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This time, I must have actually passed out, or slept, or something, because when I woke up I was in the guys’ suite, stretched out on Garrett’s bed and wrapped in blankets like a mummy.
“Wha—”
“Sweetheart, you’re awake.” Micah’s face filled my vision, his eyes crinkling in relief, but I didn’t get a chance to more than blink at him stupidly before he turned away. “Garrett, she’s awake.”
The reply came from the other room. “Okay, go help Devan. You guys have thirty minutes, then we’re gone.”
Micah leaned down, pressing a soft kiss to my forehead, and then he disappeared, the door clicking shut behind him.
“What’s going—” I tried again, struggling to sit up, but my words broke off as pain lanced through my side. Garrett was there a second later, bending over me.
“Lie still,” he said, his tone gentle but no-nonsense. “You’ll pull the stitches.”
Stitches?
I tugged the blankets away and looked down. I’d been stripped out of my soaking dress—oh God, I’d ruined more clothes, Frank’s and Julie’s this time; they were never going to forgive me. There was nothing I could do about it in that moment though. Someone had redressed me in an oversized t-shirt—Micah’s, I thought—and a pair of my own pajama pants I’d left in their room. Pulling up the hem of the shirt, I saw Garrett was right. Two rows of tiny, neat stitches ran down my side, sealing two wounds just below my ribs. Another line of stitches ran along my left forearm, bisecting puckered red burn scars. I gawked at the black threads, dark against my pale skin, until Garrett tugged my shirt down and pulled the blanket back up. He tucked it tight against me before crouching to sit next to me on the bed.
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
I took stock. “Um…my head hurts…and my cheek…my arm…and my side…but I’m not cold.”
He gave a ghost of a smile. “No, you weren’t in the water long enough to get hypothermic. And Micah cleaned out and stitched up the knife wounds. You got lucky—Drew has terrible aim. None of the wounds are deep, and he didn’t cut through anything vital. Your face is bruised; you’ll have a hell of a black eye in the morning, but nothing’s broken. You’ll just be sore for a while and have to take it easy while those wounds heal.”
“What is…how…” I struggled to organize my thoughts, and finally settled on, “Drew?”
“He’s dead,” Garrett said flatly.
I didn’t flinch. I’d already known that.
“What happens now?” I whispered. Somehow I was guessing we didn’t all just pretend nothing had happened.
Garrett looked at me with sad eyes. “We have to leave,” he told me quietly.
A tight knot of dread started to form in my gut. “Where are we going?”
I already knew the answer even before Garrett grimaced. “You are going back to Chicago,” he told me, quiet but firm.
“And what about you guys?”
He shook his head. “We have some things to take care of.”
I was getting tired of his non-answers. I’d been stabbed, dumped in a frozen lake, and watched a boy get shot. I was entitled to know what the fuck was going on.
“Why can’t I go with you?” I demanded.
“You just can’t,” he said harshly. “You’ll be safe with your aunt.”
I struggled to sit up, pushing his hands away when he tried to stop me. “You said I’d be safe here, and obviously that wasn’t true. You didn’t tell me I was in danger in California—” I knew that wasn’t fair; he hadn’t even known I was going to California, but my voice was rising along with my anger, and I couldn’t find it within me to stop.
“You keep secrets from me, secrets I have a right to know. You also neglected to tell me that my aunt is the person who killed Drew’s brother. You didn’t think that was worth telling me? Maybe I don’t want to go back to Chicago and stay with a murderer!”
His eyes grew steely. “Maybe you’ve forgotten that I just shot someone? Your aunt isn’t the only murderer.”
I hesitated, but only briefly. It was true, but that was different. My voice rose again. “Stop treating me like a child. Tell me what’s going on, and let me make my own decisions. I want to come with you.”
He growled low in his throat, then rubbed his hands through his hair in a frustrated motion, mussing the carefully styled strands. Only then did I realize he, too, had changed his clothing. He was wearing dark jeans and a black hoodie, and his clothes from the performance were nowhere to be seen. Glancing around, I realized the entire room was immaculate, nothing but me and the blankets on the bed, the rest of the room returned to the same pristine condition it must have been in before they had arrived. I glanced out of the open door into the common room and found it in the same condition. The knot in my stomach pulled tighter.
“Wait—when are we leaving?” I asked.
