I went straight to the office. Icon and Legend were still inside. They both looked up when I came in, and the second Icon saw the worried look in my eyes, he stood up. “What’s wrong?”
“Aria is gone.”
Legend frowned. “What do you mean ‘gone’?”
“She took a pregnancy test. It came out positive, and when I came out of the bathroom, she was gone.”
Legend’s body went rigid. Icon was already putting his drink down. Legend snatched his phone out and unlocked it, probably to check her location.
A second later, his jaw tightened. “She turned her location off.”
Instantly, we headed straight outside, with Legend so far ahead of me and Icon that he nearly left us behind. By the timewe got to the front of the house, the security at the gate was already in a frenzy, running back and forth, talking over each other in headsets, like something had gone very wrong.
Legend barked, “Where the fuck is she?”
One of the guards turned toward us, already looking stressed and afraid. “Sir—”
“Where did she go?” I asked, because I needed them to answer before Legend started choking people.
The guard looked at Legend first. “Mrs. Cartier left out the gate in her truck.”
Legend charged forward. “And y’all let her?”
The guard hesitated for half a second, but he said it anyway. “She told us if we followed her, she’d kill us.”
My mouth fell open.
Legend spat, “What?”
The guard swallowed. “We tried to follow anyway, and she shot at us.”
All three of our eyes bucked.
“She what?!” I shrieked.
The guard nodded, still looking like he did not fully believe it himself. “She sent two rounds toward the lead truck when we pulled out behind her. We fell back. We figured we could pick her up once you got her location.”
Legend looked like he wanted to break something.
My hands lifted and landed on my legs with a hard smack. “Great,” I hissed, while glaring at Legend. “You and your fertile dick made Aria run away.”
ARIA CARTIER
I walked up to that receptionist desk with my hands shaking so badly I had to shove them in my pockets. My mind raced in circles, and my thoughts smashed into each other like cars in a pileup. I knew when I saw that positive pregnancy test that I had completely lost it, and ever since, every bit of sanity I might have had left had been slipping away while I stood there under those harsh fluorescent lights as the woman behind the desk looked up from her computer screen. Her face was expressionless like she had seen a thousand messes like me walk through those doors already.
"I'm here to check myself in.”
She looked back at me with that practiced neutral expression they teach people in places like this. "Welcome to Lakeside Behavioral Health Center," she replied, like I didn’t know I had driven myself to a psychiatric facility, after driving around for hours with no plan other than to stop the screaming in my head. "What brings you in today?"
I gripped the edge of the desk harder, my nails digging into the fake wood laminate as the words spilled out. "I feel like I'm about to kill myself or somebody else, that's what. I need aroom, some meds, whatever y'all got to lock me down before I do something I can't take back."
She didn’t even blink. "We can't admit you directly here. You need to go to the emergency room first for a full evaluation and placement. They will determine if inpatient care is necessary and where to send you."
I slammed my palm down on the desk hard enough to make her jump back in her chair. Staff aimlessly working behind her turned to stare.
"Evaluation?! Bitch, I'm telling you I'm losing my goddamn mind! I keep getting pregnant like some kind of curse, popping out kids I love but cannot handle without wanting to end it all every single fucking day. I don't trust myself right now. I'm literally going crazy, and you sitting there telling me to drive to some ER? I’m not going to make it to the fucking ER!"
She reached under the desk slowly, probably hitting some silent alarm, while two security guards started moving toward me from the hallway. My heart pounded wild in my ears, but instead of backing down, I yanked my purse open and pulled out the Glock I always carried.
