Page 50 of Pretty Nightmare

Did she see me and Nathan?

Did she see the car over at the cottage?

Is she gone? Or is this just a stunt? A normal, Indie stunt?

Donovan’s voice is coming through my phone before I even realize I’ve called him. “Hello?”

“Where is she?”

“In her room. Why?”

“She’s not here, Donovan.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I just came upstairs and her screen has been pushed out and her window is open. She’s. Not. Here, Donovan. Where the fuck is she?”

“You saw me leave, McKay. I left her up in her room.”

“Awake or asleep?”

“She was awake when I took her up. But I gave her a sedative. A very strong sedative.”

“Then how did this happen?”

“How does anything ever happen with Indie?”

And again, Nathan’s words come back to me. Do you have any idea what kind of monster that man is?

No, I decide. I don’t.

There are several blank, silent seconds where I get lost for millions of years and then return to a world where nothing has changed, but everything is different.

“Just let her go, McKay. You can’t help her anymore. We all know she’s out of control and her disappearance a few weeks ago is just the beginning. She’s not yours, ya know.”

“I know,” I hear myself say. Because it’s true. She belongs to all of us.

And I don’t mean that the way it comes off, either. All three of us—hell, four, if you include Nathan—we’re responsible for what she is. It wasn’t Adam’s rules that drove her crazy. It wasn’t my overprotection, or Donovan picking her brain. And it certainly wasn’t Nathan’s enabling.

It was all of it.

It was all of us who did this to her.

We can’t even blame the trainers who came before us anymore. It’s so far past that now.

“I gotta go.”

“Wait,” I say. “What about Adam? What about Maggie?”

“I don’t know, McKay. It’s… it’s probably not gonna be good.”

“What the fuck do you mean? What the fuck does that mean?”

“I did a finger swipe of Maggie’s mouth before I handed her over to Adam and there were at least a dozen chewed-up berries in there. They are…” He pauses. “They’re highly toxic.”

“Did you call Adam?”

“He didn’t pick up.”