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Our eyes collide, and there’s so much devastation in hers, I know she knows. She can read me. She’s always been able to, and right now, she’s looking at me like I’ve betrayed her by even thinking about it. I don’t know what to say, but it doesn’t matter. Bianca does.
“Come back to bed.” She slides the drawer shut. “I want to feel you.”
Chapter 53
Lyric
When we get back to the house, Madden tries to avoid me. He leaves me standing in the middle of the living room and disappears down the hall, shutting himself inside his room. But he isn’t there for long. A few minutes later, he appears with his keys in hand.
“I have to go run an errand.”
“Who’s Zoe?” I blurt.
His gaze moves to the door, and there’s a wall behind his eyes that wasn’t there this morning.
“That’s not your concern.”
His words feel like a slap in the face, but if he notices, he doesn’t acknowledge it. He just walks away and seals me inside like it’s nothing. Like he isn’t giving me whiplash every time he opens his mouth.
For two minutes, I stand there like an idiot and listen to his truck rumble out of the driveway and down the road. And then I cry because it’s all I seem to be able to do lately.
But after I’ve had my cry, I get angry. So I look for the answers myself. I dig through every drawer and cupboard in the kitchen and living room before working my way down the hall to the guest rooms and then, finally, his room. In the end, all I manage to turn up is the haunting stack of images of Bianca he had taped to his wall. Like a masochist, I stare at them, and then I slam the drawer shut.
He’s going to turn me over to the police.
I know it in my gut. I can feel it. The conviction in his voice was clear when he told Ace what his priorities were. That must be why he couldn’t look at me before he left. He shut himself off so he could do what was necessary. And now it’s time for me to do what’s necessary too. I have to get out of here so I can think. So the decision can be mine and mine alone.
Panic drives me to act. I grab a kitchen chair and drag it down the hall to a guest room before I try ramming it against the window. It bounces right off the glass, taking the weight of my body with it. It’s reinforced, and I don’t know how to break it, but I can’t give up.
I head to the closet in the hallway, where I saw a toolbox earlier. I grab it, and when I get back to the bedroom, I toss everything at the window to see what leaves an impact. When I’ve gone through every tool, and the glass still hasn’t so much as cracked, I’m losing hope. In desperation, I take the hammer and pound the glass over and over in the same spot until exhaustion sets in, and I have to pause to take a breath.
I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. That much is obvious. When I hear a car pull up outside, I stop breathing as I peek through the window, expecting the worst. Only it isn’t the cops. It’s Birdie.
When she exits her vehicle and walks up to the house, I don’t think. I move on autopilot, squashing down my guilt as I plaster myself against the wall next to the front door. I close my eyes and try to calm my racing heart as she punches in the code.
“Hey, lady,” she calls out for me as the door swings open. “You have a visitor.”
I catch the door handle from the other side and yank it back before it closes, startling Birdie as I dart right past her.
“I’m sorry,” I yell over my shoulder as I sprint away. “I have to.”
I half expect her to follow or try to stop me, but instead, she just calls after me as I gain distance.
“Take it from someone who knows. Stay away from the ridges. You’re just gonna get yourself hurt up there.”
I don’t listen to that advice because it’s the only place I know to go that doesn’t have huge walls to scale. So I maintain my direction, a little sick over the fact that I probably just left Birdie in a mess of trouble. And then I think of Eden at the clubhouse, knowing I won’t be able to get her. Not today at least. But I’ll figure something out. I’ll have to.
I’m wearing sandals, so running across the desert landscape isn’t the easiest, but I keep going. I keep going because the pain of Madden’s impending betrayal is far worse, and I’m terrified of feeling the full weight of it.
