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I thought of Travis, what he did to me, tears prickling my eyes. I thought about Sawyer and the girl with pink hair. I thought about Declan being attacked, Will getting stabbed. Everything was for me. All of it.
This was my life, and it was a fucking mess. Coming to Hillcrest was never a new chapter in my life—it was the epilogue. This place would be the end of me, but it wouldn’t be because of these rich boys and their games.
I would die here, and it would be of my own doing, his design.
Chapter Twenty-Six – Ash
Declan stared at me, his mouth hanging slightly agape. “What are you talking about, Ash? You’re not making any sense.” Behind his expression sat someone who was desperate to figure out what was wrong with me, why I was acting so strange. “Come inside with me. The stress, it has to be—”
I met his eyes, refusing to back down even though I felt like I couldn’t breathe. What little air I could inhale felt like a thousand knives prickling my lungs, and no amount of air was enough. “I’m not going inside,” I told him in a bare whisper, my arms shaking as they hung at my side.
“Why are you doing this? Will is—”
Again, me interrupting him, “What happened to Will is my fault!” The words were shouted perhaps a bit too loudly, since it was nearing five in the morning, which was still too early for people to get up on a Sunday. The parking lots surrounding the hospital were mostly empty, save for the cars of the nightshift workers.
Declan shook his head. “Don’t blame yourself. You didn’t do this. Someone else did.”
No. He wasn’t understanding. He’d never understand, unless he saw it for himself, unless he could peel back my memories and live them himself, bit by bit. Declan would never get it, because he didn’t see the whole picture.
But it wasn’t his picture to see. It was mine.
I shook my head, feeling the strange need to cry. Pathetic, huh? When the shit hit the fan, I wanted to revert back to a ten-year-old girl and cry. “I’m sorry,” I muttered, “but I have to go.” I didn’t wait for him to say anything else. I turned on my heel and took off, running at full speed away from him, away from the hospital, away from Will who I knew, without a doubt, was in the most pain of his entire life.
I ran so hard and so fast my legs stumbled. I ran until my lungs threatened to burst. I ran until I got sloppy and tripped on a chunk of sidewalk that was just slightly uneven. My whole body heaved forward, and the concrete below scraped my knees, jarring my bones with the impact.
It was fine. What was a little pain when Will was fucking stabbed, all because of me?
I didn’t get up for a while. How could I, when things felt so hopeless? God, was I making this up? Was it all in my head? No, I saw the headline, and the date it was released. He’d gotten out a while ago, and since my mom had no idea I was involved with a killer who stalked the streets a few cities over from ours, she had no reason to let me know during any of our calls.
I didn’t tell her about him, ever. That fateful weekend, just after I’d turned eighteen, I’d told my mom I was with Kelsey. After all, I was finally eighteen, finally an adult, and I should’ve been able to do whatever I wanted, right?
Wrong.
Wrong in so many ways.
With shaking arms, I brought my hands to my face, trying to stop the tears from falling. Once they started, they wouldn’t stop. I’d be a blubbering mess forevermore, all because of a psycho ex who I thought, at the time, I loved with all my heart.
I had a thing for the most messed-up and vile, didn’t I? Really, that should’ve been the warning sign I needed when it came to Travis and Sawyer. And Declan and Will? They were too good to involve in my life. They deserved someone so much better than me. I was nothing. I was the lowest of the low.
I’d dug my own grave here.
Running from your past never worked out. Hadn’t I seen enough movies by now? Hadn’t I watched enough TV to know that trying to forget the past never worked? You had to face that shit head-on, and yet I’d tried running, full-speed, away from it. Look at where it got me: collapsed on a sidewalk, two of the guys I cared about hurt already. I couldn’t take much more of this.
I…I had to tell the truth. I had to march back into that hospital, because surely the cops were waiting to question Will once he was stabilized, and I had to tell them everything. At first I’d sound like a pretentious know-it-all, but once they looked into it, they’d find I was right.
Ray had hurt Will. Ray had hurt Declan.
He’d hurt anyone who got close to me. Really, it was a miracle he hadn’t hurt Sawyer yet. And Travis…I wasn’t sure how he’d do it, but I knew you couldn’t underestimate him. Ray was not to be taken lightly, ever.
I got up, focusing on my breathing, trying to calm myself. In and out. When I breathed in, I held the breath in my lungs for five seconds before releasing it. Over and over until I was relatively calm. As calm as I could be, considering the state of my life.
This was it. This was the night everything changed. Once it was out in the open, would the guys even want to be around me? Surely they’d think differently of me. Surely they’d realize that being around me, caring for me in any way, only put them at risk until my ex was caught—and actually sentenced this time.
I turned, stepping off the sidewalk, crossing the road to start the journey back to the hospital. It wasn’t too far; I could see the hospital’s tall walls a little ways off. Psyching myself up for this was hard, but I knew it wasn’t going to be as hard as coming clean. I had to do it though, for Declan, for Will, for all those girls who’d died under his hands.
Goddamn it. I refused to be one of them. I would not become just another number. I would—
My world spun, tumbling around me as pain shot through every nerve in my body. Warm metal lifted me up, hoisting me off the street and sailing me through the air until I landed on the hard, rough ground below.
