Page 142 of Puck Princess

“Is Callie okay?”

That’s the only question that matters. The only thing in the world that means anything to me right now.

Lance leans in closer, looking as panicked as I feel. My heart is thundering in my chest.

“No— Yes.” Kennedy sobs again, and I want to shake the answer out of her. “She’s not hurt, but… the blood.”

Blood.

“I’m coming.” I push through the crowd without even seeing them. Lance follows right behind me as I sprint out the door.

“What happened?” he calls.

“I don’t… I don’t know. Kennedy wasn’t making any sense. I think Callie was attacked.”

The words don’t feel real. I hear myself saying them, but they can’t be true.

Suddenly, Lance pulls my keys out of my hand and motions for me to get in the passenger seat. “Where?”

I want to fight him on it. I want to fly across town and get to her as quickly as possible. But my hands are shaking.

He climbs into the driver’s seat and starts Heath’s SUV. He’s looking over, waiting for me.

I climb up, buckling in. “Our apartment.”

Then he screeches away from the curb, and we tear off to find Callie.

“Whose fucking blood is that?” I ask for the fifth time.

I practically rolled out of the SUV while it was still moving, charging through the crowd of officers posted up outside my building.

There were more officers outside the elevator and standing by my door.

But no Callie.

All the worst possible scenarios were flickering through my head, and that was before I pushed my way inside and saw the blood. A puddle of it on the carpet. A smear of it on the tile. Another smudge along the door frame.

“The assailant’s,” the officer explains.

“Who?” She was attacked. She was actually attacked. “It isn’t from Callie? She isn’t—”Hurt? Gone? Dead?

I keep checking my phone, but Kennedy hasn’t said anything since she called me at Pour Boys.Where are they?

“Not from what we’ve been told. The neighbor?—”

“Her cousin.” I’m not correcting him, just giving him the facts. I don’t know what will be important later.

“Her cousin told us she was attacked. I guess he came through the balcony and threatened her. There was a struggle, and she stabbed him. That’s their story, anyway.”

He. I know who did this. I know exactly who it was without even asking. Even though the man is gone and the police are investigating, I know exactly what happened here. But every time I see the blood on the floor, my mind flips back to the beginning. I start the whole process over again.Where is Callie? Is she safe?

I drag my hands through my hair, trying to put all the pieces together in my head. But with the police swarming my apartment, the lights and chaos, and the blood on my floor, I’m having a hard time processing. My brain feels like an Etch A Sketch, forming pictures of what's happening only to be shaken up moments later.

Because I was just with her.

We were at a party, and Callie was dancing and spinning in a dress that drove me wild. She was smiling, overflowing with joy that she was carrying my daughter.

My whole world is wrapped up in the essence of her, and someone tried to take it all away from me.

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