Page 64 of Milked

He’s never hurt her, as far as I know, just like she said, but he’s a narcissistic bastard who gaslights the hell out of her. I’ve repeatedly tried to get her to leave him, but she never does. No doubt he manipulates her to stay.

I get to the club forty minutes later because I have to find the damn place on my phone’s GPS. I don’t go out a lot, so I’m not familiar with the country/western bar.

The place is huge and packed with cars since it’s Saturday night. I send her a quick text to tell me where she is, but she doesn’t respond.

I curse under my tongue and head inside to begin my search. After circling the massive club twice, checking the restroom area, and texting her two more times, I’m at a loss. I ignore the women hitting on me as I step outside and call her. There’s no answer, and it doesn’t go straight to voicemail, which means her phone is on.

“Dammit, Rowan,” I mumble. “I told you to stay inside.”

I quickly call Bryce to see if he has her. Maybe they made up again, which I hope not, because she seriously needs to stop dating the asshole.

He doesn’t answer either, so I shoot him a text to call me and let me know he has Rowan.

I check inside one more time, then give up when I can’t find her. The last place for me to check is the apartment they share together.

I hop into my truck again, punch in their address into my GPS, and drive off.

At this point, I’m getting worried. I don’t like not knowing what’s going on. It’s not like them not to respond, especially Rowan.

As I drive, I see something on the side of the road. Something strange and out of place, like my headlights reflect on something, then it’s gone. Something tells me to pull over, so I do. Once my truck is in Park, I hop out to look.

My heart and gut are sending warning signals throughout my body, but I don’t understand why.

Because Rowan and I are twins, we often get a sense of each other or if something is wrong. When we’re hurting, the pain doubles for us. There are times when we even know something is wrong without saying a word.

There’s acid in my stomach now when I see a form lying on the ground. I want to believe it’s just a deer someone hit and dragged to the side of the road, but I know it’s not.

It feels like I’m dragging my feet, but I’m not. I stop and stand over the form, knowing it’s a human body. My instincts tell me it’s her. I pull out my phone with shaking hands and hit the flashlight button. After I get it on, I turn the light to shine on the body.

When I see my sister bloodied, her body twisted unnaturally, I finally move into action. My only thoughts are making sure she’s alive and that she gets medical help. It doesn’t even cross my mind yet that she’s dead, despite the warning bells going off in my mind. I absolutely refuse to listen.

“Rowan!”

I reach for her, ignore her open stare, and press my fingers to her throat. Cars and trucks blow by on the small highway, and not one person stops to help. I feel nothing. No pulse, so I lean my face over her mouth to see if she’s breathing, but there’s nothing.

My hands are really shaking now as I open the screen and call 9-1-1.

After I hang up and wait for the cops and ambulance, my reality soon becomes my living hell. It finally settles in the pit of my stomach, a nuclear bomb going off and rising out of my mouth as I wail. I want to hold her, but I know enough that the police will need to investigate. But I grab her hand, her nails covered in the god-awful purple-and-silver glitter nail polish she loves so much.

He did this to her. It’s my fault that I didn’t get here sooner. Even worse, I didn’t stop her from dating that prick. That I didn’t tell our parents. If I had, I could’ve prevented her death.

Rage settles in me, and I want to go after him and fucking kill him, but I can’t leave her. Anger is better than this grief.

On top of losing half of me, I have to call my parents. Life now forever changed for all of us.

I didn’t know where the tissues came from, but I grabbed some and blew my nose. It kept running as I cried. Finn held me, his head on my shoulder, as Knox clenched his jaw, looking as if he was ready to kill something. I didn’t know what that meant.

“Was it Bryce?” Knox asked.

“Yeah. They found him passed out at his apartment, drunk as hell. His pickup was covered in her blood. He ran… over her.” A sob settles in my throat, and I try to swallow it.

“He better be in fucking prison.”

“He got ten years for involuntary manslaughter. I have no doubt he did it on purpose, and there were plenty of witnesses who saw them arguing, but because his alcohol levels were so high, they ruled out that he ran over her intentionally. Goddamn bullshit.”

“God, I’m so sorry, Rye-baby,” Finn said softly.

“It’s all my fault. She would be alive today if I’d just reported him or told my parents.”

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