Page 22 of Bound By Threads
The words hit me like a punch to the gut. Gone? What the hell does that mean?
My thoughts scatter, trying to latch on to something—anything—but nothing makes sense.
She can’t be gone. Maybe we could go after her and drag her back?
“Gone?” Crew repeats, stepping forward, his eyes searching Elijah’s. “Can’t we just go after her?”
Elijah looks up at us, his eyes haunted, and I know that neither of us are going to like what he says next.
“She’s dead, Crew.”
The words hangin the air, heavy, suffocating. I blink, trying to make sense of what Elijah just said. His words don’t register at first.Dead?What the hell is he talking about?
She can’t be dead.
Not Reyes.
I glance at Crew, expecting him to say something, to make it all make sense, but he stands there, frozen, his face draining of color. I turn back to Elijah, my mouth dry, trying to form a response.
“Dead?” I repeat, but it feels wrong, as if I’m trying to make sense of a foreign language. “How... how do you know? Maybe you’re wrong. Maybe it’s a mistake.”
Elijah doesn’t answer right away, his gaze falling to the ground again. His chest rises and falls with each labored breath like he’s struggling to hold himself together.
“They found her bag on the beach, all her schoolwork inside. Soaked from being out in the water.”
“And what about her? Did they findher?” I ask, needing him to say it. “Maybe she’s just gone for a while,” I say, trying to push the words out, even though they sound ridiculous as soon as they leave my mouth.
Gone for a while?
What the hell does that even mean? But I can’t stop myself from saying it because if I don’t, I’ll have to accept the truth. And I can’t do that. Not yet.
Crew is still standing there, but I see the way his fists are clenched at his sides. The way his jaw is tight. He’s not saying anything, not even moving. It’s like he’s waiting for something, like he’s hoping Elijah will say that he’s joking.
“Crew?” I look at him, but he doesn’t look back. His eyes are glassy, and for a split second, I swear he looks like he’s somewhere far, far away.
“No body...” Elijah chokes out, “They didn’t find a body, but they found her shoes and her bag. She’s gone,” Elijah says again, his voice barely a whisper now, like he’s not even speaking to us. His eyes lift, red and puffy, and I see the devastation there, raw and real.
As if we haven’t been making her life hell the last few years.
I can see the guilt in his eyes—the kind that twists your insides until you can’t breathe.
Could we have done something different? Something to change the outcome?
But there’s nothing to change now. There’s nothing to fix, and we need to just get on with it.
I say as much, hating how they both flinch at my words, but we have a plan, and the loss of the girl who used to be our best friend won’t stop me from finally taking down my dad.
Crew suddenly takes a step back. His entire body tenses like he’s about to snap. His eyes are distant, lost, and I can see him shutting down right in front of me.
I want to grab him, shake him. Make him understand we can’t turn away from the plan, but it’s like he knows my next move because he moves out of my reach, shaking his head. “Don’t,” he rasps. “Don’t fucking touch me.”
Elijah’s still standing there, barely holding it together.
He’s broken in a way I’ve never seen before, not even after his dad left him for dead on the floor.
“We can’t stop,” I say, my voice sounding hollow, like I’m trying to convince myself as well as them. “We can’t stop just because she’s dead. She iced us out. So what if she’s gone?”
Crew’s gaze flickers towards me, and I see the rage in his eyes. He’s never dealt with loss well, not since losing his parents when he was young. He wants to react, to hit me and unleash the monster that we all know lurks under the surface, but he’s lost in the fog.
