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Seeing me, Lo goes from a slouch to a pin-straight position. He’s next to Xander. My little elf wears bulky red headphones, likely listening to music in the corner. The seventeen-year-old looks the most shattered of anyone—when I thought that’d be Lo. It’s his son.
It sinks my gut.
I take off my baseball hat. Seems like the polite thing to do.
“I…” What do I even say? I just tore through my past to pry out and protect what I thought would be my future.Luna.Every time I picture Luna in that house, handcuffed on that bed, pain and rage rip inside my heart, and oxygen is acid. Burning me alive, inside-out.
I blink away the image. Suffocated by it, I turn around to leave.
“Stay,” Lo says, his voice sandpapered but sharp.
He wants me to stay? By the time it processes, he’s walking over to me. Everyone is watching, but I can’t tear my gaze off Xander’s dad. What’d I think he’d be? Angry, judgmental, pissed off that I’m the malevolent thing attached to his family, ready to kick my ass to Montana, wishing he’d already done it weeks ago?
But he’s none of those things.
His reddened eyes are windows into my heartbroken soul, and I blink back the surge of emotion. Flashes of the row house, stripping down, clothes on fire, Luna in my arms, knuckles searing, leaving without her, then the bright cameras, cop car, behind bars, waiting—it all courses through me.
I just want her to wake up.
“I tried…” I hear my voice shake.
Lo puts a hand on my shoulder. And he pulls me into a hug. It almost breaks me. Then he whispers, “I know.”
I start to shake my head.
“You did enough,” he breathes.
My hand flies to my pained face. Been thinking I could never do enough in his eyes, so I can hardly believe it. “I didn’t.”She might never wake up.
I don’t want to survive without her. I’ve never felt this crushing feeling in my life. It’s worse than drowning. Worse than being lit on fire. Worse than Luna’s biggest fear—floating endlessly in space.
I’d rather do all of those things than feel this.
He pulls back. I pinch my wet eyes and face him as he says sharply, “You didn’t put her there. You got her out.” He sounds as choked as I feel. “And I know…” He trails off, his throat thick with emotion. His brows are cinched. He runs his tongue over his molars, collecting himself. “I know what that took.” He’s trying to be grateful, but it’s buried beneath a lot of anguish. “They’ll make it out. Luna. Lily. They look small, but they’re tough.”
The shred of hope I’d given him earlier tonight, he’s returning to me. Can’t lie about how much I need it. I’m carrying this hope like a lit match. One wrong breath and it’ll extinguish.
“Yeah. They will,” I say quietly.
He pats my bicep, and when we split apart, he goes to talk to his brother. Across the room, Kinney is avoiding my gaze. Her fingers are paused on a page of a comic book. She’s at a table with the Calloway sisters and her Aunt Willow. ASuperheroes & Sconestote bag of comics is spilled out in front of the sixteen-year-old Hale.
I see Xander all alone.
He’s studying me, so I approach my client—one who’s been holed up at home since he learned I love his sister. So I haven’t been on his detail in weeks.
“This seat free?” I ask, nodding to the one beside him.
“Yeah.” He lifts himself out of a slump and watches me sit. “It’s morbid over here, just to warn you.”
“That’s alright,” I say softly. “It’s morbid everywhere. Hospitals aren’t usually cheery.”
“No kidding,” he mutters, then sniffs hard. He yanks the headphones to his neck, his amber eyes glassy from tears.
“Watcha listening to?”
“Uh…” He sniffs again. “Bob Dylan. Loretta Lynn…” He shrugs. “Banks got me into it a while back. I like it, but…honestly, it’s all kind of depressing right now.” Quickly, angrily, he wipes an escaped tear off his cheek. “I was supposed to be in that car, Donnelly. My mom—she asked me to go to the fucking Putt Palace, and I saidno.” His voice cracks. “I said no, and I should’ve been there. Then you might’ve been in the car with us.Everythingwould’ve been different. Better.”
“We don’t know that,” I breathe.
