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“Dad,” I cut in before my other parent ends up getting shot, my voice soft but stern. “I would never let her die, and you know that. Please just trust us.”
His glare sears through me, but I don’t look away, my entire body beginning to shake from the mix of adrenaline, shock, and panic.
Scoffing, he turns away, muttering under his breath, “I can’t fucking believe this shit. Adeline, what the fuck have you gotten involved in?”
I frown. “I didn’t even do anything, Dad.”
He turns back to me with incredulity. “You think I didn’t see the three of you kill those men in cold blood? The little crazy one—”
“Don’t call me crazy!” Sibby screeches from beside me, causing me to flinch, the pitch hurting my ears. I pause, noting how manic she looks right now. Her chest is pumping, and her brown eyes are wild, like she’s a tiger cornered in a small cage.
Dad must see it, too, because he trains his glare onto me. “Don’t sit here and act like you’re the daughter I raised,” he barks. “You just murdered someone.”
“He was going to kill Mom,” I defend, in disbelief he’s lecturing me right now. He’s in shock and angry, and taking it out on me.
He clenches his teeth, baring them at me as he spits, “If she dies, this will be all your fault. That bullet hit her because of you!”
His words feel like a bullet of their own, hitting me right in the chest and punching the air out of my lungs.
“What?” I choke out.
“When you were fighting with that guy, and the gun went off,” he barks, his face reddening. He stares at me like… like I’m a monster. “The bullet ricocheted and hit your mother.”
My mouth opens, speechless. I remember it ricocheting but never saw where it hit, distracted by the man I was fighting with.
Wave after wave of guilt slams into me, and fuck… this is my fault. I blink, my vision blurring with a fresh wave of tears. It feels as if my chest is cracking wide open, my heart spilling out right alongside my mother’s.
“She’s not the one that pulled the trigger,” Zade barks, defending me.
Huffing, he turns around and stares out his window, vibrating with fury.
“This is your fault, too,” he accuses snidely, directing it toward Zade. “The both of you. None of this would’ve happened if it wasn’t f
or your criminal boyfriend, Adeline.”
Zade turns his head to my father, the leather steering wheel groaning beneath his tightened fists, and for a moment, I’m convinced he’s going to completely snap it in half.
“I think it’s best you shut your fucking mouth from now on, or else I will do it for you. As you’ve made clear, I’m not a good man, and I care very much about how you talk to Addie. That man was holding a goddamn gun to your daughter’s head. This is nobody’s fault but the people who broke into your home.”
Dad meets his stare, words on the tip of his tongue. In the end, he shakes his head and turns to look out the window again, content with where his fingers are pointing.
The car falls into a weighted silence, the four of us conflicted for different reasons.
I look down at my mom, a sob working up my throat as I stare down at her pale face. My tears drip onto her cheeks, but I don’t dare remove my hands from the wound to wipe them away.
“I’m so sorry, Mom. I don’t want to do this life without you, so stay with me, okay?”
Try as I might, my PTSD is beginning to resurface as Zade whips us into a driveway within twenty minutes, driving up to a wooden cabin with a warm yellow glow emitting from the windows. I recognize this cabin—barely.
Zade brought me here right after he found me, and I hardly remember a thing about this place or Teddy, just that both the house and the doctor were warm and inviting. Opposite to the memories of a different doctor that are currently sending my blood pressure through the roof.
“This is Teddy’s house?” I ask, my hands numb.
Flashbacks of waking up in a make-shift hospital, an old man with pale blue eyes and a deranged smile beneath his bushy mustache leaning over me, asking me to come with him. My heart pumps wildly, and it feels like it’s cracking my rib cage from the force.
The second the car comes to a stop, Sibby is scrambling out of the car as if she was stuck underwater with no air. She storms off somewhere, muttering about having to leave her henchmen behind. None of us have the mental capacity to worry about her in this second.
“Yes. I know you might not remember much, but his name is Teddy Angler, and his son is Tanner. They’re good friends of mine,” he answers, shutting the car off and hurrying to the back door.
