Page 84 of Diesel
“Still out cold. He’s been stable for the last few hours, but…” His cheek ticks. “His injuries were bad. We won’t know anything until he wakes up.”
“If he wakes up,” Mace says with devastating finality. It hangs between us like a live wire.
“He will,” Nic says, his words biting. “For now, all we can do is keep looking for Crank. I’ll let you know if we get a lead. Spend as much time as you can with your families.”
I hear the exhaustion in his voice, the lack of hope, like he’s already given up on the idea that we’re going to find him and fucking end him.
But I know one thing about men like Crank. He might be a coward, but he’s also stupid and power-hungry. Men like that always slip up and when he does, we’ll be waiting.
TWENTY-SEVEN
MAKENNA
I’m sittingon the edge of the bed, half-dressed, when the door opens. I glance over my shoulder, and my heart stutters. Zane slips into the room, and I know something is wrong. I’ve spent my whole life decoding the things he never says out loud and right now, his movements are screaming something is wrong.
I sit straighter, bracing my spine like I need to prepare for whatever hit he’s about to land.
“What is it?” My words scrape out of my throat, a raw rasp.
He walks around the foot of the bed, his steps slow and deliberate, like he’s carrying something heavy, fragile. I curl my fingers into the sweater draped over my lap, my skin stretching over my knuckles.
The mattress dips, but not as much as my stomach. That familiar anxiety, the one I’ve carried since I was seven years old, flares to life like it was waiting. I rub my palm over my belly, like that’ll calm the hurricane coiling in my gut.
He flexes his hands, his fingers twitching like he’s trying to wring the words out of him. The look on his face is the same one he gets when he’s standing in front of something ugly and trying to shield me from it.
“Zane…” My voice breaks on his name. “What’s wrong?” He doesn’t answer. The silence is too much, too heavy. “Talk to me. Please.”
His eyes flick past me, settling on the wall, the floor, anywhere but me. His fingers flex in his lap again. I wait, and the words hover on his lips. I already know they’re going to hurt.
He looks at me briefly, guilt flashing in his eyes. Then he says, “Chloe’s dead.”
There’re no soft edges, no warnings. Just cold facts. The truth dropped like a grenade. He doesn’t mean to hurt me, but it still hits me like a sucker punch.
The air leaves my lungs in a rush. My fingers clenching the fabric like it can hold me here. I feel like I’m floating outside my body as his words settle somewhere deep and raw inside me.
I barely knew Chloe, but I’ve known hundreds of girls like her. Young. Vulnerable. Dragged into a world she wasn’t meant to be in.
Chewed up and spat out when she wasn’t of use anymore.
She could have had more. A second chance.
And now she’s just…gone.
I’m glad I’m sitting. If I wasn’t, I think I’d crumble.
His hand hovers in the space between us, hesitant in a way he’s never been with me. He thinks I’m angry, that I’ll blame him. That he failed me again.
But he can’t protect me from everything. I don’t needhim to be my shield, just the safe arms to fall into when things hurt me.
I slide my fingers into his, curling around him like he’s my anchor.
Chloe’s dead…
I stare at a patch on the carpet, tracing a worn stain with my eyes while the words claw into my chest.
“If I’d reached her sooner?—”
Zane squeezes my hand. “No, Kenna. There’s nothing you could have done differently.”
