“Mason—”
“I’ve never chased girls, y’know,” he says evenly. “I was really fucking young when I had to take Millie on, and all I wanted to do was drink and fight and fuck. I knew I couldn’t do that if I was going to be a solid figure in her life, though. I quit drinking so much. I never went out. I forgot all about dating and finding myself a girlfriend. I mean, what girl would have wanted to date a guy with a little kid hanging off his hip all the time?” He lets out a shallow huff, meant to be laughter. “I got through the last year of high school. I got a job. I worked for fucking years, keeping my head down, and then the one night…the one night I fuck up…that’s the one night she needs me. That’s the one night I’m nowhere to be found.”
“Mason, she didn’t know you weren’t here. She was unconscious the whole time.” This is such a useless, worthless thing to tell him. It’s not going to make him feel any better and I know it. I hate myself for even saying it, but he needs to know.
He makes a strangled, choking sound at the back of his throat. “When did she die? What time? Exactly?”
“Around one thirty.”
“It’s nearly seven now. That means she’s been gone for six whole fucking hours, and I was…I was asleep, in bed with some girl, and she’s been here, alone.” His voice cracks and breaks, choked with emotion. He tries to say something else, but instead he bursts into tears, leaning forward, elbows propped on his knees, face buried in his hands.
“She was alone. She was fucking alone,” he sobs.
“She wasn’t, Mason. We were here with her. We didn’t leave her for a second, I swear. We were here. We were here.” I repeat it over and over again, rubbing my hand up and down his back. I’m crying myself, unable to prevent a sea of tears from spilling down my cheeks. “Zeth’s inside with her now. And Michael,” I tell him.
“Zeth?” Mason looks sideways at me, confusion all over his face. His eyes are brimming over, his cheeks mottled and red. He is the vision of a broken man. “Zeth came?” he asks.
I nod. Who knows how Mason’s going to feel about Zeth being here. The last time they saw each other, I was begging my boyfriend not to kill the guy. Mason wrings his hands together, his body beginning to shake. “That’s nice,” he says under his breath. “I suppose it’s nice of him to come.” I don’t think he’s really comprehending what he’s saying right now, not really thinking about it. He seems numb, the shock hitting him in waves. Those waves won’t stop. They’ll keep on coming, hitting him for days. Weeks, even. Months. They’ll still be washing over him years from now, when he least expects them, washing over him out of nowhere, causing his heart to ache in the most exquisitely painful way.
“Do you want to go and see her now?” I ask, whispering softly. “Do you want to come and say goodbye?”
He looks at me once more, eyes filled with wild panic. “I can’t do that. Not yet. It’s too soon.”
No point in trying to rush him. I don’t. I let him try to recover himself a little, but the fact of the matter is that his composure and calm will fly right out of the window as soon as he walks through that door and sees that little girl. I’ll be here for him if he wants me to, but Mason is really going through this alone.
No one can feel the same pain he’s feeling right now. And, no matter how badly I might want to, no one can carry it for him, either.
Chapter Twenty
ZETH
I never knew Lacey when she was this small. I would have liked to. I would have been a grade A asshole to her when we were kids, probably, pulling on her hair and teasing the shit out of her, but I would have loved her. I would have protected her. If we’d been little together, had a childhood together, grown and formed as people together, no one would have laid a finger on her. I wouldn’t have let them. She would have grown up unharmed, and she wouldn’t have been so withdrawn from the world. She wouldn’t be dead right now, I know that much.
“Hey, man. Maybe you should put her down now,” Michael says. He’s been leaning silently against the bank of silver drawers where the bodies are kept for the last fifteen minutes, watching me hold Millie. I could tell he didn’t think it was a smart thing for me to be doing, but he’s refrained from saying anything until now. I don’t say anything. I slide off the edge of the table and I carefully place Millie back down on the bare metal. She’s still covered by a sheet, but she looks uncomfortable. I find a dark blue cord jacket hanging on the back of a chair on the other side of the room and I bundle it up, tucking it under the girl’s head.