Page 42 of Storm

“You can, Jenny. You can do this,” I tell her. I rattle off Patch’s number before she turns and heads back up the steps. As soon as she’s at the top, I hear someone yelling at her. Asking her what took her so long. Then I can only assume that it was her body hitting the wall. I cringe internally knowing that it was my fucking fault.

I shouldn’t have kept her down here that long. I shouldn’t have kept talking. I could have waited a little while longer. Fuck me! I should have waited.

I bang my head against the wall, pissed at myself for whatever is happening to her up there right now.

Then I become even more worried when all I hear is silence.

Chapter 16

Kenzee

My chest aches in the worst possible way. I can’t sleep for shit, even when the doc tried to give me sleeping pills, I refused them. I stand in the bathroom looking at myself in the mirror and I can’t believe that it’s me staring back. There’s dark circles under my eyes. I look like I’ve been on a fucking bender for a week straight.

I’ve barely touched any food over the last week, either. I can’t. He’s gone. He was there, and then he wasn’t. They took him. Why would they take him? Why didn’t they leave him like they left my dad? What was the point in taking him?

I want to cry. I really do, but I can’t. There are no more tears left in me. I’ve cried for nearly a week straight. I can’t do it anymore.

“Kenz?” I sigh when I hear Mylah’s voice. I don’t want to talk to her and I don’t plan on it. I know she’s only trying to help, and I appreciate that but I can’t do this with her.

“Go away.”

“I brought your lunch.”

“Just leave it.” I don’t open the bathroom door to thank her or even speak to her. I keep myself closed in here most of the time so that no one will bother me. I hear my door close, and I know she left, but then the bathroom handle jiggles.

“Go away!” I yell this time. No one answers me, but the handle keeps jiggling until the door pops open.

“What the fuck is with you?” I scream at the top of my lungs when I see Patch standing there.

“You’re not gonna keep doin’ this,” he says, nodding toward the bathroom.

“It’s my fucking room, Patch. I can stay in it if I want.”

“This isn’t healthy, Kenz. Your uncle is fuckin’ worried. Hell, we all are.”

“And? I’m fine. Go tell them I’m fine.”

“Are you fine?” he asks, cocking his head to the side. He takes me in, really looks at me before I look back at myself.

“He was there with me one second and then gone, Patch. It was like… I was little all over again, only this time they took him,” I admit to him as I look at myself.

“If you think for one second that we’re gonna let this go, we aren’t. We lost track of them after your dad, Kenz. That was all on us. As far as we knew, they didn’t stick together. Now that we know they’re out there, this shit isn’t over.”

“What if he’s dead?”

“We can’t think like that. It’ll eat us all alive if we do. They took him for a reason, sweetheart. If they wanted him dead, they would have left him too.”

I turn to look at Patch, and I don’t know what to say. Instead, I let the tears fall but Patch doesn’t. He steps toward me, grabbing my shoulders in his hands and shaking me slightly.

“This isn’t the girl I know! You’re not bein’ who you are right now, Kenzee. The girl I know is a fighter. The girl I know doesn’t take shit from anybody. I once watched you beat the fuck out of a girl for takin’ your ice cream, and you’re gonna let these motherfuckers take your man?” He asks. When I don’t say anything, he releases me and steps back.

“I’m almost ashamed to call you a princess, Kenz. This,” he says, waving his hand up and down in front of me. “This isn’t you. Never has been. Even after your dad died, I saw the real you come out. That ‘takes no shit from anyone’ side. The side that could bring a grown fuckin’ man to his knees. This shit right here?” he says, looking me up and down. “This ain’t it.”

With that, he turns and leaves the bathroom, leaving me alone once more. I turn back to the mirror and see the tears still clinging to my lashes and quickly reach up and wipe them away.

He’s right. This isn’t me. I lost my dad, and I learned to live with that. I told myself that I wasn’t going to cry anymore because I knew he wouldn’t want me to. And neither would Storm. He wouldn’t want this for me. I don’t want this for me.

I drag my hands over my face once more before I turn, holding my head high, and walk out of the bathroom just to find Patch sitting on my bed.