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The room is stifling, and the tightness in my throat travels down to my chest, squeezing and squeezing until I can’t actually breathe as I stare at the empty bed.
Please be okay.
Please, please let them be okay.
“What’s the deal with this place?” Harrison’s voice fills the place. “There’s security everywhere.”
“Parker?” Seb follows him, pausing beside me while I continue staring blankly at the heap of blankets Easton should be lying in. “What’s going on?”
“What’re you doing here?” Crossing my arms over my chest, I take a step back, away from them.
“Where’s East?” Seb spins to face me, his eyes narrowing when he looks around the room and takes in the other people. “Parker! Where is he? Summer?”
All the control I’ve been holding on to for the sake of composure shatters at the sound of his dread-sharpened words.
Everything blurs as white-hot tears fill my eyes. All I can do is whisper, “Gone.”
“What do you mean ‘gone’’?”
“The fuck is going on, dude?” Harrison tacks on to Seb’s question. “You said he was going to be fine!”
If I open my mouth to speak, I’ll only end up falling apart more. I can’t do that. I need to stay strong for Easton and Summer. They deserve better than my fucking breakdown.
“Fuck,” Harrison mutters, looking back at the bed. “You sai—”
“Harrison,” Seb cuts him off, shutting him up. “You need to tell us what’s happened, man. What we can do to help…” With a blast of pitying breath, he asks, “Can we help? Parker…”
“I should’ve done something sooner. You were right all along.”
“Right about what?” Drawing closer, Seb focuses on the monkey that I refuse to let go of.
“Everything…Heather…every…thing,” I breathe between hitched breaths that make it impossible to hold my tears at bay. “She took them…my son…my girl…she-sh-she t-took everything…”
“The fuck?” Harrison looks around the room, pausing to look at the one officer that’s still stationed outside the room as the liaison points between me and the team trying to find Easton and Summer.
“I should’ve let her choke on her own vomit. Should’ve let her rot in her own fucking shit…” I bark, the anger bursting from me as I spin away from everyone looking at me.
There’s nothing I can do to hold it together anymore. The worry. The rage. The terror and the regret all boil over, scalding every last cell of my being with a pain that I can’t bear. Collapsing into the windowpane, I zero in on the empty spot where our hire car should be.
God forbid if Heather hurts them. There won’t be anything or anyone that will stop me from destroying her after this.
“I know she’s unstable and she doesn’t exactly have the best track record, but for what it’s worth,” Seb says with a squeeze of my shoulder. “For what it’s worth, I…I don’t think that Heather would hurt Easton intentionally. You said it yourself, in her own fucked-up way, she loves him.”
“That’s bullshit!”
“I think Seb’s right.” Harrison blows out a breath. “The woman may be a cunt, but for her to take him…”
“And what do you know?” I turn so fast that Harrison rears back. “What the fuck do you know about anything other than getting laid?”
“Whoa, man, we’re trying to help.” Seb pushes between Harrison and me.
I didn’t even realize that we were so close.
“Unless you can do better than the police—”
“You want to be an asshole, go for it.” Harrison moves Seb out of the way and steps to me. He’s got that spiteful glint in his eyes, and for once, I’m glad for it. I want him to rip me to shreds because it doesn’t matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to do it myself. “You should be pissed because you could’ve avoided all of this if you had actually listened to any of us.”
“Really? This is what you want to waste your energy on?” Seb tries to pry us apart, but the bastard in me pushes for more, and Harrison is hotheaded enough to deliver.
