Page 189 of Scrimmage

The way she says it is callous, as if that’s not what’s happening somewhere in this hospital. I want to think Ashland would have somehow told me it wasn’t true, but…she did.Evil. It peels your skin from your bones, picks apart your soul, and tells you that you’re all the more beautiful for it.That was what she had said before I left. I didn’t understand. How could I? If Penny hadn’t been the one telling me this, then I probably wouldn’t believe it. That’s the problem with being analytical and a person of fact with a short fuse. Ash wouldn’t have explained it either way. Not enough.

“Sometime soon a man named Jeremy is going to come through that door. You need to go through the stages of grief now, because if Ashland lives, you won’t see her ever again.”

My stomach bottoms out.

Alexi fidgets. “What are you talking about?"

Penny sighs, like a tired grim reaper delivering the news that you’re about to die. “I’m talking about Witness Security, Lex. Ashland is in Witness Protection because of Damien.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Koda

Witness security. I know it’s a real thing because my dad is a senator and my mom has worked with some really fucked up foster kids, but to be this close to it makes you wonder. How many people have I met that have been given a new life?

Now it all makes fucking sense. Ashland constantly being elusive. Every picture being candid. Pinning her down is impossible. Getting answers is worse than pulling teeth. The scars. The screaming. It’s all because of Damien, a man that I am only vaguely aware is a fucking psycho. It takes a lot to have your entire life replaced by the fucking government. Damien can’t be just some ordinary stalker jackass. This guy is a monster.

A strange silence settles over the emergency waiting room. The place is empty, and everyone is gone, including the nurse from the front desk.

A man whose hair is half black with the other half bleached white enters the emergency room lobby, looking around wildly until his gaze lands on Penny. He has two hooped lip piercings on one side of his mouth and one in his septum. An upside down cross dangles from his ear. His entire body is covered in tattoos, and he has chipped black-painted nails. He’s wearing torn black jeans and a cutoff black shirt that has holes all over it. Is this Jeremy?

“Sinclair!” Penny jumps up and rushes him, colliding into his open arms. After a few moments of gripping each other into a hug he finally looks at us. This was the guy she called first.

“Who are these wankers?” he asks in a British accent.

“Oh,” Penny says. “That’s Alexi, and that’s Koda.”

“Why are they covered in blood?” he growls.

“They…They found her,” she quietly answers.

His stance turns rigid, ready to kill me. “They were there?”

“They saved her,” Penny says indignantly.

“How? She’s fucking dying!” he argues.

“The longer they take the longer she’s alive,” Alexi repeats the goddamn mantra he has been saying to himself every five minutes.

“What are you? A fucking self-help book?” Sinclair sneers. “What happened?”

Something about this man is familiar. I’ve seen him in some of her sketches.

The question comes out even though I don’t mean for it to. “How do you know Ashland?”

“What makes you think you have any fucking right to ask me questions?”

“They’re just trying to help,” Penny defends us.

It’s like the man doesn’t even hear her. Rage and anguish boils over. “What happened to my fucking sister?”

Sister? I see it now. The same teal eyes as Ashland glare at me. He might be exuding anger, but his eyes are full of fear. They look similar, only enough to tell that they’re related if they’re standing next to each other. I didn’t know Ashland had any siblings. Add it to the list of things I don’t know about her.

“Sinclair,” she says tersely. “You’re not helping.” She turns to us. “This is Sinclair. Ashland’s baby brother.”

“I’m not a fucking baby,” Sinclair mutters.

“Where is Jeremy?” Penny interrupts.

---