Page 110 of Elusion

“Okay,” he breathes out. “Here’s the plan.” He wipes a hand over his face, and the in-charge demeanor slowly returns. “Jordan, go see Cal. Pete, stay with Cate. I’ll hunt down Connor.”

If he has anything more to say, I’ll never hear it because I’m gone. He follows me into the hall, and we head in opposite directions.

The nurse smiles, walking me toward the double doors. She stops before opening them and checks down the hallway behind me. “Did her brother not want to come?”

I struggle for a less alarming response than the truth—Connor stole a truck to return to the house where his father beat his sister for a blanket in an attempt to regain a sense of security as his world crumbles around him. In the end, I settle for shaking my head.

She swipes her badge, the locks click open, and she pushes open one of the metal doors. “There you go, hon.” She holds it, waiting for me to walk through.

But I don’t move, my body frozen in place.

Callie’s only a few hundred feet away. I can see her face, hold her hand, tell her I love her, kiss her forehead, feel her heartbeat, and hear her breathe. Everything I need to do to keep my world from further falling apart. Yet, for the life of me, I can’t take another step because she would choose Connor. Callie wantsmeto choose Connor.

That’s when it all changes for me, and my perspective shifts. Not when I decided to chase the girl with the smile and the bluest eyes. Or when she challenged me to trust in myself regardless of the past. But right now, when the what-ifs have become a reality and despite everything I thought and said and want and need, I turn around.

Somehow, I fucking turn around.

My feet show no problems in sprinting my ass the other way down the hall.

“Trey,” I call after him. He stops and waits for me to catch up, but I have no plans on slowing down. “I’ll find Connor. You stay in case anything changes.”

“You sure?” he asks as I pass him. “You don’t want to see her first?”

I round the corner without answering him. I can’t. Given a chance, I might change my mind.

A few calls to both Callie’s and Connor’s phones go unanswered before I stop trying. Searching for a distraction on the drive, I call Benji. Of course, when he answers, I remember he has no idea what happened. I consider hanging up but need his company, so I give him an overview, avoiding the S-word. My mind continues to grapple with that particular word. He responds much like I did, which is to say not at all. For several minutes, nothing comes from the speakers.

“You still with me, Benj?”

“I’m here, man,” he says, barely audible. “What do you need from us?”

“Can someone go over to tell Felicia? Gibson will be a fucking wreck. I want someone with her.”

“I’ll take care of her. You call the minute Calico wakes up.”

I agree as a call from Dustin beeps through. I switch to him. He wants an update, and we talk the last bit of my drive. Our shared ability to prattle on about nonsense at length finally finds a use. I let him go when I pull into Sutterville just before midnight.

Since the weekend bartender is sitting in a hospital waiting room, they closed the bar. It makes the town appear even more abandoned than usual, not a single car on Main Street.

Even though I drive in on a different road, I easily locate Graham’s house again. Next to Callie’s car sits Pete’s truck with the driver’s door ajar. The incessant dinging stops when I pull the keys and shut the door, but the silence that follows bothers me more.

I climb the steps to the open door. Ripped down crime-scene tape blows in the light breeze. My stomach tightens with a dizzying nausea brought on by the sight. The house will be in the same condition as when Trey arrived to find Graham with his hands pressed into Callie’s throat.

Graham strangled Callie.

Nope. The thought still seems ridiculous.

When I step through the screen door, a thick wave of tension clouds the kitchen. Heavy, as if the walls were holding on to all the anger through the years. Every hurtful, hate-filled moment lingers, waiting to add the next. The place puts me on edge, and I want to find Connor and get the hell out.

Straight out of the kitchen is the living room. I only intend to do a quick scan to check for him, but as my gaze travels over the room, my entire body numbs. I wish I’d never left the hospital. I want to go back to the state of doubt I lived in until a second ago. I’ll never be able to go back to it though. Because everything just became undeniably real.

The hole in the drywall is the same height as Callie. A lamp and coffee table both lie on their sides, knocked over. Blood stains the beige carpet—a few drops here and there and then a larger area where I imagine her lying. Where Trey would have found her. Found them. Where he would have pulled Graham off her to stop him from cutting off her airway. The same spot she woke up in, and he lay with her, trying to keep her awake by talking about a trip they had gone on to an amusement park before she’d left for Easton. Even with one eye swollen, he swears she rolled her eyes at him.

I’ve stopped breathing, and the need for air brings me back from internal torture. Only the air does little to ease the ache inside, more overwhelming by the second. I need to leave this fucking house and never think about any of this again.

“Connor!” I shout, backing out of the room.

No answer.

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