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I glance at Tori in question, sensing there’s more to the story that she hasn’t told me. She tears her napkin into pieces, giving herself something to focus on as she explains.
“After the last beating, I was done, and he knew it,” she says. “I could have made trouble for him, and he decided he wanted me gone. So he threatened me and told me to leave town. At first, I thought I could stick it out, and eventually, he’d forget and move on. But Adam always got his way, and he made sure I had no choice. He attacked my mom in the parking lot as she was leaving work. She didn’t know who it was. She didn’t even see it coming. He beat her until she couldn’t move and left her lying there for an hour before someone saw her. When I was at the hospital with her, he called me and told me this was just the beginning. He said if I loved her, I would leave. I had no fucking choice. He made me lie to her and go live with my dad, leaving her alone just so nothing else would happen to her. To this day, she still doesn’t know the reason.”
“Jesus, Tori. That’s so fucked up.”
Tears leak from her eyes, and I can’t help feeling partially responsible for them. I should have tried harder to help her when I had the chance. But I didn’t see it back then. Everything she’s told me today is a complete contradiction to the brother I grew up with. I’d noticed some changes in Adam when I came back from the ranch, but it wasn’t until after my discharge that I really saw a different person. The cracks were starting to show, and I chalked it up to stress. But when I consider how psychotic Stefan could be, it’s not a stretch to imagine the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. At home, he ruled with an iron fist. He was controlling, manipulative, and when he didn’t get his way, he resorted to violence too. In public, everyone thought he was a goddamn saint. Were they really cut from the same cloth all along?
“I’m sorry,” I tell Tori with a sigh. “I know that’s not good enough, and I can’t change it now. But I would have helped you if I had known.”
“I know.” She offers me a watery smile. “I get that now. It’s kind of sad when I think about it. How different it could have been for both of us.”
“What do you mean?”
“If you had a chance to be with Bianca,” she says, as though it should be obvious. “I bet you’d still be together.”
Chapter 46
Madden
—PAST—
The steady drone of the heart monitor infiltrates my consciousness, a sobering reminder that despite what I had hoped, I’m still breathing. My heart is beating, my brain is functioning, and I’m alive, but Wyatt Adler isn’t.
Sometimes, it still feels like a dream. I think I’m back inside the wire, in my cot, trapped in the confines of my mind. If I could just wake up, I could stop it. I could change it. I could take his place, and he could take mine, and everything would be okay again. But then I do wake up, drenched in sweat, adrenaline pumping as darkness consumes me and the bitter reality sinks in.
That memory was real. The explosion that propelled me through the air was real. The heat on my face and the blood and sand in my mouth… all fucking real. And if I rewind it back, I can still hear the voices of Adler, Johnson, Carson, and Garcia as we made that final drive. One more week. We had one more goddamn week.
I don’t know how to close the gap from there to here. I don’t know how to make it make sense that I was lying there right next to him, and now I’m not. I’m in a fucking hospital in Germany, where the only facts I have to rely on are what they tell me.
I arrived here with swelling on the brain. Two burst fractures in my vertebrae. Broken ribs. A bullet wound. Deep lacerations to the legs. I don’t remember most of what they said happened after that even though they tell me I was initially conscious. I was placed in a medically induced coma to prevent brain damage, and then eventually underwent spinal surgery. They keep tossing around the word lucky. But I know there’s no such thing.
I broke regulations when I didn’t strap in that day. I wanted to be able to move quickly if I needed to, so I didn’t buckle up. And yet somehow, I survived when eleven others didn’t, including Johnson and Garcia from my rig. The final confirmation came as news that O’Brien had lost part of his leg, and Kelly had to have his entire shoulder reconstructed. And Adler was, in fact, dead. Every word they uttered after that sentence lost all meaning.
