Chapter 27

Maddie

Someone stabs me in the arm and I’m jerked awake, my eyelids shooting open. I quickly sit up, backing away from Preston, like a cornered cat hovering against the wall. My hair stands on end and my pulse is racing as the room spins round and round in magical colors. “Don’t touch me,” I snap, aware that my face is covered in tears. I’ve been crying. I’m shaking. I’m terrified. “Don’t you fucking dare touch me!” My voice sounds like an echo that bounces off the walls and slams back against me.

Preston’s eyes are wide and full of concern as he tosses something aside… I squint and try to see what it is, but my vision is blurry. He elevates his hands in front of him. “I’m sorry. But you were screaming and crying and I couldn’t wake you up…. “What happened? Please, tell me what you saw.” He’s too close. I can’t breathe. Can’t process if I’m in reality now or if I was just a minute ago.

It takes me a minute to catch my breath. Takes me a minute to realize I’m not locked behind that door or shooting someone or running in the woods. In a burning building, letting Lily shoot a man… or me shoot a man and blaming it on Lily.

“I have to go,” I slur as I attempt to climb off the lounge chair but end up stumbling and Preston has to catch me in his arms. We crash into the wall and his framed degree falls to the floor and the glass breaks. “I need to go.. get out of here...”

“Maddie, please just wait a minute.” Preston holds me in his arms as I blink and blink and blink, trying to get the room to stop twirling like a merry-go-round on crack. “We need to talk about what just happened.”

“Nothing… happened.” I wiggle out of his hold and stumble over to the chair. I pick up my bag and sling it over my shoulder before staggering over to the door.

“Maddie, would you please—”

I stumble into the hallway and slam the door closed before he can say anything else. Then I take off, but only make it a few steps before I have to brace my hand on the wall. I hear Preston coming up behind me and he says something in my ear.

“What did you do to me?” I mutter, my skin dripping with sweat as I reach the exit door and burst through it out beneath the clouds and the trees. My mother’s already rushing toward me with her phone in her hand. Preston probably already called her.

I fall to my knees on the sidewalk, feel the skin split open, feel blood gush out, saturate my skin, like so much other blood has.

“What did you do to her?’ My mom asks furiously as she storms across the parking lot toward us.

“She had an episode,” Preston says, his shadow casting over me. “I had to give her a sedative to calm her down.”

“No…” I fight to keep my eyes open as I put my hand on the concrete and hunch over. “Sedative… was it… you?”

They exchange words, but I can barely comprehend anything they say. Then somehow they get me to my feet and into the car. My mother buckles me in, gently pushing me down while I try to get out. Then she shuts the door and talks to Preston for a while in front of the car as my surroundings fade in and out.

By the time she gets in, I can hardly keep my eyes open. “Mother… who’s… Evan…” I turn my head toward her, examining her reaction the best that I can.

Her eyes widen as she stops pressing on the gas and the car gradually keeps rolling forward toward the curb. She shakes her head about a hundred times. “I have no idea.”

I touch my side where the scar is and try to say something about the tattoo, but I can’t find my voice. My head slumps back and I’m jerked back into dreamland, unsure who I’ll be when I open my eyes again.