Page 180 of Unorthodox
“What’s in there?” Mamie asks me, her voice full of fear, sounding far away as the plane’s engine roars louder. “What’s in the car?”
“The trunk.”My breathing is labored, but I hear Mamie’s heels as she runs toward her car and I stare at the plane.
Oliver is back.
Addison has to go.
Addison’s uncle laughs through the phone’s speaker as my head spins, white spots popping in front of my eyes as more blood pours from my wound, drenching my arm in warmth.
I watch the wheels of the plane start to turn, hear the high-pitched whine as the engines prepare for takeoff. In the corner of my eye, I see Mamie fumbling with the trunk’s latch.
Oliver.
“I’m disappointed in you, Bennett.”
My throat feels thick, every breath painful as the numbness spreads to the other side of my body, a thick fog of exhaustion rolling through my mind.
Her uncle. Her fucking uncle had my brother.
Now he has her.Again.
“I was promised she’d be a virgin.” The man laughs again, and I feel like I’m going to vomit. “The blood on her thigh though? I guess you just couldn’t help yourself. I won’t make you pay for it. She’s still tight enough.”
I turn my head, my stomach convulsing as bile works its way up my throat, then out of my mouth, all along the side of the door. I cough, nearly choking on my own sickness. Every movement sends sharp fire burning through the numbness of my arm.
Another laugh through the phone. “Goodbye, Bennett.”
The line goes dead.
I’m going to get her back.
I’m going to fuckingget herback.
Mamie screams as the plane takes off.
My eyes flutter closed as I try to stay conscious. Try to hold on. I want to see him. I want to see Oliver.
But it’sherI think about. Her eyes on mine. Always so willing to look for goodness where there was none.
For once, it isn’t my own trauma that invades my mind, infecting my brain.
It isn’t my father and his men or my own blood, my own pain. Not even Oliver’s pain.
It’s hers.
Her, with her brother.
Her body burning beneath the pine-scented cleaner.
Her, trembling in front of a man who should have cared for her.
Her heart still open for someone like me.
Her words as she guessed at my nightmares.“Fuck him. He’s dead, and you survived.”She had kissed me then. “Fuck. Him.”
Mamie’s voice reaches me as I slip into oblivion, her words sending me under. “There’s a body in the trunk.” I hear her panting, know she ran to tell me. She chokes on an anguished sob, but I can’t open my eyes. I can’t face it. “There’s a body in the trunk, Max!” she screams.
Oliver.
