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“You’ve been here the entire night?” I asked. “With Ana?”
“With Ana,” she repeated.
Deciding that I wouldn’t get anywhere with her, I walked back, noticed an orange bottle of pills on the kitchen table from her hospital visit, and said good night to her, not trusting a word she had said to me tonight.
I needed to tell João, but I couldn’t bring Akio over to Landon’s house, especially if Kai was going to be there tonight. And I refused to bring Akio back to his house because I didn’t want to face his parents. They had probably left dinner a while ago.
Instead of dropping Akio off in his gated community, I turned onto my street and parked in the driveway, hoping that Mom wouldn’t kill me for leaving and that she would bring Akio home for me. She was friendly with them, right? Had probably smoothed everything over by now.
Glancing up at the front door, I frowned at the front porch light that wasn’t on. Usually, Mom stood like a hawk outside when I was supposed to be coming home. She was always perched and waiting to chew me out or scold me for something.
After deciding not to worry about it, I hurried in through the front door and tugged a still-shocked Akio in behind me. “Mom!”
No answer.
Once I locked the door behind me, I let go of Akio and turned on the foyer lights. “MOM!”
Nothing.
I turned the corner to step into the living room and froze, letting out a piercing scream. My knees gave out, and I collapsed onto the hardwood floor. In a puddle of blood, Mom and Dad lay on the couch, beaten, bruised, and bleeding.
“Akio!” I screamed, tears streaming down my face. “Akio! What did your parents do?”
Akio scrambled to the living room, caught sight of my parents, then ran through the house toward the bathroom. A couple moments later, he reemerged with a bunch of medical tools to stop the bleeding and heal their wounds.
Neither of us were doctors, but we had to do something.
We had to heal them. They couldn’t die.
Once we secured the bandages around their wounds and sat them up, Akio gave them some oral medication to ease the pain and knock them out for a little bit, and then he stood back and ran a hand through his hair.
“They sent them a warning,” Akio said. “To keep their daughter from getting in their business.”
