Page 82 of Jayson
I walk.
One block. Then two.
Every step feels stolen.
My boots click against the wet pavement, loud in the silence between passing cars. I keep my head down, eyes flicking from shadow to shadow. Paranoia hums like static under my skin—thin, sharp, relentless. I don’t see anyone following me, but that doesn’t mean they’re not there.
Lionel’s probably realized I’m gone by now. And Nina—God, Nina—she’ll pivot from gracious socialite to wartime general the second she clocks my disappearance. I can practically hear her heels clicking across the floor as she pulls her phone, pearls rattling against her throat like warning beads. Her first call will be to Jayson—no question.
Beneath the cashmere cardigans and grandmotherly smile, there’s tempered steel in that woman—polished, ruthless, and willing to bend the world in half if it keeps her family safe. I’ve just made myself her newest emergency, and I can’t decide if that terrifies me… or makes me feel the slightest bit safer.
I reach the main road and raise my hand for a cab.
It takes longer than it should. Drivers glance, hesitate, keep going. Maybe I look like trouble. I’m starting to feel like I am.
Finally, a yellow taxi pulls up, tires spitting water as it stops beside me. The driver eyes me warily through the cracked window.
“Where to?” he asks.
I slide into the back seat, the upholstery damp and slightly sticky. The door closes with a thunk that feels too final.
I give him the address.
I’m going home.
He pulls into traffic, windshield wipers dragging across the glass with a tired squeal.
The city starts to blur past, all gray concrete and glass buildings whose towers soar into the sky. I sink back into the seat, trying to slow my breathing.
But it’s useless.
Riley’s face is burned behind my eyelids. I have to get home and find out for myself if my father had anything to do with Riley’s disappearance.
Some doors aren’t meant to be opened, Keira.So you keep saying, asshole.
There are two wars being waged inside me. One where I want to know, I want closure. And the other where I’m not sure I can handle the truth of what happened that night.
Why is my memory blank when it comes to that night?
The cab turns off the main road, and the world begins to slow.
The hum of traffic fades behind us. Buildings thin out. The air feels heavier here—denser, like it knows what’s coming. The trees lean in close, their bare branches arching over the street like they’re trying to warn me to turn back. The fences along thesidewalk sag with age, wood rotting at the base, iron rusted like old blood.
Everything starts to look familiar. Too familiar. And wrong.
I sit up straighter, hand braced against the back of the seat as my eyes scan the houses. We pass Riley’s old place—a single-story Colonial with peeling shutters and a caved-in porch step. It looks like a shell now. Hollow. Quiet. Forgotten.
Her mother moved out not long after Riley vanished. Packed a single bag, got in her car, and drove away like she already knew what the rest of us were too afraid to say out loud.
She knew. She knew Riley wasn’t coming back.
My chest tightens, breath catching at the base of my throat. A hot ache swells behind my eyes, but I don’t blink. I won’t. Because I need to see this through. I need to feel it. Even if it guts me.
Because if the truth is buried in that house—my house—I don’t want to leave without it. Even if it tears open every part of me I’ve spent years trying to stitch shut. Even if it means unmaking who I am just to understand what really happened to her.
The tires crunch over wet leaves, the sound sharp and unforgiving in the silence. The engine hums low, a growl beneath the stillness, like it knows we shouldn’t be here. We move slow—too slow—as if the car itself is reluctant to carry us forward. Like it's dragging its wheels through mud and memory.
And then I see it. The house. The one that raised me. The one that swallowed me whole.
