Page 43 of Twisted Trails
Dane steps forward, but Piper tightens her grip on his arm. “Don’t, you’ll make it worse.”
“Let’s all take a breath.” My mother places a hand on Dane’s shoulder, but I’m done breathing, and I’m so done standing by while everyone puts more shit on my girl, so I step up next to Dane, siding with him.
I’m done letting people hurt her.
Dane’s dad scoffs when he sees us forming a line of defense. “You’re all being unreasonable. She has broken fingers! She needs to be seen in a proper hospital, not kept in some backwoods cabin with a bunch of overgrown children playing bodyguards. And after that, she needs recovery and physio, not more races and this nonsense. This farce needs to stop before it all explodes in her face.”
So, Dane told him why she’s doing this.
Somehow, it bugs me that he knows before I do, but at the same time, it wasn’t Alaina telling him, which helps. I want to hear it from her.
“Now is the time to pull out,” Ambrose adds. “Before there are any real repercussions.”
“Oh, and herdyingisn’t a repercussion?” Dane snaps back,and my head whips toward him.
What?
His dad echoes my thoughts. “What did you just say?”
Dane is shaking now, but this time it’s not with rage, and when I look more closely, I see that it’s with something worse.
Fear.
Piper seems to notice it, too, and tightens her grip on hisarm, holding him close while asking him the same question, although much gentler. “What are you saying, Dane?”
“I can’t,” he breathes, voice cracking, and shoulders trembling. “I fucking can’t.”
Something inside me drops. I’ve only known Dane for a few weeks, but he’s always seemed solid as granite, almost unbothered. The calm in the chaos, but right now, he’s unraveling, and everything he’s been holding together is splitting at the seams. I don’t think he knows how to stop it.
Greer showing up and spilling everything didn’t just rip the scab off Alaina, apparently, it cracked something in Dane too.
Ambrose shifts, scoffing like this is all some overreaction. “What the hell are you talking about? It’s a hospital. She’s not going todiejust because I want a second opinion on her fing?—”
“Shewill!” Dane cuts in, and his eyes are wide and wet. “She’ll take her own life if you take her with you.”
The words land, and the room just stops. Like all the air got sucked out, and I swear the only thing I can hear is my heartbeat.
And suddenly, I’m not standing in this room anymore. I’m thirteen, and the phone is ringing. Then my mother is sobbing, and I’m staring at the door he walked out of two hours earlier, wondering how the hell we didn’t see it coming.
I dig my nails into my palms, trying to stay here.Now.Notthen.
But it’s hard—putain, it’s hard—not to fall into that old, cold space in my chest. The one I’ve spent years pretending isn’t there anymore.
Ambrose’s voice is a whisper now, but it’s enough to pull me back. “Why would she do that?”
Dane turns slowly, looking at all of us. His mouth opens, but the words don’t come.
Mamanwraps her arms around Dane like she’s done it a thousand times, then strokes his hair and whispers softly, “Tell us,cherié.It’s okay. Tell us.”
“Alaina doesn’t want to live after this. She’s been holding on by a thread. If you take her now, if you rip this away from her before she’s done, it’ll snap, and I’ll lose her.”
Dane breaks then. Full-on sobs, body curling in on itself, and I helpMamanease him into the living room and onto the couch on autopilot because I’m still processing what he just said.
Piper sits beside him, pulls him in, and cradles him to her, letting him cry. I stand there and look toward the hallway wherema Petitesleeps, not knowing that everything out here is shifting around her.
Ambrose sinks into the armchair across from Dane, legs wide, elbows on his knees. His eyes are hard, but there’s something else there. Real fear.
So he’s not as cold as he pretends to be.
