“Yeah, you’re finally seeing their true colors,” Chasm continues, giving Maxx a look. “She’s gotten lucky thus far, you know that. Don’t tell me you’ve already forgotten what Whitehall is like?”
“I could never forget what Whitehall is like,” Maxx offers up cryptically, exchanging a long, studying look with Chasm before he turns back to me. “You think they know something about Parrish?”
“Remember how Lumen went briefly missing the day before Parrish disappeared? Then she woke up in a field with no memory of how she got there?”
“Which isn’t unusual at all if you know Lumen,” Chasm inserts, which is basically what Parrish had said to me before.
“Maybe not, under usual circumstances. These are anything but. I just … I’d like to talk to her.”
“I’d also like to talk to her,” Chasm murmurs, pausing at the sound of footsteps in the hall outside the door. We all halt our conversation, waiting as the person approaches and then opens the door.
It’s Tess.
As soon as she sees Chasm, her entire demeanor shifts.
“Please don’t kick me out,” Chasm offers up, rising to his feet. Tess says nothing, her hand still on the bedroom doorknob. Her eyes flick to Maxx before turning back to Chasm again. “Parrish has been missing for ten days.” His voice breaks slightly. “My … girlfriend fell down the stairs today. I just want to be here, Tess.”
If she kicks him out right now, I will never forgive her. Never. Chasm thinks of the Vanguards as his family. Shit, they’re more his family than they are mine. He’s hurting, too. She should understand that.
“I’ll call your dad,” Tess says finally, blessedly, exhaling and reaching up a hand to her forehead. She looks about ready to collapse. At least the three of us know that Parrish is alive—for now. Tess doesn’t know anything; I can’t imagine what she’s going through. “But I have a few rules: no sex.”
Maxx actively cringes, but Chasm just stands there and takes a bunch of crap for something he never even did in the first place. And on the day he brought me sunflowers? That he … I slept with Parrish, and I don’t regret anything about that except for the fact that Chasm is suffering because of it.
“No sex,” Chasm promises, lifting up both hands, palms out. “I won’t even be alone with her.”
“You’ll sleep downstairs on the couch,” Tess warns him, but there’s not a lot of strength left in her voice. Whatever she was up to today, clearly it yielded zero information about her missing son. I realize suddenly that my Maxine-phone is on the bed.
As if he can sense the direction of my thoughts, Chasm reaches down and picks up the phone, slipping it into his own pocket … just as it begins to ring.
Oh god.
Oh fuck.
“I … that should be my dad,” Chasm offers up, giving Tess a little bow. “Let me get this.” He turns and disappears into the bathroom before Tess can respond. She gives the door a strange look, but then shakes her head, whether in confusion or disappointment, I’m not sure.
“You’re feeling alright?” she asks, and I nod, forcing a smile that I don’t feel just so that I can get rid of her. It isn’t that I don’t appreciate her concern, but I need to get to that goddamn phone. Now.
“I feel amazing—the painkillers have finally kicked in.” Lie. I mean, they’re working on some of my physical aches, but it’s the emotional ones that are killing me.
“Well, if you need anything, just call or text and I’ll be right here.” Tess retreats, but she leaves the door open. I can hear her heels as she walks down the hall to her office.
I wait only as long as it takes her door to open and then close again before I’m scrambling out of bed and closing my own bedroom door. Both Maxx and I head for the bathroom, opening it to find Chasm looking down at the phone screen.
He doesn’t acknowledge us as we move up on either side of him.
Parrish is there, shirtless and bloodied, lying on his back on a mattress. His legs are covered with a blanket, but his arms are shackled to the headboard. He isn’t moving. Fear ripples through me, and I swallow back a surge of raw terror. The only positive here seems to be that his chest is shiny with some sort of salve or ointment, just like I asked for.
The masked person—Mr. Volli again, it seems—is sitting beside him.
“I always keep my promises, princess,” he tells me, and my blood runs hot then ice cold. Mr. Volli reaches back and strokes the length of Parrish’s jaw. At least the gesture spurs Parrish to move, proving that he at least has enough energy left to grit his teeth and turn his head away. His breathing, however, is labored and ragged.
