Chapter 4

The door shoved open again.

A woman in nurse's scrubs burst in with a phone held out in front of her.

She pointed the camera at me.

"Everyone, this is her!"

"Wren Calloway. The blood-debt leech."

"Her mother faked a rescue to save the Hawthorne heir and got herself killed doing it, and left this little grifter behind to keep milking the Pack!"

Live comments scrolled across the screen.

I couldn't read them. I didn't want to.

I had only one thought in my head.

Find Damon.

Make him say it wasn't true.

Make him say the accident was real.

Just have him say it.

Then I'd leave.

I'd never see him again.

I'd never stand in front of him for the rest of my life.

I just needed my mother's name cleared.

I pulled the IV out of the back of my hand. A bead of blood welled up.

It didn't hurt. Not compared to the rest.

Not compared to what Mom had gone through.

I ran for the door barefoot.

"Hey — don't run!"

Someone shouted behind me.

I didn't stop.

The corridor was long.

The floor was ice under my feet.

I had to find him.

Make him say my mother wasn't a grifter.

Say she hadn't faked anything.

She had just saved him.

Then I would go.

Gone for the rest of my life.

The elevator opened. I threw myself in.

I didn't know where he was.

But I would find him.

I had to.

The elevator lights hurt my eyes.

I leaned against the wall, the soles of my feet bloody.

Mom, wait. I'm going to make him say it.

The elevator opened and Damon was all I could think about.

I ran across the lobby, out the doors, into the street.

Slam.

My body flew up, then came back down.

My head hit the ground with a dull thud.

Everything in front of me kept shaking.

The sky. The buildings.

The trees along the road.

And blood. A lot of blood.

It spread out from under me.

Did it hurt.

It didn't seem to.

Or everything hurt at once.

Someone was screaming.

Someone was shouting to call emergency.

Nobody dared come close.

I watched my own hand shaking.

Blood trickled down from my wrist.

Drop by drop, onto the pavement.

Just like Mom.

The sentence kept turning in my head.

Mom. I'm going to find him.

I'll make him say it.

After he says it, I'll go.

Only I couldn't move now.

My legs wouldn't move.

Nothing would move.

The sky outside was bluer than the ceiling of the medical center.

I hadn't noticed before.

Now that I was on my back I could see it clearly.

I'm sorry, Mom.

I'm coming to you.

Please don't be angry with me.

I did try. I just ran out of time.

When the call came through from his assistant,

Damon was busy humoring Selene.

She was curled against his shoulder, winding his tie around her finger.

"Damon, I don't like that watch."

"Will you throw it out?"

"It makes me sick to look at."

Damon frowned down at her.

Selene kept pouting.

"She designed it. Wearing something she designed makes me uncomfortable."

"Get a different one."

"I'll buy you a better one."

Damon didn't answer. He looked away.

The sky outside was very blue.

He thought, suddenly, of all the nights Wren had stayed up over those designs.

The desk lamp burning at three in the morning.

The shadows under her eyes.

And the day he'd told her the ring was lost,

how hard she'd cried.

Damon felt something twist in his chest.

"Damon?"

Selene was calling him.

He came back to himself.

Looked at the face in front of him.

Did he want her?

He supposed he did.

She was new.

She knew how to flirt.

She knew how to throw tantrums.

Unlike Wren.

Only that watch.

He wasn't going to throw it out. He wasn't.

He couldn't even say why. He just didn't want to.

His phone rang. His assistant.

He picked up.

"Sir. Miss Calloway's been in an accident."

He blanked.

"What?"

"She ran out of the medical center and got hit by a car."

"Someone put her into another car and drove off. She's gone."

He stood still.

Selene was still saying something.

He couldn't hear her.

There was only one image in his head.

Wren, sliding the watch onto his wrist,

her eyes crinkling when she smiled.

"What do you mean, gone?"

he asked.

The assistant hesitated on the other end.

"Gone. After she was loaded into that car, no one saw her again."

"By the time the medical center's team got outside, the car was already moving."

"What car?"

"Couldn't see."

"Plate?"

"No one caught it."

"Which direction?"

"No one knows."