. They’ll help me look. We’ll find her together.
“Do you want me to drop you back at your car?” he asks, his words barely making it through to me. I look up at him and nod, and several minutes later he pulls into the parking lot of school again.
I was here less than an hour earlier. Things were fucked up then, but nothing like this. This is something I won’t recover from. I glance across at Maxwell Gunner, my father, seeing the total terror on his face that Sabella might be dead. He pulls up next to my car, his gaze is out of the window. His jacket is torn, his pants full of dirt and blood is smeared down his chin and temple. Small bruises are beginning to form under his skin, purple and green bruises from each fist I had hit him with.
He’s empty and broken, just like me, and he’ll never recover from this either, I realize.
I open my door and get out, closing it with a small click.
I lean down to look in his open window. His eyes meet mine sending searing pains through my gut at the anguish I see in his eyes. He does love her.
“She’ll be okay, Dad,” I say with a nod before standing back up.
He leaves a moment later, no screeching tires or smoke billowing. He’s calm and collected.
I watch until his car is gone, then make my way to school. I don’t see Sebastian’s car anywhere, so I guess they already left and Patience either went through with the task or not. It all seemed so important before, and now it means nothing—nothing at all if I don’t find my sister.
My phone lights up with a text, and my heart nearly stops at the possibility it’s Sab, but it’s not her, it’s one of my brothers.
LUST: WE’RE ON OUR WAY. ENVY SAID YOU’RE AT SCHOOL. HE MENTIONED LEAVING YOUR GIRL THERE BECAUSE SOMETHING CAME UP.
What the fuck?
I race up the stone steps toward the dean’s office before heading down the wood-paneled corridors like the devil himself is chasing me. The office doors are all closed on either side of the corridor, but I hear music coming from the last one. I go lightheaded as the world around me slows. My feet pound down the corridor, but my steps sound hollow on the hard floor.
My knuckles are still bloody and raw from hitting my father, and I find I’m clenching and unclenching them the closer I get to the music.
I’ve been here before, in a moment just like this, following the sound of music. It hadn’t served me well then, and the dread building in my gut makes me think it won’t serve me well now.
I squeeze my eyes closed as I stand in front of the wooden door, my hand on the handle.
“Sebastian was here,” I murmur to myself. “He would have helped her.”
But I know in my gut something is wrong. He left her.
I turn the handle on the door, just like I had as a child, and push it open. And just as I had as a child, I watch as a man fucks into a woman, his big white ass moving at rapid speed as he grunts and groans, pulling his pleasure from her body.
As a child, I had watched, transfixed by what I was seeing, unsure, uncertain, and a little afraid. I had thought it was wrong and dirty, when it hadn’t been. It had only been wrong because Patience’s mom was married.
But this…this is wrong.
He shifts, moving to the side, and I see his hand is on her throat, his fingers wrapped tightly around Patience’s beautiful skin. Her face is devoid of anything. It’s just empty. Her eyes are squeezed closed as tears slip between her lashes.
Pain like I’ve never felt tears through me. Every thrust of the dean’s hips is like a stab to my heart. Every grunt he gives is a nail in my coffin.
Without thinking, I grab the first thing I can, a long black umbrella, and I stalk toward him, raising it high and slamming it into the side of his head.
He cries out and staggers away from Patience, blood trailing down his cheek as he turns to look at me. Patience is crying, wailing as her tears pour down her face and she hurries to cover herself back up.
I glare at the dean. “I’m going to kill you,” I speak calmly.
