Page 111 of If You Dare

Seconds left to tell him everything I need to. To tell him how much I love him. How much I ache for him when he’s not around. How being with him helps me remember my best friend and grieve her. How his laugh makes me smile even when I’ve forgotten how. How getting wrapped in his arms makes me feel like I’m home.

I came here to save Aneesa. But I’ve only endangered Wes.

“Wes!”

But it’s not my voice calling out to him.

Still, he doesn’t glance their way. “Violet,” he breathes.

Tears well. He can still talk. He can still breathe.

With a bloody hand, he reaches for me, grasping mine like I’m his lifeline, the only thing tethering him to this world.

Footsteps charge into the warehouse, echoing around us.

Nineteen hockey players stampede across the concrete with sticks in hand, and somehow, miraculously, Wes manages a tiny smile. “I called for backup.”

Luke is at the helm, and once he spots me and Wes covered in blood, he sets his sights on Trey, still clutching the knife. “Fuckingdropit, dude!”

Shouts before a meaty slap against the concrete wall. Behind Wes, the rest of the team has Trey pinned and disarmed.

Relief manages to rush through me, even as every inch of me remains motionless in agony.

“You three, help me get these two to the hospital,” Luke instructs. The first time I’ve ever seen him like this—giving orders, taking charge. I’m reminded again of why Chloe liked him so much. “The rest of you, get those assholes back to Coach. Let him figure out what to do with them.”

* * *

Wes

All the nursesand doctors in this fucking hospital are incompetent. The cut across my throat is a superficial one. Didn’t slash my windpipe or hit any major arteries. For someone who loves cutting people with knives so much, Trey sure is shit at it. A few stitches to the neck and I’m practically good as new, yet they keep fucking worrying about me when they should be worrying abouther.

“Why the fuck is no one in here with her?” I roar out her open door. “My girl just got fucking assaulted! This is your last warning. If someone doesn’t get their ass in this room and take care of hernow, I’m dragging you all down to hell with me!”

A pissy nurse and a dead-eyed doctor hustle into the room. I don’t really give a fuck what kind of attitude they want to give me as long as they do their fucking jobs and take care of her.

Despite the pain she’s in, she manages to smile every time I bark an order.

Her mom arrives about an hour after I made the call, and I’m about to step out of the room to give them some privacy when she grabs my arm. “Thank you for protecting my daughter, Wes.” Her eyes are shiny. “And for forgiving her.”

I just hope she’s forgiven me too. For not believing her. For letting that scumbag Trey get anywhere fucking near her.

As soon as she can speak, she tells me what Trey confessed to her while he and the rest of those scumbags were beating the shit out of her: He drugged Chloe’s drink the night she died. He drugged Violet’s too, but she never drank any of it.

Who knows. Maybe I could’ve lost them both that night.

Apparently, a routine toxicology report doesn’t detect GHB, so the report only showed alcohol in Chloe’s system during her autopsy. Maybe if we’d known to look for it, the medical examiner would’ve been able to determine whether she would’ve survived the push into the pool if she hadn’t been drugged.

Even if Violet hadn’t pushed her, maybe Chloe still would’ve jumped. Maybe I still wouldn’t have been able to save her.

Trey will never be held responsible for what he did to my sister. Even if we could somehow prove that the GHB is what ultimately led to Chloe’s death, we can’t prove he was the one who put it in her drink.

But we can hold him responsible for what he did to Violet.

I take her hand and kneel at her bedside. Her head tilts, puzzled. “I’m so fucking sorry, Violet. I put all the blame on you. I put you through hell and back to pay for a crime that wasn’t even yours.”

“I pushed her,” Violet whispers, voice hoarse and eyes shiny.

I blink back my own tears, shaking my head. “Yeah, and look how many other people push their friends into pools. They’re not criminals, and neither are you. You and I both know Chloe wouldn’t have died if Trey hadn’t spiked her drink.”

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