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At his words, my blood ran cold. What did he just say? What did a twelve-year-old know about offing himself?
But before I could say another word, Casey turned and ran back up the stairs, locking his door behind him. Anger began boiling inside me. I knew it. I knew this would happen. Zane made a big show over here pretending like it was a big betrayal that we kept Casey from him, but he’d probably never even been interested in the boy. It was only his pride that was hurt, not his heart.
And now he was messing with Casey, driving him to the same end he’d driven his mother to.
I wasn’t going to let him do this to Casey.
I whipped out my phone, about to type out an angry message before I could think about it.What the fuck is your problem? How could you cancel on him last minute?I stared at the message, willing him to read it right now.
Then, two tiny green ticks appeared under my message.
He’d read it.
Five minutes passed, and he didn’t reply. Didn’t even bother coming up with a fucking excuse as to why he was doing what he did.
The top of my head threatened to blow off.
Suddenly, I was on the move.
“I’ll be back in a minute, Casey,” I yelled out and stormed toward the door. Even as I made my way over to Zane’s, I had no clear thought of what I was going to do. But I did know I wasn’t going to let Zane get away with breaking his son’s heart like that. Everyone else in this fucking world might let him walk all over them, and he was probably used to everything marching to his beat, but I didn’t care. I was going to give him a piece of my mind.
The drive there made me more than fuming mad, and it was nearly nightfall by the time I finally reached his place. My fists banged on his door, and I tapped my foot impatiently as I waited for him to answer.
And he sure took his sweet time in doing so. By the time he pulled open the door, I was a boiling cauldron ready to bubble over.
“What are you doing here?” His words were said in a deadpan voice that matched his empty expression.
“Why didn’t you answer my text?” I demanded, my voice almost trembling with rage. “I know you read it. How could you just cancel on Casey like that? He was so excited to come, and then you left him hanging and couldn’t even be bothered to explain.”
“Leave,” he commanded, and then he turned around and walked away, dismissing me.
Oh, he thought I would let it go just like that?
I stormed in after him, ignoring the relative darkness of the room. Moonlight beamed in from the high windows, casting a shadow over him as he moved. It made him look even more intimidating.
“Hey, I’m talking to you.” I grabbed his arm to turn him around, and that was when I saw it—his knuckles were raw and bloody. Like as though the skin was just ripped off them.
My anger immediately vanished to be replaced with horror.
“Oh my God, what happened?”
He finally turned around now, and I looked at his face once again. That was when I noticed he wasn’t just expressionless. His eyes looked like they’d been completely robbed of even the slightest bit of emotion or anything resembling life.
He was a walking dead man.
Something stilled inside me. No, he wasn’t playing a game with Casey. Something else was going on.
He was in pain.
I didn’t know when my hand moved or when they touched his cheek, but his eyes squeezed shut at my touch, scrambling my insides with riotous sensations.
“What happened?” I asked again in a quieter voice. The atmosphere, the throbbing tension between us, demanded quiet.
“Leave.” His words were just as firm, but now there was a tortured note in his tone that had my heart racing.
“Not until you tell me what’s going on,” I replied insistently.
“Leave,” he said again. “Or I won’t be able to stop what happens next.”
