be back by the time I got out.
She wasn’t.
I stood in the silence of the room, a towel around my waist. Now the clock read 7:22 a.m. Fear started to creep back under my skin, and I reminded myself Thea wasn’t the helpless person she’d been at Blue Ridge.
Call her. No big deal.
I dug in my jacket for my cell phone. Not there. Not in my jeans, either. A sliver of memory found me from last night. It’d gone missing at the bar.
Thea’s backpack was at the foot of the bed.
Leave it. She’ll be back soon. Trust her.
More memory flashes from last night. Thea’s eyes alit with a euphoria that bordered on fear. The strange phone call with Delia. Crying in the middle of the night.
I clutched the towel around my waist and kneeled to dig through her bag. I found my phone at the bottom, shut off completely. I sat on the bed and powered it back up. Dozens of text messages popped up along with notifications of another dozen missed calls. Most from Delia, but also Rita, Alonzo, and Dr. Chen.
“What the fuck…?”
My heart stopped beating and then took off at a gallop. With shaking hands, I opened the string of text messages from Delia and read them one after another.
“N-N-No…”
I couldn’t believe my eyes. Delia was fucking with me. Trying to ruin everything…
You’re lying, Thea said during the call at the bar. Because she knew then. Delia told her and then Thea lied to me.
“No,” I barked. “This is b-b-bullshit.”
Rage fueled by terror burned hot and fast. Delia was lying. She was a fucking liar and a thief trying to steal Thea from me.
And she somehow wrangled the Blue Ridge staff to go along with it?
My hand trembled as I hit the button on the first voicemail out of twenty, holding the phone to my ear as if it were a poisonous snake.
I listened to all of Delia’s messages, which alternated between tearful begging and angry fear. Then the voicemails from Dr. Chen, cool and professional but laced with urgency. From Alonzo, his voice heavy with pain. And Rita. Fuck, Rita cried her message, and I nearly did too.
The phone fell slack in my hand. The blood drained from my face; the rage draining with it, leaving only the terror.
And a silent, empty room.
Chapter 33
Jim
The key slid into the door and Thea came in, balancing a tray of two coffees with cream and sugar packets piled between them.
“Oh, you’re up,” she said, then froze when she saw the phone in my hand.
God, she was so beautiful and alive and right here. And it was all going to end.
“I should’ve thrown both phones away,” she whispered. “Or smashed them.”
“And then what?” I asked. “Keep me drunk every night? Was that your plan?”
She stared back at me, defiant. “Maybe.”
“You didn’t smash the phones because you know what we have to do.”
She moved quickly across the room to set the tray on the table by the window. “I don’t have to do anything but go out into this amazing city and live my life.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, mustering the will to try to survive this. “No, Thea.”
She stiffened, her back to me, then slowly turned, arms crossed. “Delia called you?” Her voice struggled to stay strong and casual. “So what? Whatever she said, she’s lying. She hates you so she’s trying to ruin us.”
“Dr. Chen called me too.”
Thea flinched and my goddamn heart cracked.
“Seven of Dr. Milton’s ten trial patients have had strokes,” I said, hating every goddamn word. “Of those seven, two are nearly completely paralyzed, three are in a coma, and two are—”
“Stop,” Thea said, hugging herself.
I swallowed the word down. “We have to go back.”
“No.”
“A stroke is not reversible, Thea. There is no medication for that.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
“And if it kills you?” I cried. “The other two patients died. But if you stop taking the Hazarin now, there’s a chance—”
“No. I’m not going back. I have time. I have a month’s supply—”
“And then what? They won’t give you more.”
She won’t make it a month.
Terror bloomed bright and glassy in Thea’s eyes. “I’ll worry about that later. I’m not giving up my time. I’m not. I won’t.”
“You can’t take the Hazarin,” I said, low and controlled. “It might kill you—”
“I don’t care.”
“I care!” The words reverberated around the room. “I f-f-fucking care.”
We stared each other down, then her gaze darted to the bathroom where the Hazarin bottle sat beside the sink. As if a starting gun