"You okay back there?"
The driver's watching me in the rearview.
"Fine."
I'm not fine. I'm nowhere close.
The brownstone feels wrong without Julian. Too quiet, as if someone's sucked all the sound out of the air and left only this oppressive, suffocating silence that presses against my eardrums and makes me want to scream just to fill the void.
I wander from room to room, my footsteps echoing on the hardwood floors in a way they never did before, each hollow sound amplifying the emptiness.
I dig through his desk drawer until I find it—a torn envelope with Mark's number scrawled on the back. Julian mentioned him once. Best friend since high school. Works in construction.
My hands won't stop shaking as I dial.
"Yeah?"
"Mark? This is Liza. Julian's—"
"I know who you are."
His voice is rough. Guarded.
"Julian's been arrested," I blurt out, the words tumbling over each other in a frantic rush. "They charged him with assault. Aggravated assault. They're holding him at the police station downtown and I can't—" My voice cracks, splinters into something raw and desperate. "They told me I can't contact him directly. That I'm not family, so I don't have any rights to see himor talk to him, and I don't know what to do. I don't know how to help him and this is all my fault and—"
"Slow down."
I suck in air. Try again.
"He needs a lawyer. He was defending me but they charged him anyway and—"
"Where is he?"
"Cumberland PD. Downtown station."
"I'm on it. Heading there now."
Relief crashes through me like a physical wave, so overwhelming and sudden that my knees nearly buckle beneath me. I grip the edge of Julian's desk to keep myself upright, my fingers white-knuckled against the dark wood.
"Thank you. God, thank you—"
"Don't thank me yet."
He hangs up.
I call Jenna next. She picks up on the second ring.
"Liza?"
The second I hear her voice—warm and familiar and safe—something inside me finally shatters completely, all the fear and guilt and panic I've been holding back breaking through the fragile dam of my composure like a flood.
"Daniel…” Suddenly, I can’t speak.
“Liza? Are you okay?!” Jenna is frantic. Worried.
I inhale a long breath, attempting to calm myself down. The last thing I want is to scare Jenna. “Daniel… tried to kidnap me,” I finally manage.”
“What the fuck!” Jenna says. “Are you okay?!”
