Page 84 of Riot Reunion
My head hurts so bad. I touch my fingers to my face, and they come away red…
Wait. I…crashed?
My thoughts come back into focus. Everything, all at once, pulling back into focus. I crashed the car. There was an animal in the road. I collided head-on with a tree. Oh lord, the front end of the hatchback is crushed, the hood crumpled up like an accordion. Smoke billows up from underneath the twisted metal in great, dirty grey clouds.
How long have I been sitting here, dazed? Wasted seconds while Presley is up at the gazebo, potentially bleeding to death. Thank fuck I’m almost back at the house. Rallying, I fumble with the seatbelt, tugging at it weakly until it clicks and releases me. The door handle is far more stubborn. I lean my shoulder into it three times before it groans and swings open, setting me free.
I fall out sideways in the mud, landing hard.
Panting, I push myself up, wind whipping at my hair…and a hand comes into focus.
“Ah. Ms. Stillwater.Allow me.”
29
PAX
Adrenalin leavesa burning trail of fire in its wake, sheer terror ripping through my veins, as the three of us race down the slope toward the gazebo. This isnothappening. Not here. Not tonight. Not with Presley so sick. I’m not fucking having it.
“It can’t be him!” Dash shouts over the rain. “He can’t be here. They caught him back in Texas. We all saw it on the news!”
Wren says nothing. As he sprints through the rain, the look on his face is grim, though. He isn’t buying that Wesley Fitzpatrick’s lawyer has somehow ended up hanged and eviscerated in Fitz’s old classroom by some weird coincidence. Dash doesn’t believe it either, but it’s in his nature to try and find a less frightening explanation for all of this. His girlfriend is back at the gazebo, just like mine is. Just like Wren’s is.
Pumping my fists harder, I run full tilt toward the maze, slipping in the mud, going down, getting back up. The three of us slip and slide like we’re running on an ice rink, but we keep on surging forward. Wren hits the maze first. He’s a streak of black as he swings through the turns, me behind him, Dash bringing up our rear. The hedges reach up around us, throwing strange shadows, hiding the path, but Wren doesn’t miss a turn.
Light blazes out into the night, cutting through the storm when we enter the clearing. Bile stings the back of my throat, acrid and foul, my heart hammering like a freight train. The door to the gazebo opens before we can reach it, and Carrie stands there, tears streaming down her face…and her hands. Her hands are covered in blood.
“ELODIE!” Wren roars like a wounded animal, shoving his way into the gazebo. I’m right behind him, ready to fucking hurt someone. Dash sweeps Carrie up—
Presley is right where I left her on the couch. But…she’s covered in blood, her eyes closed, face the color of pyre ash. No. That can’t be right. She was sitting up when I—when I—
“Where’s Elodie?” Wren shouts. His words are muffled; my ears feel blocked, like I’m swimming underwater.
“—just chatting one second, and then she stood up, and I don’t know what happened—” Carrie says, her mouth moving a mile a minute. “She was in pain. Holding her stomach. She said her arm hurt, and then she just collapsed and started bleeding, and—”
My skin is numb. Hands, feet, face, legs, all of me numb. I drop to the ground by the couch, kneeling in Chase’s blood, a dull, crushing pressure locking around my ribs. She’s fine. She’s not dead. She can’t be. There’s no way.
“We didn’t know what to do. I’ve been keeping her warm, but—but—”
“Shh, it’s okay. Take a deep breath,” Dash says somewhere behind me. “It’s gonna be okay. Just slow down.”
He really shouldn’t lie to her.
I think this so calmly, the chaos around me fading to silence.
There’s no way this is going to be okay. No way. I will burn down the entire world if Presley Maria Witton Chase isn’t around to make it turn. Happiness will be a thing of the past. I will single-handedly destroy all joy and hope if this girl has slipped and gone from this place.
With a shaking hand, I reach out to her. Her skin is cold and clammy to the touch, slick with sweat. I place my fingers against her neck, searching for a steady throb of a pulse…and I don’t find one.
“I kept trying to wake her up,” Carrie howls. She’s hysterical. The gazebo echoes with her grief. “She’d regain consciousness and then pass out again.”
This.
Is.
Not.
Real.
