Page 51 of Brutal Knight

This is what I wanted. It’s what I was looking for. But the haze is stronger than it’s ever been, and I can’t tell if it’s right or not anymore.

I don’t know what’s happening. I just know that I’m falling into a haze, drifting somewhere nothing can touch me. I’m gone from reality and everything I was supposed to be worrying about.

And then, just like that, darkness envelops me.

CHAPTER20

Connor

I’m tired by the time I get home from the meeting. Lachlan’s words are still echoing in my head, reminding me that I have a responsibility to fix the problem I created by refusing Willow’s father.

I know this is it. This is what’s going to prove my place in the family, or break it once and for all.

When I open the front door to my house, I immediately know something is wrong.

It takes me a second to realize what it is, but it’s right there, staring me in the face. I can see the side table in front of me, usually empty, now with a set of keys in the center.

“Shit,” I curse, shutting the door behind me and locking it immediately.

My first thought is that Willow ran again, and I curse at myself for giving her that opening. But logic comes in a moment later, reminding me the car was in the garage and the keys are still here. She didn’t use the car to leave.

After how terrified she seemed of her father, I don’t even think she’d want to leave. She must know by now that she’s safest with me, that I’ll protect her. Willow’s father seems like the most frightening man in her life now that Dmitri’s dead. She wouldn’t go to him just to get away from me.

Right?

I run through the first floor and don’t find her anywhere, so I know she didn’t just go to get food or groceries in the car. I take the stairs two at a time and start at the far end of the hallway, wondering if maybe she just started to go through my things.

Honestly, I wouldn’t care so long as I got an explanation.

I swing open her bedroom door and don’t expect to find her there, either—but I’m wrong. So fucking wrong. The second the door swings in, I catch sight of her lithe, delicate body sprawled out on the floor.

“Fuck!”

I dart forward, my gaze already scanning her, searching for evidence of what happened. A dark part of me worries that it’s already too late.

When I touch her, she’s not cold. She is barely breathing, though, her chest rising and falling almost imperceptibly. Her lips are tinged blue, eyelids not lifting when I shake her.

“Willow,” I say, raising my voice as I take her face in one hand. I pull her up off the floor, trying to rouse her. “Willow, wake up. Can you hear me?”

She doesn’t answer.

There’s a rush of fear in my chest, rising like bile. Suddenly, I can’t think of anything but the fact that I don’t want to lose her.

I can’t.

I don’t really think. I lift her up and run down the stairs, holding her up with one arm while I shove the door open. Outside, I slam the car door shut and blindly dial Lachlan’s number from the car. He answers almost immediately, probably just home from the meeting too.

“Connor?”

“Willow overdosed. I’m going to the hospital now.”

“Shit.”

I don’t explain anything else, hanging up as the engine roars to life. He’ll know what to do.

I don’t remember much of the drive. All I know is that one moment, I’m speeding out of the driveway. The next, I’m pulling up to the hospital, tearing into a parking space and hauling Willow out of the back seat.

I don’t even know what she took. But I have a pretty good idea.

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