I started crying again, my chest heaving dry sobs.
“You can have ice chips, but you need to go slow,” the nurse said, bringing over a white foam cup. She handed it to Logan. “And please keep her calm.”
“You don’t want to see dad?” Lincoln asked. “You finally came around to realizing he’s the devil?”
I nodded, tears welling in my eyes. My chest heaved again.
“Oh my God,” Mom gasped, looking up at the television, which was muted on the news. Lana’s picture was on there. Mom grabbed the control attached to my bed and turned up the volume.
“Lana Ly’s body has been found after months of searching,” the news reporter said in her best sympathetic voice. “The police chief is expected to hold a press conference on the matter later today. Our thoughts are with the Le family.”
Lincoln buried his face in his hands. I grabbed his wrist and squeezed, then squeezed again, and again until he looked at me. His eyes were shining. I shook my head, licking my lips.
“She was alive,” I said. My voice sounded foreign and scratchy, barely audible. “I saw her alive.”
“That’s impossible, Mae.” The words came from Logan. I looked at him and nodded.
“Hailey,” I said, but as soon as I said her name, I started sobbing uncontrollably. I looked up at Mom, who’d aged a hundred years in one and was about to age one hundred more and I couldn’t bring myself to say anything other than, “Hailey.”
“Your friend from the coffee shop?” Mom asked.
I tried to shake my head, but my entire body shook, the bed creaking with it. Not even Lincoln’s weight on it could hold it steady. She was not my friend. She was not my friend.
“Baby, calm down.” Logan got closer to me, setting a hand on my shoulder. “Calm down.”
I stopped shaking the bed and nodded, tears streaming down my face. Through the haze, I could make out the marks on my wrists. I imagined my ankles looked similar. I felt sore all over, but especially on my wrists and ankles. I cried again. I tried to close my eyes to spare them from my sadness, but when I did, it was dark and I couldn’t bear to deal with that either. Hailey hadn’t killed me, but she’d managed to break me, and sometimes being broken felt like a heavier burden than the idea of not being here at all. The nurses walked back into the room, one checking my vitals while the other placed a mask over my face and switched on the nebulizer. I breathed in and out. The door opened and my father walked back inside, this time with a security guard. My eyes widened. He’d said he’d kick Logan out.
“Get out.” Lincoln stood, his legs shaky as he leaned on his walker.
“He needs to get out.” Dad pointed at Logan.
“You’re going to have to make me. I’m not leaving her side.” Logan’s entire body seemed to flex, from his neck to his forearms.
“Felipe. You need to get out.” That was Lincoln.
“Felipe?” Dad raised an eyebrow.
He also looked like shit, like he hadn’t slept in days and days. I thought of Lana on the news and how they said they’d found her body. Her body. Not alive. Tears sprung in my eyes. She didn’t deserve that. Had he killed her? Had Hailey? Had Deacon? Had she done it to herself? Did it matter? She was gone, for good this time. I took the mask off.
“Get the fuck out of my room.”
The six of them—mom, dad, Lincoln, Logan, the security guard, and the straggling nurse—whipped their heads in my direction.
“You killed Lana,” I said.
“What?” Dad’s eyes widened. He staggered back.
“You were having an affair with her. I saw her. She was alive before they . . . .” my lip trembled. “Before they put me in that hole.”
The security guard left the room and walked back inside with a police officer. They must have been standing right outside my door, waiting. I kept talking. I didn’t fucking care anymore. Let them arrest my father. Let him pay for his own sins. I was tired of the rest of us taking the fall for him.
“She was alive. Hailey kept her in a house. A farm. Deacon’s.” I could barely form words, but I continued saying the flashes of what I remembered from that dreadful night. “Hailey is our sister.” I looked at Lincoln when I said that, new tears spilling out of my eyes. He sat down on the edge of my bed, jaw hanging open.
“We asked Hailey,” Logan said. “She was helping search for you.” He stopped talking, brows pulled in. He cast a glare at my father just before he lunged at him, fist closed, aiming for his face. “You mother fucker.”
Logan took dad down easily. The police officer and security scrambled to get him off. There was screaming. The door opened again, more people walked inside—another officer, then another. I couldn’t see what was happening on the floor, but between mom’s screams and cries, the grunting, the clear sound of bones breaking, and the police officers yelling as they tried to pull Logan off of my father, I knew enough. Two officers held Logan up and pinned him against the wall. The third one and the security guard helped dad up. His eyes were wild. Logan’s were wilder.
“I will end you for this.” Dad wiped blood off his mouth with the back of his hand. He looked like he was struggling to stand upright, his other hand pressing up on his side.
“Not if I end you first,” Logan said, smiling. He looked terrifying.
“Tell the officers what you said,” the security guard said, breathing heavily.
“Lana Ly was having an affair with my father.” My entire arm shook as I raised it to point at him, so that there wouldn’t be any room for confusion. It dropped onto my lap with a light thump. I had no strength. “She was alive. She was there when they buried me in that hole. She . . . she was alive.”
“Who buried you?”
“Hailey Valentine.” My lower lip wobbled again.
Logan pushed the police officers off him and walked to the side of my bed, lifting my hand in his. His knuckles were bloody. I squeezed his hand nevertheless because I needed it. I needed someone to carry this burden with me and I knew if anyone could, it was him.
“Take your time, baby.” He leaned in and wiped the tears that wouldn’t stop cascading down my face.
“Hailey Valentine is m . . . m . . . my half-sister.” I took a deep breath. “She tried to kill me because of him.” I glared at my father.
“Oh, God.” Mom wailed, pressing a hand to her mouth and another to her stomach. “Oh, God. What have you done, Felipe? What have you done?”
“We’re going to need you to come down to the station with us,” the officer closest to dad said.
The other two stepped forward, in case he put up a fight. He didn’t. They all walked out of the room. Mom continued to cry. Lincoln stood shakily and went over to her, his walker and her sobs the only sound in the room as he reached her and wrapped an arm around her. I felt like shit. If there was anyone I could have spared it was her. When the doors opened again, I nearly screamed. I wanted everyone to leave me alone. My brothers George and Edward walked in, dressed in suits, looking desperate and confused.
“Dad got arrested?” George asked.
“What the fuck is happening?” Ed followed. He got a good look at me and walked over. “Jesus, Mae.”