Page 68 of What Lies Within

I take her hand in mine, relieved that Maddie doesn't jerk it away like she did the first time I visited. "I'm back now. I'll stay a while. Maybe I can get you something to drink. See if you can do that?"

Nothing. No reaction other than her rhythmic blinking.

Damn it.“I’m sorry I left. I went to get painkillers and then…” Well. She doesn’t need to know any of it. Her father’s misunderstanding, his anger, the result…Especiallythe result. “Deo came in. I don’t know if you realized that. He came to see you were okay, but he left." I stroke my thumb across the back of her hand and map the little freckles amongst her tanned skin. "Your dad thinks he's gone to find Fox, but Kane and Harvey are following your uncle, and they haven’t seen Deo. Tyke’s calling Marco to find out if he might know where he went.”

Her breath shudders into her lungs, and then she’s status quo.

It worked, though. It might not have been happy news, but it tugged at something conscious.

“He’s got to love you, right? To want to get justice for you like this?”

“Or he’s fuckin’ mad.” Jamie sighs. “He’s one guy against two. Maybe three. Shit—Ronanisthe equivalent of three.”

"Have you seen this Ronan guy before?" I tilt my head and look her way, intrigued by any tidbits Jamie can give me about this mysterious figure.

She nods. “At a distance. Looks like the kind of man you’d expect to see coming out of a corporate building in the city, you know. All groomed and pretty.” She smirks. “Stories my dad tells, though… You can’t let the guy’s pretty looks fool you.”

“Yeah, I get that.” Learned the lesson the hard way with Connor.Speaking of…“Anyone know where Connor went?”

“He was with Minion and Kane while they were checking properties, but I don’t know if he still is.”

“He helped look for her too?” It seems so contradictory to the deal he tried to barter.

“Yeah. I don’t know what’s up with that, either.” Jamie’s gaze slides to our catatonic friend. “They spent their whole years at Red River High trying to either kill each other or get the other expelled.”

“Really?”

She nods. “Maddie won. Connor was expelled four months shy of graduating.”

I twist my mouth up. "Yeah. He said something once about not finishing school, but I never asked why."

“There’s your reason.” She nods toward Maddie. “You want me to leave you two alone for a while?”

“Honestly?” I sigh, setting Maddie’s hand on her crossed legs. “Suit yourself. I don’t mind if you stay.”

Jamie eases off the bed. "Nah. I'll go." She glances around the room. "I've never been in Tyke's room before, and it's kind of weirding me out."

I chuckle. “Really?”

“You ever hang out in your parents’ bedroom when you were a kid?”

I smirk. “Guess not.”

“Yeah. Me neither. And this feels way too much like doing that.” She retrieves her phone, weighing it in her hand as she studies the President’s daughter. “I hope she comes right soon.”

"Yeah." I reach up and tuck Maddie's hair behind her ear. "Me too." My gaze falls to the dried blood hidden away beneath the collar of her shirt, the specks stuck in the underside of her hair. "You think we should help her shower?"

"Nah." Jamie moves for the door, stalling a few steps away. "I know if I woke up out of this kind of shit, a hot shower issomething I'd want to do consciously. Relax and all that, you know?"

“Yeah. I get you.” I offer her a small smile. “Thank you. For being with her.”

Jamie shrugs, ducking her head. “Ain’t nothing. We’ve never really been friends, but I still think of her like a big sister.” She huffs a short laugh. “Kind of hard not to when we’ve essentially grown up together.”

“True.”

“Anyway. Holler if anything changes, yeah?”

“Of course.”

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