Chapter 38 (1/2)

“Just try to put the phone to her ear. Listen to me and just do it,” I tell Landon and start the car up, silently pleading with whoever is listening up there that I don’t get pulled over on the way to the airport.

“I’m just worried that hearing your voice may make it worse,” his voice sounds through the speakerphone. I turn the volume all the way up and set the phone on the center console.

“Goddammit, Landon!” I hit my cast against the steering wheel. It’s hard enough to drive with a fucking cast as it is. “Put the phone to her ear, now, please.” I try to keep my voice calm, despite the cyclone ripping me apart from the inside out.

“Fine, but don’t say anything to upset her. She’s already been through enough.”

“Don’t talk to me like you know her better than I do!” My anger toward my know-it-all stepbrother has reached a new high, and I nearly run into the median, yelling at him.

“I may not, but you know what I do know? I know that you’re a freaking idiot for whatever you did to her this time, and you know what else I know? That if you weren’t so damn selfish, you would have been here with her and she wouldn’t be in the state she’s in now,” he spews. “Oh, and one more thing—”

“Enough!” I hit my cast against the steering wheel again. “Just put the phone to her ear—you being an asshole isn’t going to help anything. Now give her the fucking phone.”

Silence is followed by Landon’s gentle voice: “Tessa? Can you hear me? Of course you can.” He half laughs. I can hear the pain in his voice as he tries to coax her to speak. “Hardin is on the phone, and he . . .”

Soft chanting comes through the speaker, and I lean toward the phone in an attempt to hear the noise. What is that? For the next few seconds, it continues, low and haunting, and it takes me too long to realize it’s Tessa’s voice repeating the same word over and over and over. “No, no, no,” she says, not stopping, not slowing, “no, no, no, no, no . . .”

What was left of my heart snaps into too many pieces to count.

“No, please, no!” she cries on the end of the line.

Oh God.

“Okay, it’s okay. You don’t have to talk to him—”

The line goes dead, and I call back, knowing that no one is going to pick up.

Chapter twenty-three

TESSA

I’m going to pick you up now,” the familiar voice I haven’t heard in too long says, trying to comfort me as strong arms lift me from the floor and cradle me like a child.