But that’s not why I’m stuck. It’shim.Nathan.
He keeps flooding my vision. Slipping in like a ghost, like a nightmare with perfect teeth and hands that used to feel safe. Every time I blink, I see him. His face, his body, his mouth. The smirk at the end of that tape—that fucking tape—the last time my locker opened and I found the end of my life inside it.
I’m right back there.
The cubby. The envelope. The tape. The threat. The second I touched that locker door here, it all came back. Every detail. Every breath. Every lie.
Now the memories are eating me alive.
I can’t stop pacing. I feel like my skin doesn’t fit.
I stumble across the container, hands shaking so hard they look like they belong to someone else. I claw at my forearms, my neck, my chest, anything to stop the itching under my skin. Anything to shut my brain down for one fucking second.
But it won’t. It just gets louder.
“Nathan, stop—” I don’t even realize I said it until I hear my own voice cracking in the steel walls.
I drag my hands through my hair, pulling hard, yanking at the roots, anything to drown out his name echoing in my skull. My breath hitches, turns harsh, turns into a sob I choke back down because no one here is going to see me cry.
I scream into the empty room. A raw, broken sound that bounces around the metal like something dying. “STOP! GET OUT OF MY FUCKING HEAD—”
I slam into the wall with my fist. Once. Twice. Again. My knuckles split on the third hit, warm blood trickling down to my wrist, but I barely feel it.
I drop to my knees, gripping my hair again, nails digging into my scalp.
Forty memories a second. Forty knives. Forty ways I ruined my life.
I’m alone. Alone with every ghost I made. Alone with withdrawal clawing through my veins. Alone with Nathan’s voice in my ears and Rafe’s shadow behind my eyelids.
And I don’t know which one terrifies me more.
I can’t breathe in here anymore. The walls are too close. The air is too thin. The ghosts are too loud.
My fingers slip off the metal again, and I push myself upright—shaking, dizzy, stomach twisting. I grab the handle, yank the container door open, and stagger out into the yard like something feral crawling its way out of a trap.
The light blinds me. The cold slaps me. The ground tilts and I stumble forward, bare feet slipping on gravel because I didn’t even bother with shoes—I justneeded out.My heart is punching at my ribs hard enough to bruise. My hands are clawing at my own skin again, dragging down my arms, twitching, trembling, needingsomething. Anything. Because I can’t take it anymore.
My head is splitting open. My body is screaming. Nathan is everywhere—behind my eyes, under my skin, in every shadow. I need a fix. I need a hit. I need silence. I needsomethingin my veins before I claw myself out from the inside.
I trip over nothing and slam straight into a chest—warm, solid, familiar chaos.
Finn catches me before I can eat gravel. His hands clamp around my elbows, steady but surprised. “Whoa, rookie—watch it, you trying to kiss me or kill me?”
I shake my head hard, too hard, because everything spins. My fingers curl into his shirt like I’m drowning. My voice comes out shredded. “Take me to Kai,” I gasp. “Please—Finn—please—I need— I need him— I need something—I’m going fucking crazy—”
Finn’s grin dies instantly. He looks me over from head to toe—the tremors, the glassy eyes, the pacing marks on my arms, the dried blood on my knuckles, my bare feet, my hair sticking to my face with sweat—and his expression shifts like he’s piecing together a puzzle he didn’t know he was solving.
“Shit,” he mutters, gripping my shoulders tighter when my knees buckle. “Okay, okay—hey—look at me—right here—look.”
I try, but my eyes won’t focus. Everything’s shaking. “Take me to Kai,” I beg again, voice cracking. “Please—please—I can’t— I can’t—”
He winces at the sound. Like my desperation actually hurts him. “Alright, pretty boy,” he murmurs. “Let’s go. I got you.” And he starts dragging me across the yard—not mocking, not teasing, not playing. Just moving fast because he knows. He’s seen this before. And he knows exactly where I’m going next.
Straight to the dealer with the needles.
By the time we reach Kai’s door, my whole body feels like it’s vibrating out of its skin. Sweat pours down my back, down my ribs, dripping off my jaw like I’ve been running for hours when I’ve barely taken fifty steps. My vision blurs in and out—static, shadows, light smears—and every few seconds my kneesgive, like my bones are made of fucking glass.
Finn pounds on the metal frame. “Doc! Open up—he’s crashing hard.”
