Aggro - CoraLee June Page 0,96
not see him. How would my family survive this? How would anything ever be okay again?
Chase gave me a sympathetic look before addressing Kai. The calmness in his demeanor was alarming. It was like he had compartmentalized his feelings to find the truth. “Do you recognize this number?” Chase asked while showing Kai the screen. I squeezed my eyes shut, unable to look.
“Looks like a burner number. Could be Lex,” Kai admitted.
“Look,” Chase replied in a low voice.
Unknown: You better not tell anyone what you saw.
“We have to go to the police. We have to tell my mother—oh God. Mom.” A new wave of nausea hit me. How could I possibly tell her? This would kill her.
Chase carefully set the phone down and reached out to hug me. I didn’t understand how he could so easily wrap his arms around me. “Breeze. Breathe,” he instructed. I hadn’t even realized that I was struggling to suck in air. My chest felt tight. The world was spinning.
“How are you so calm?” I choked out. “Hit something. Hit me. My father, Chase, it’s my father!” I screamed.
Chase grabbed my head in his hands, forcing me to look him in the eye. “I’m not going to fucking hit anything. Stay with me. Stay with us.” Kai held me tighter, and I fell apart in their hands. I didn’t understand this. How could Violet do this to me? All the sleepovers. All the trips to the beach to watch my father surf. It felt tainted now. It felt wrong. I couldn’t breathe. I needed to do something. My imagination was no longer just broken what-ifs surrounded by questions I couldn’t answer. I bid the unknown farewell with a wave of goodbye and drowned in the reality of truth. The sea felt dried up. The sun had set. The lighthouse known for guiding hope was nothing but an extinguished lightbulb now. A broken promise to always guide me home. Betrayal was an eight-letter word bathed in a pastel purple hue.
“We have to go to the police,” I whispered. “Please. I want to go now. I can’t just sit here.”
Chase quickly grabbed the cell phone and stood up. Kai pulled me up to a standing position, and when my shaky legs couldn’t hold my weight, he picked me up and cradled me against his chest. “I’m going to the police, you go to the hospital. Get Mrs. Shirley. She needs to know what’s happening, and I don’t want her finding out from gossip or the news.” Chase had taken charge; it was a side of him I didn’t recognize. He commanded the room with his words, and Kai followed his lead.
Kai scooped me up and practically ran to his truck. He set me down gingerly in the passenger seat and reached over to buckle my seatbelt. He ran around the car and slid into the driver’s side, starting the truck. He rolled down the window and lit a cigarette. Normally I hated it when he smoked when I was in the truck with him, but I was so numb I barely registered the smell. Kai put the car in drive and peeled out, driving like we were trying to escape a demon.
I just couldn’t imagine my sweet, gentle father pressing against Violet’s neck and squeezing the life out of her. Out of her baby, their baby. My half-sibling. I started retching again, and Kai fished around before handing me a takeout bag from his restaurant. I didn’t understand anything that was happening, and none of it felt like it could be real. But it was.
I laid my head against the cool glass of the half open window, letting the air rush around me. I tried to calm myself down, we were going to be at the hospital soon, and I was going to have to tell my mother. I closed my eyes and took deep breaths. I tried to calm myself by visualizing the ocean and the movement of the water with her waves forming and crashing. But then I saw Violet in the wall of water, her blue eyes begging for mercy as my dad tightened his grip. I snapped my eyes open, and hot tears fell.
Kai made the final turn into the hospital parking lot, the tires squealing beneath us as he did. He pulled into a parking spot and turned off the truck. Putting his arm around my shoulder, he gathered me into him, sprinkling kisses on the top of my head as I