I don’t want to do this; don’t make me do this. Please, please, please. Why is this happening to me?
“Please tell me who Justin Prior is,” I choke out, the words burning my mouth as I say them. I’m sore from the other night, and all I want to do is lie on my side and study Parrish’s face, trace his lips with my finger. We started something new and fun together, and now he’s gone, and we have so much we need to talk about … “Please.”
“Justin Prior is your father!” Tess screams back at me. I almost think for a moment that she might slap me, but she manages to control herself. Closing her eyes and taking a few deep breaths seems to help, but only a little.
Personally, I’m having trouble keeping my own feet in that moment.
Did she … wait, what?
“Father?” I repeat, my stomach twisting into an impossible knot. Why would Parrish’s kidnapper want me to ask about my father? I stare at her.
“Are you happy now? Your father was a manipulator, a cheater, a liar. He abused me, Dakota. He abused you. I know you don’t remember—and that’s a good thing—but this was something you should’ve left alone.” Tess yanks a hair tie off her wrist and angrily puts her espresso waves into a high pony. “Is this what you wanted, to break me while your brother could be lying in a ditch somewhere?”
She turns around and storms off while I stand there, shaking and holding back tears. I turn my head to the side and find myself looking at the framed birth certificate, the one with Mia Patterson’s name on it. The field that says father is blank. But it should say Justin Prior.
Justin Prior … My hands start to shake as several, oddly shaped puzzle pieces shift around in my brain, forming a picture that I’d really rather not see at all.
If it weren’t for Chasm, I wouldn’t have survived that moment intact.
“Hey,” he says, padding quickly down the steps and putting warm hands on my shoulders. His amber eyes bore into mine, demanding the truth. “What happened?”
“I think …” I start, blinking and falling and spiraling into a morose mental state. I make myself look at Chasm, force my eyes to trace his perfect mouth and the studs on either side of it, stare directly into his determined gaze. “I think the kidnapper is my dad.”
Chasm spends the night again, curling up on my bed with me. We don’t touch, not like Parrish and I did when we first slept in the same bed. It’s still nice, a warm body and a comforting presence to chase away the nightmares.
And oh, there are many.
I keep thinking about that night in the woods. If Parrish’s captor—the captor who could very well be daddy dearest—was able to get to him, then he was certainly able to get to me. Are the incidents related? Is what happened to me even real?
I spend the rest of the night awake, staring at the wall across from me and clutching my phone in my hands. Tess is too distracted to care whether Chasm is in bed with me or not, too distracted to spy on me and catch me with the phone. Maxx is still out there, looking for Parrish, but I don’t have the heart to tell him the truth.
Instead, Chasm and I both came up with excuses to skip out on the search party and stayed here. I tried calling the number back, but there was no answer. I’ve texted numerous times and still, nothing. All I can do now is wait.
I’ll give him one day, I think, squeezing the phone tight to my chest. Twenty-four hours exactly, and that’s it. If there’s no contact, I tell Tess. I tell the detectives. I blow this thing up on social media and get the word out.
Breakfast that morning is sobering and sad. It’s Tuesday, another school day where nobody goes to school except Chasm. His jaw is set firmly, a muscle in his neck ticking in anger. He’s dressed in his uniform, but he looks like he’d rather jump off a building than actually attend class. Not like he has much choice in the matter: his father called Paul to demand that Kwang-seon either go to school today or come home.
Chas chose the former.
“Your dad’s just worried about your studies,” Paul suggests, trying to calm him down. His voice is detached though, and his eyes are far away. Even good ol’ Dr. P is panicked and stressed now. Parrish has been missing for not one, but two nights. Two. That’s a long time to not hear from somebody. “You can come back over after class.”
“Yeah, sure,” Chas replies, but he’s not really listening. Maxx watches him with sympathy, buttering a piece of toast in an absentminded sort of way, like he’s physically here but mentally, he’s somewhere else entirely. He didn’t get back to the house until about twenty minutes ago. The plan is for him to eat, take a nap, and then head out again. He asked me to go with him, but I can’t. I have to stay here and watch the phone.
The thing is, I could see the disappointment in his face when I declined. He thinks I’m a monster. Maybe they all do? If they only knew … I check the time on my Tess-phone. We’re getting dangerously close to the twenty-four-hour mark, and my resolve is firm.
No contact, and I tell everyone what happened.
When Chasm gets up to head to class, he reaches out and grabs my wrist, pulling me along with him toward the front door. Maxx notices and gives us both a raised brow, but Tess and Paul are too far gone to care. Kimber notices, too, but who cares what she thinks anyway?
“If you get any messages, let me know, and I’ll be right here.” I nod, but when he goes to turn away, I end up reaching out to grab the sleeve of his blazer. The way he looks back at me, it kills me. There’s something here, something between us, and I don’t have the time or luxury to even talk about it. With Parrish missing, it doesn’t seem all that important. But it is. It’s important to me.
The sunflowers … he brought me sunflowers.
“For what it’s worth,” I tell him, looking into his amber eyes and wishing I could just fall into them, drown there, escape this place and this hell for just a few minutes. “I’m sorry.” Chasm pauses and then turns back around, reaching up a hand to cup the side of my face.
“Sorry for what, Little Sister? You don’t have anything to apologize for; this isn’t your fault.” But I’m not talking about the kidnapping, and he knows it. He rubs his thumb across my lower lip in a way that really isn’t an appropriate gesture for friends and then drops his hand by his side. We’ll talk about the sticky feelings part of this situation later, after Parrish is home safe.
Because he will come home safe. I have to believe that. I have to.
Chasm turns again and heads into the garage, starting up his sportscar and backing out. It takes him several minutes to get through the throng of reporters, and then he’s gone, heading up the winding road that leads toward the academy.
It isn’t until I’m back upstairs with my bedroom door closed that the next call comes through.
I answer right away, sitting down heavy on the edge of my bed as Parrish’s battered and bloodied face fills the screen. I could cry. I could scream. Instead, I just sit there and soak him in like it’s the last time we’ll ever see each other. The way he’s looking back at me, I wonder if there isn’t some kernel of truth in that.
“Tell me what Tess said,” Parrish breathes, like he’s struggling to get the words out. I’m not sure if what he’s saying is fully scripted or just carefully monitored by his captor. By … my dad? I don’t want to even go there, but why else would this person tell me to ask Tess a question like that? This doesn’t feel like a ‘stranger danger’ sort of a situation.