“What do you think that means?” he pushes, but I only reply with a flustered groan. If I had known what that meant, maybe I wouldn’t have rushed off and accidentally landed right back in Emmett’s arms.
“So, we should talk to him,” he persists, this time standing to look deep into my eyes as he caresses my arms. “I know it’s scary for you. But I promise if we talk to him and nothing comes out of it, we can try with Vivian and Lily.”
I collapse against him, pushing my forehead to his strong chest. The idea of talking to my father again terrifies me. He may have looked harmless the last time we parted ways, but the cops let me know he is definitely not some innocent guy to feel sorry for.
“What if it’s dangerous?” I ask against his shoulder, feeling suddenly exhausted. “You said you offered to take me captive because you were afraid of what he might do to me. You made it sound like he’d sooner kill me than let the Elites use me to get an advantage over him.”
His initial silence only makes me feel worse. He knows what I’m saying is true.
“I’ll protect you,” he promises in a deep rasp, brushing his hands along my hair.
“I know you’d try, but…I don’t think any of us stand a chance against my father,” I reply bleakly. “Your father didn’t. None of the Elites did…except for you. And if this is just his way of coming back for you, I think we should stay far away. Or go to the police. They told me they were looking for him anyway.”
“And why didn’t you tell them how to find him?” he asks in a leading tone. “You may not have known exactly where he was, but you could have found out if you tried.”
“Because I was worried I couldn’t trust the police,” I sigh, hating that he has to be right. Hating even more that this town has to be so fucked up.
He kisses my forehead, as if to apologize for making me eat my own words. “It’s okay,” he says softly. “I’ll help you track him down. We’ll figure out where he is during lunch and try to go see him after school if he’s nearby.”
Regardless of what Lily tried to say about my father being back, I have been clinging to this blissful notion that he had run back off to California or Spain or any other far corner of the earth that is nowhere near here. I swallow hard as I try to wrap my head around him lingering so close that we could pop by after school. I hope Emmett is wrong. I hope we can’t find him at all, or that he’s much too far away to be implicated in any of this.
“We better get going,” he nudges me, giving one more soft kiss before we make our way out of Bernadette’s room.
It feels wrong to be walking away from it, as if we’re walking away from her. Her disappearance has apparently softened my feelings towards her, and I can’t help but feel incredibly sorry for her. I stop and look back over the empty room once more. “Wherever she is, I hope she’s okay,” I pray out loud, grazing my fingers across her open bedroom door.
“You hate my sister,” he shoots back with a cold smirk.
“That doesn’t mean she deserves for anything bad to happen to her,” I defend. Suddenly I feel tears welling up. “I’m sorry, Emmett. You were right. I was so wrapped up in my jealousy of Vivian and feeling hurt by Lily that I let it distract us from finding your sister. I shouldn’t have been so selfish.”
His hand reaches for mine with a tight squeeze. “I’ve been just as selfish,” he confesses. “Probably much more so than you.”
I want to stay in this moment with him, where we are both humbled enough to just be sad and afraid together without all of our fucked-up defense mechanisms getting in the way. But the sunlight sprinting across the empty room beckons us to get moving. Standing around won’t do anything for Bernadette.
We go to school and spend lunchtime on the computers in the library, hunting down my father just as Emmett said we would. We don’t find any clues, so I reluctantly sneak off and call Malcolm. He is able to give me a cell number to reach him, but I don’t tell Emmett how I got it.
I ask him to call my father, not having the nerve to do it myself. He gets off the phone and gives me a nod and sympathetic grin, signaling that my father is close enough for us to make the visit that afternoon.
8
Chapter Eight
I can barely sit still in my next class, feeling overwhelmed by the looming meeting with my father after school. It is a small relief to know Emmett will be with me, but it doesn’t stop my leg from bouncing rapidly under my desk no matter how hard I try to stop. I fidget and chew on the eraser on my pencil, unable to hear anything the teacher is saying.
My nerves build to a rising sickness in my stomach until I finally decide to go throw some cold water on my face in the bathroom, hoping it relieves my anxiety. I shoot my hand up and request a hall pass and march towards the bathroom, trying to outrun the twisting sensation in my gut.
The burst of water from the faucet sends droplets of water splattering across the plastic countertops. In moments like these, WJ Prep feels cursed. I have to wonder how many times I have leaned over this bathroom sink, desperate for some kind of escape from outside. But the threat of my father feels even greater than anything in this school.
As I close my eyes and splash another wave of water across my face, I hear the bathroom door swing open followed by a string of familiar cackles. I know those laughs all too well, except one of them didn’t have much to laugh about not long ago. When she was on the other side of Vivian’s wrath.
Vivian and Lily. Nothing good ever comes out of running into either of them in this bathroom. And the click of the lock on the main door tells me this time won’t be any different.
I quickly realize they’re standing on either side of me before I have a chance to wipe my face and look. I can feel them looming over my shoulders. My gut tells me this is going to be bad. This is the first time they’ve managed to corner me alone since Vivian returned to school and the two paired up.
“Things still going rough with Emmett?” Vivian whines in a mocking voice against my ear, crouching dangerously close.
“No, actually,” I answer coldly, trying my best not to let her get to me. Maybe if I just give short answers and ignore them the best I can, they’ll go away. I know that never works, but it’s all I know to try. They’ve cornered me, after all. “Things are going just fine,” I add.
“Just fine,” Lily calls back to me. “Sounds…passionate.” She smirks.
“Don’t worry about us,” I murmur with a shake of my head, reaching out for a paper towel to dry off with. “It’s none of your business anyway.”
But as my arm reaches out across the counter, Lily’s hand tightens around it, holding it firmly in place. Vivian slides behind me, pinning my other arm down as she goes. I let out a scream and struggle to get free, but I’m stopped by a sharp stinging sensation digging into the veins in the middle of my arm, opposite my elbow. My teeth grind against the pain as my eyes strain and tighten, filling with tears.
“What the fuck!?” I shriek, still unable to get loose from their hands. The pain is quickly followed by several more stabs, then it switches to the other arm.
“Don’t bother fighting it,” Vivian hums.
I ignore her and continue flailing my arms, trying to get free. I want to punch them both when they finally let go, but I am overcome by a sudden rushing surge. My stomach flips as I lean against the counter and lose myself in a swelling daze. I have to assume they’ve left the bathroom because everything around me grows quiet and still again.
My breath slows and my ears pound with a popping feeling. I sway and look up into the mirror, noting my shrunken pupils. They’ve obviously drugged me with something, but I have no idea what.
“Emmett,” I mouth to my reflection in a whisper. I want to go find him, but my motivation to move or go anywhere shrinks away.
I know I should be panicking over whatever they’ve done to me, but I can’t seem to feel anything bad. I am suspended in a strange euphoria, even though I know in my brain that I should be terrified. I look at myself in the mirror once more and know I can’t face anyone like this. I’m too out of it.
I slink into the nearest stall and lock the door behind me. I want to move fast, but everything goes by in slow motion. My skin is heated and flushed as I smack my dry lips across my tongue. My arms and legs are so heavy I don’t even know if I am sitting up straight. As afraid as I am, I can’t deny how elated I feel. Even as Vivian and Lily’s cackling voices linger in my brain, I feel nothing bad towards them. I feel nothing bad at all.
“What a strange punishment,” I laugh softly to myself under my breath.
After a while, I’m unsure of how long I’ve been locked away on my own. Clusters of shoes beneath the stall door come and go in crowds, accompanied by the sounds of distant voices I have no interest in making out. I sit huddled up on the toilet, relishing the feeling against my will, until finally it feels like it has passed enough for me to face the world again.
But the moment I peel myself up, sickness rises with my body. I turn quickly and buckle over the toilet. Again, I have no idea how long I am stuck like that. Once my stomach has calmed enough for movement, I try to make my way out into the halls.