Page 56 of Twisted Empire

16

Tatum

“You sure you’reready for this?” Elias frowned as he looked down at me.

I nodded and pasted on a brave smile. “Yes. I’ll be fine.”

“We can wait a few more days. Dr. Paulson said you need time to recover.”

I shook my head. “It’s been three days already, and I feel okay now. No more cramps, and the spotting has mostly stopped. Honestly, I think he’s just really enjoying the shelter and wants to stay longer.”

“Maybe, yeah.” He smiled and held a cell phone out to me. “Here you go. I’ll be right outside.” He leaned down and kissed my forehead.

“I’ll let you know how it goes,” I said.

He left the room, and I drew a deep breath and dialed the number for the student newspaper I used to work for when I was still at college. A clipped male voice answered on the third ring. “Roden Daily News.”

“Hi, may I speak to Greer?” I asked, trying to mask the edginess in my voice.

“Sorry, she’s not here at the moment.”

My heart sank. I swallowed hard, trying not to let the minor setback deter me. “Oh, I thought she was always there on Tuesday mornings. Do you know when she’ll be in?”

“She is working today, but she went out to grab coffee for everyone. You could try her cell.”

Shit.I couldn’t do that. For all I knew, my old friends’ cell phones were being monitored by Crown and Dagger in case I tried calling them for help. General phone lines like this were the only ones I could trust right now.

I sighed. “I’ll just call back later.”

“All right. Oh, wait, she just walked in. Give me a second.”

My heart lifted again. There was a clicking sound, and Greer’s voice came on the line a moment later. “Hello?”

Just one little word, but my chest ached at the sound of her chirpy voice anyway. I missed her so much. I closed my eyes, trying to pretend I was sitting across from her at the little newspaper office like nothing ever happened.

“Hi. It’s me.” My voice came out in an emotional croak.

“Sorry, who is this?”

I cleared my throat and tried again. “It’s Tatum.”

“Tatum,” she repeated, her voice suddenly cold. I could see her in my mind’s eye. Shoulders tensing up, gaze turning frosty. “What do you want?”

“Please don’t hang up,” I said hurriedly. “I know you’re mad at me, but it’s really important.”

“Yes, it must be, if you’re lowering yourself to a phone call with a dumb trashy bimbo like me.”

“I never said any of those things about you. Please, Greer, you have to—”

“I don’t have to do anything you say,” she snapped.

I rubbed my forehead and let out a sigh. “Sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant I really need you to listen. I need your help.”

She snorted. “You ghosted us all six months ago and trash-talked us to your parents so much that they wouldn’t even give us contact details for you. Now you want my help?” She exhaled deeply and went on before I could get a word in. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to be ghosted by someone you thought was a friend? You might think it’s no big deal, but it freakin’ sucks. Willa actually cried when your parents told us you left and didn’t want anything to do with us, and you know how rarely she loses her composure. And Mellie… did you know she was so upset about the whole thing that she dropped out? She thought you were her best friend, so when you decided you were so far above—”

It was my turn to cut her off. “That’s not true. Mellie didn’t leave Roden because of me.”

“How would you know? You’ve been too busy living it up in Europe with all your cool new intellectual friends to bother keeping up to date on our lives, haven’t you?”

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