Page 44 of Promise Me Not

“She’s not going anywhere with you,” Chase warns calmly, and then suddenly Brady is here too.

Emotions well in my throat at a fast rate.

Support.

Safety.

Loss.

Emptiness.

Shock.

Absolute devastation.

I can’t keep up.

I gasp, and Mason’s hand shoots out, pressing to the spot on my back below Chase’s elbow. A silent, unspokenI’ve got youpassing from his skin to mine.

“Put. My daughter. Down,” my mother demands yet again.

“Get the hell out of here, Ava,” Parker growls. “Now is not the time for this shit. For once in your life, be a good mother, and let her have some time before you start your shit again. Please.”

I curl into myself even more, because I know what he might have forgotten.

There isn’t a decent bone in her body.

“Time for what?” She proves my thoughts right. “It’s not like it happened in front of her, and she’s sixteen! So her little crush is no more. Not my problem! Deaton is dead. She’ll get over it!”

My lips part, desperate for air, but the knot in my throat denies it, and I feel my face burn with the lack of oxygen.

“Oh my god!” someone shouts, and I peek left, spotting the woman who must be Nate’s mom charge toward mine, but her son blocks her before she can lunge at my mother.

Guilt burrows its way into my bones. Her daughter wouldn’t be in that room if it weren’t for me. Kenra brought me to California.

Deaton followed.

This is all my fault.

Uncontrollable, gut-wrenching sobs burst from my throat. I might be screaming.

Shadows crowd me, telling me the boys have moved closer, but I can’t see them. I don’t hear them.

My vision is full of broken glass and mangled limbs.

I see Deaton’s bloody body as he screams in my face that this is my fault.

That I ruined his life.

That I ruined everything.

The next thing I know, the cool night air whips me in the face. My body trembles, and then my ass meets something cold. The arms releasing me slip farther away, but my hands snap out, clinging to them.

“Please,” I beg.

They come back, holding me tighter this time, and the last thing I hear before I pass out again is “I’m not going anywhere, I promise.”

It’s like a sledgehammer taken to the last of my strength.

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