Page 140 of The Road to Ruined

"Who's that?" I ask when they show a clip of a girl with her face blurred, claiming she was with us in Seattle and Portland, that we were very close, and could tell then that the relationship was violent.

"I have no fucking idea," River says.

"Probably some girl Eli picked up who just wanted to feel included," Hazel says. "Maybe they offered her money, but she didn't have anything worth saying. Besides, if we're all dead, it's not like we can speak up and say she's wrong."

They interview a couple of others who claimed to have been close to the band in personal or professional capacities before discussing when the news broke about Heidi and Blakely's trip to Denver.

"That was a sad day for me,"Blakely said."I knew as soon as I saw her that she was gone…I knew I'd wasted my time. I was so angry, and again, I wish I hadn't been."

"We were worried about her but embarrassed as a family,"my dad says."She put us under scrutiny in our community and at our jobs, too, with her behavior. Our reaction was warranted at the time."

"Mmm…I don't know about that," Luca says.

"Sounds fucking gross to me, honestly," Hazel says. "Sorry, Teagan."

"It's okay."

They move on, and another individual I don't recognize comes across the screen. His face is also blurred for his protection.

"I'm a driver in Albuquerque,"the man says."I drove who I now know to be Teagan, River, and Hazel to one of the Gods of Tomorrow concerts."

"It's fucking Carl!" Hazel shouts. "How did they get fucking Carl on this? What the fuck?"

"Oh my god, it is," I say.

"Who's Carl?" River asks.

"The Uber driver Hazel threatened with a knife," I answer.

He talks about how he could tell something was wrong and that I had been drugged and forced to be there. He says he wished he'd called the police, but he believed Luca when he told him he'd kill him.

"Luca De Rossi threatened your life?"the interviewer asks.

"I didn't know that's who it was at the time, but yes,"Carl says."He recited my address and told me something very bad would happen to me if I ever mentioned this to anyone. I was afraid for my children."

"Yeah, you're talking now, though, aren't you, Carl?" Luca says.

"He was a chatty mother fucker," Hazel says.

Everyone laughs but Declan, who instead tilts my chin upward and kisses me lightly on the lips, smiling sadly. I'm sure he's thinking about what really made me so sick in that car. But we're good at playing our game now, and we play a lot.

They move on to Dallas, where they speculate that Luca or Declan killed Heidi's sister, then to my time in jail and the mental institution.

Even that doesn't bother me much.

But then they bring up Sebastian and how relieved they were to see that I'd met someone who seemed so nice and so normalwhen I'd had such difficulties reintegrating after my time at Rancho San Flores.

They have photos of us together at the wedding—even a short video of us dancing and kissing. I wasn't prepared to see that.

I bite down on my lip as my eyes start to water.

"Aww, Teagan," River says.

"It's okay," I lie, choking on the words. "I'm okay. It's kind of nice to see his face, actually."

Declan laces his fingers between mine and squeezes my hand. We never talk about him, but I wonder if it's nice for him, too.

Next, they show pictures of the hotel room—the crime scene—and speculate on what happened there.

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