Page 103 of His Greatest Muse

“They’ll be here any minute. I called them after I called you,” Dad says.

They’re here for my birthday, not to witness their son in the hospital. “You called them?”

“Noah was stabbed in an alley, Tinsley. He called me, and I got there as soon as I could.” He pauses, swallowing thickly. “I found him and called an ambulance. He wasn’t awake when I got there, but he woke when they started applying pressure to his wound. I called you first because he told me to. As soon as we got in the ambulance, I called Oakley and then your mom.”

My vision blurs. I stiffen every muscle in my body to try and fight the agony in my soul. “How bad is it?”

“The knife missed anything vital, but it tore through a lot of muscle when it was pulled out. They’re trying to fix as much damage as they can. But he should be okay.”

“They told you that he’d be okay?”

“They said that he got lucky. The bleeding is under control, and the damage is minimal considering what could have happened.”

A small flicker of relief settles inside me at his words. It’s not enough, though. Not by a long shot. It’s time to come clean about everything and ask for help. We should have done it weeks ago. Keeping it to ourselves almost cost me the other half of my soul.

“I need to tell you something, Dad,” I mutter. He shifts his body and stares down at me, his brown eyes more haunted than I’ve ever seen them. “And you’re not going to like it. But I need you to listen to me.”

“I don’t like anything about this situation already, sweetheart.”

Mom strokes her thumb over my hand. “What he means is that we’re listening.”

So, I tell them everything. From my missing underwear and the things left on the porch in Vancouver to the threatening picture and text messages. I tell them about every time I felt watched or saw that man appear in the same place we were. And about every secret and conclusion we’ve made on our own.

And then I do it again when Noah’s parents arrive. As Ava buries her face in my shoulder and cries. First in fear and then relief, and then fear again. I watch Oakley storm out of the hospital and then come back an hour later with his hand wrapped in gauze and a broken expression on his face. I sit in silence and listen to my dad tell the police to give everyone some room when they stop by asking questions nobody is prepared to answer yet.

When Maddox and Adalyn arrive, I watch them get lied to. I watch as our parents decide they don’t need to know the details of why Noah is here. And like a coward, I let them.

Because I don’t want them involved. I don’t want the police involved either.

What I want is a plan for how to find this man. And then I want to do to him what he did to Noah.

I meant every word I shouted in that street. I’ll make him regret coming near either of us.

39

TINSLEY

It tooktwenty-six birthdays for me to want to skip one. To simply pretend it wasn’t happening. I wish I could jump ahead a couple of weeks to a time when Noah isn’t asleep in a hospital bed, his hand too cold in mine. Where he isn’t covered in bruises and cut skin and hooked up to machines pumping fluids and pain medication into his veins.

Midnight came and went before he got out of surgery. He was brought to a recovery room for a while before they finally moved him into a room reserved for people with money and a need for privacy. We had some semblance of peace for a while before the press was tipped off to Noah’s whereabouts. They don’t know what happened, just that he’s here, and I can only hope it stays that way.

It’s just past two, and he hasn’t woken up yet. The nurses say it could be a little while and that I should go home and get some rest while we wait, or at least get something to eat. I can’t stomach food right now, and the thought of leaving him and not being here the moment he opens his eyes is not a possibility for me.

I’ll sit in this chair at his bedside for days if I have to. But I am not leaving him.

Glancing down at his hand, I find the knuckles swollen and bruising. I trace the ridges of each one with the ghost of a touch and worry my lip. He got a few good hits in if the state of his hand is anything to go off.

I scoot my chair closer to the bed until I can lift his hand to my lips and lean my elbows on the mattress. The white sheet is tucked beneath his armpits, covering his torso. His hair is hanging in his face. He’d hate that. I’ll cut it for him as soon as he can sit up. I should have done it days ago.

The nurses have cleaned his face and torso, but the scrapes on his cheeks and neck create a vivid enough story of what happened in that alley. I don’t need to see the rocks they dug from his skin or the dirt they washed away to know he spent those minutes of pain on the ground.

That’s how my dad found him. On the ground. Bleeding. Unconscious. Alone.

I’m angry that he didn’t call me but relieved he didn’t at the same time. My father was the best person he could have asked for help, even with their differences. I wouldn’t have been able to think past the sight of him hurt. My dad did.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, kissing his fingers one by one. “If I hadn’t been so selfish, you wouldn’t have gotten hurt.”

I don’t hear the door open and another person join me until Oakley says, “That’s not true.”

---