And now she doesn’t even know where we’re going.
I pull my phone out and text Jon. We’re leaving. Then I pull up Bran’s number and stare at it for a long time before typing in three short words and hitting send.
He may not want to hear them, but if I’m never going to see him again, he needs to know.
Chapter 25
Bran
Told Ma I was sick and stayed home tonight. And I am sick. In the head.
It’s after midnight and I can’t stop staring at Lilah’s text. I sit on the couch with a pot of black coffee and recite the Gettysburg Address over and over, hoping it will take my mind off her. She’s six-fucking-teen. I have T-shirts older than her. I lost my virginity when she was five. But even as I recite, my eyes course over the text.
I love you.
Fuck.
I coerced her into saying it right out loud to my face on Wednesday morning, and when I heard it coming from her mouth, my heart burst open at the seams, just like the fucking Grinch. She’s changed me fundamentally, like a shift of magnetic poles, and I can’t even remember how to be who I was before.
I think about the lyrics of the song she wrote, how she kissed me as Shiloh sang her words.
“Fuck!” I growl, shoving up from the couch.
I pace the window like a caged beast, staring toward town, in the direction I know she is. My heart’s at a wild gallop and my breathing’s short. I’m too fucking young to be having a heart attack, but that’s how it feels. In the chaos of my thoughts, only one is clear. Lilah’s my addiction and I can’t quit her. I can’t give her up without a fight.
There’s only one person who can hurt us. One person to fight.
I yank on my jeans and grab a hoodie on my way out the door, then take off at a jog to my carport as tug it on. I burn rubber and am across town in a heartbeat.
The streets of downtown are deserted. It’s after one, so even Sam Hill is locked up. It’s so quiet that when I bang on Lilah’s door, it sounds like shots in the night.
I look up at the dark second story windows and after a few second, one of them lights. When it lifts, I’m hoping for Lilah, but it’s Destiny’s scowl that meets my gaze. “I’m calling the cops!” she yells.
I hold up my hands in surrender. “I just want to talk.”
Daggers rain down on me from her glare. “Stay away from us.”
I bang on the door again out of sheer desperation. “Lilah!”
Destiny’s gone from the window the next second and I hear yelling. I spin for the door and one good kick with my biker boot blows it right off the hinges, just like I knew it would. I bound up the stairs, two at a time, and pound on the door at the top.
“Get out of the way, Destiny!” I hear Lilah shout.
“Lilah!” I call as I rattle the knob.
This door’s a little sturdier, but I could get through it if I had to. I ram my shoulder into it and hear the splinter of wood near the deadbolt. But just as I’m regrouping for my next assault, it swings open and Lilah is standing there. Behind her, boxes are stacked on the counters and small kitchen table.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
Destiny yanks her sister back by an arm. “We’re getting the hell out of here before you can do any more damage.”
I step closer. “To who, Destiny?”
She backs away from me, her sister in her grasp. “Lilah is sixteen! She’s my responsibility. I trusted you to watch after her, and instead, you raped her!”
“Stop!” Lilah says, shoving away from Destiny. “I love him. He didn’t rape me.”
Destiny spins on her sister. “That’s not what the cops or the courts will say. You’re too young to get it, Lilah, but he’s sick.”
Tears well in Lilah’s eye as she shakes her head. “He didn’t know.”
“He made you believe that because he’s twisted. He wanted to fuck you so lulled you into a false sense of security.” Destiny’s glare nearly cuts me in half when her eyes find me. “He doesn’t care about anyone but himself. He uses and takes what he wants, and when he’s done he tosses his victims aside like so much trash.”
“You weren’t a victim,” I say, lifting a hand. “I never forced you to do anything.”
Her face is so twisted with hate it’s barely recognizable. “You are a vile, stinking pile of filth, and I will see you rot in jail.”
“Are you really protecting your sister, Destiny? Or are you just getting revenge on me?” I stare her down. “Hate me all you want for falling in love with your sister instead of you, but don’t drag her through this.”
“He never—” Lilah starts, reaching for Destiny’s arm.
Whatever she was going to say is cut short when Destiny spins on her and swings, taking her to the floor with a right hook to the temple.
My heart thuds to a stop in my chest. “Christ!”