Page 171 of Whistle

“Yep. Figured you’d want to know one of yours was running around town with a bottle of liquor.”

“If he comes back, call me immediately,” I demanded, then ended the call.

Jamming the phone into my pants and slinging my whistle around my neck, I ran through the house and out the front door. I didn’t bother stopping to lock it. It wasn’t like I had much furniture for people to steal anyway.

The aggressive, throaty purr of the Mustang mollified me just a bit, making me feel a little more powerful in a moment when I was splintering apart. The tires squealed as I ripped out of the driveway, thankful the hour was late and the roads weren’t busy.

Yellow Pages was located in the next town over, about a twenty-five-minute drive and a place I never went. In fact, I avoided it like the plague. And if I, for whatever reason, had to go over there, I took the long route, which added a good fifteen minutes to the clock.

I didn’t have time for that tonight. Hell, I didn’t even have twenty-five minutes. The mere thought of Bodhi wandering around drunk in a place he wasn’t familiar with while fuck knew what was going through his mind made my skin crawl. Anything could happen to him in twenty-five minutes.

Why did he have to be on that side of town? Why?

I smashed my foot down on the gas so hard that the car shot forward and threw me back into the seat. I didn’t slow down, though. I kept the pedal to the metal and sped toward a place I never wanted to go again.

Suddenly, it didn’t matter because I wanted him more. I’d crawl through glass, sleep on a bed of nails, and relive my greatest nightmare again and again and again if it meant getting to him.

Please be okay, I prayed. Please don’t do anything stupid.

Please.

My eyes roamed the streets, just hoping for a glimpse of him, and the longer I went without seeing him, the more anxious I became. My stomach was in knots, hands clammy, and the back of my neck tense. The past reached out its garbled, bloody talons, threatening to pull me back, but I resisted.

I couldn’t go back because Bodhi needed me in the present.

And then I rounded the bend, headlights illuminating a section of the two-lane road I hadn’t been on for twenty years. Foot easing off the gas, the car slowed slightly as the large bridge came into focus, the structure exactly as I remembered.

To most, it was probably just a metal structure built to alleviate an obstacle, a convenient way to get from point A to point B. But to me? It was a literal nightmare in the dark.

Gritting my teeth, I drove forward, muscles locking as I steeled myself to drive across. The last time I’d attempted to travel this way, I pulled over and puked on the side of the road and then turned around and went the opposite direction.

I drove forward, close enough now that my headlights illuminated the road stretching over the bridge, and everything around it was pitch black and made me feel like I had tunnel vision.

Just before my tires rolled onto the structure, I slammed my brakes so hard the back end fishtailed and the seatbelt tightened across my chest.

“Shit,” I cursed, resting my forearms on the steering wheel, and bowed my head. Lance’s face flashed in my mind, the last words he ever said to me echoing between my ears.

I’m sorry I can’t make you happy, Emmett. I can’t seem to make anyone happy.

I should have stopped him from leaving. I should have told him his words weren’t true. But I was young and stupid. Angry and hurt that he wanted me to be his secret.

That’s exactly what you made Bodhi.

The realization hit me dead center in the chest, robbing my air and making my eyes water. How could I have done this? I was selfish. A selfish bastard who only thought about himself.

Letting out a yell, I slammed my palm into the steering wheel and sat back, chest heaving. My eye caught on something down the bridge, a flash of movement, something out of place.

A knot formed in my throat as I imagined fabric caught on the metal railing and fluttering in the night air.

Shaking it off, I squinted through the windshield, trying to see what was just beyond the edge of the headlights. Unable to make it out, I crept forward. Halfway across the bridge, he came into focus.

A man sat on the railing, carelessly dangling his feet over the side as if he didn’t realize there was a wide, rushing river below. Or maybe he just didn’t care.

A prickle of something—panic, familiarity… both?—came over me as the man lifted his arm to tilt a bottle to his lips. Tipping his head back, he took a long chug before pulling the glass down and swiping at his mouth with the back of his hand.

He was in all black. The shirt he wore was cropped and showed a wide strip of skin on his back… Bodhi.

Nearly choking on the heart that leaped into my throat, I scrambled for the handle, the car stalling out beneath me. Shoving it wide, I hurdled onto the pavement, the sound of rushing water below reminding me exactly where I was.

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