Rocking Kin (The Lucy & Harris Novella Series Book 3) (27 page)

Slowly, Harris lowered the hand that was still holding my phone. He was still as a rock, his face just as hard. His eyes were blank and his skin paler than it had been the first night I had seen him lying in that hospital bed.

“Go,” he bit out in a voice devoid of all emotion.

My heart turned to ice. “What?”

He turned his head away, blocking me out as I had him earlier. “Go. I don’t want you here.”

“Harris…” I reached for his hand, unable to just leave him. He pulled his hand away before I could touch him.

I wouldn’t leave him—I couldn’t. I loved him. The thought of him not wanting me with him killed me. Tears burned my eyes as I glanced from him to his stepmom, her eyes full of both pity and determination, then to Aunt Emmie. Her green eyes were full of concern for me but I didn’t want her concern.

I wanted her to fix this like she had fixed every other problem I’d ever faced in the past.

Shaking my head, I turned back to Harris. I touched his face, begging him with my touch to look at me. “We can get through this. I don’t care what happened. I love you.”

“Just go, Lucy.”

The defeat in his voice had my knees threatening to buckle. “I can’t,” I whispered around a sob. “Don’t make me.”

“Nat,” he gritted out. “Get rid of her.”

Without questioning him, Natalie moved around the bed and put her hand on my shoulder. The look in her eyes was full of reluctance, but the grip she had on me told me she meant business. Tears blinded me as I let her guide me to the door. Opening it she turned and walked away while Aunt Emmie pushed me through the door. My heart broke all over again as I left him there.

No. Please no.

I started to crumble but Aunt Emmie caught me. The sob that left me echoed off the corridor walls and down to the waiting room. People appeared behind me but I was too broken to notice them or care if they saw me falling apart. Emmie only tightened her arms around me and let me cry until my throat was raw and aching.

Once the horrible noises stopped, a different set of arms wrapped around me and I felt a fresh flood of tears blind me as my dad tucked me against his chest and carried me away from the hospital room door. Away from Harris.

Away from the guy I’d thought would be my future.

Chapter 21

Kin

Lucy had left the day before, but the tortured sounds that had come from her were still echoing in my head. I couldn’t get the sight of her so destroyed out of my mind. I didn’t know what had happened in Harris’s room, but whatever had gone on had left my friend a ghost of herself.

Jace hadn’t left the hospital since Harris had been brought in, so I stayed with him. I was surprised Jillian hadn’t called to demand I come back to the house, or worse—shown up to play up to the media that had been parked outside in the hospital parking lot since they had gotten wind that Harris Cutter had been brought in with a possible overdose. She hadn’t done either, but Carolina had texted me three times, asking if I was okay.

I’d texted her back, letting her know that I would be staying with Jace as long as he was at the hospital with our friend. She had promised to tell her mother after that first text, but the two other times she’d messaged me she had only been concerned about me. Wanting to know if I was okay. If I was getting any sleep. If she could bring me anything.

I’d felt conflicted about her. It was weird, to say the least, that I’d gotten Carolina wrong. I wasn’t wrong about people very often, so it confused the hell out of me. I hated that I’d put her in the same boat with her mother and older sister, that I’d misjudged her. She was really a nice girl—sweet even.

The doctor was going to release Harris the next day now that they were sure all the narcotics he’d been drugged with were out of his system and he didn’t seem to have any side effects from them. I’d only seen him once since Lucy had left, but I couldn’t agree with the doctor on his assessment that Harris was going to be okay.

He wasn’t even close to being okay. His eyes were dead, his face hard and pale. There was a new anger in the usual carefree Harris Cutter that concerned me just as much as Lucy’s breakdown had. I didn’t know everything, Lucy hadn’t told me much about what had happened on her end the night everything had gone to hell and back. I knew that she’d gotten some text messages from Harris’s phone from Tessa, but that was all she would say.

Whatever it was, it had been enough to destroy two people’s lives. No, not just two. More. Harris and Lucy weren’t the only ones wrecked after what Tessa had done. Jenna, who was caught in a tug-of-war between her three siblings. Devlin and Natalie Cutter, who couldn’t wrap their minds around the fact that their son had nearly died. Jesse and Layla, who couldn’t make their daughter’s pain go away. Jace, who was still haunted by imagines of nearly losing his best friend as he watched him OD. I hurt for all of them.

With Harris being released, Jace was finally ready to go back to his place. I was ready to go with him, wanting to sleep in his bed snuggled up against him for a few hours before I had to face anyone at my father’s house.

That plan was quickly changed, however, when I started to leave with Jace. Out of nowhere Lana Stevenson appeared in front of me. Her pregnant belly was huge, near to busting it looked like. She was carrying her fourth daughter and only weeks away from giving birth, but the look on her face right then made me wonder if the newest little Demon family addition was going to be joining us sooner than expected.

“Kin, thank God you’re still here. I need your help. Will you come with me to Malibu? It’s Lucy. She needs us.”

I didn’t even blink. That was all she needed to say. If Lucy needed me, then I was going to be there for her. She was my best friend and had helped me through some of the worst times of my life. I owed her.

“Good, thank you.” She grasped my free hand—the one not entwined with Jace’s—and pulled me along with her to the idling SUV just outside the hospital’s entrance. I didn’t even have time to glance back at Jace as she rushed me away.

Drake Stevenson was behind the wheel and put it in gear as soon as the door shut behind me and his wife. He gave me a grim nod in the rearview mirror and hauled ass. I reached for my seatbelt. “Is Lucy okay?”

Lana glanced back at me from the front passenger seat. “No,” she said with tears in her eyes. “This is all a clusterfuck, Kin. I can’t explain right now because I don’t know what all is going on. All I know is that Layla called me, nearly hysterical. She and Jesse were having an argument and I could hear him raging in the background. I didn’t ask questions. Since we hadn’t made it home yet, I told Drake to come back and get you. Whatever is going on, I know Lucy will need us both.”

Layla and Jesse Thornton arguing? They were such an amazing couple. What the hell were they arguing about?

Drake remained mute the entire drive to the Thorntons’ house. I knew he adored Lucy and she loved him just as much. There was a strong bond between them, that much anyone could have seen when they were around each other. I figured that he was being pulled in two directions right then. Wanting to take care of Jenna. Wanting to comfort Lucy. It must have been killing him.

“It will all work out,” Lana kept murmuring and at first I thought she was just talking to herself, but then I saw the way she would reach for Drake’s hand every time she said it. She was trying to reassure him even though her own worry and stress was so evident on her beautiful face. “It’s going to be okay, babe. I promise.”

He would only nod and then push down harder on the gas.

As soon as the SUV pulled into the driveway, I was rushing to get out and follow behind Lana. She didn’t bother to knock, but walked right in to her sister and brother-in-law’s home. I could feel the tension in the house as soon as I stepped inside, but things seemed quiet. If Jesse and Layla had been arguing they had stopped. For the moment at least.

“She doesn’t want to go!”

My head snapped around at Jesse’s bellow and Lana and I looked at each other before hurrying toward where his voice had come from. Upstairs. Lana moved faster than I would have thought a heavily pregnant woman could have and reached the second floor landing just as Drake was coming through the front door.

“Be careful, Angel.”

“She needs to go. It will be good for her. Staying here will only make things harder for her,” Layla’s voice raged back. “Some time away from all this shit will give her some breathing space.”

“I-I won’t go,” I heard Lucy sob. “You can’t make me!’

What the hell was going on?

Lana paused long enough to open the door where all three voices were coming from and I stopped when I saw the scene inside Lucy’s room. She was lying on her bed, her face buried in her pillows as she sobbed over and over again, her body shaking from the force of each one. Jesse stood on one side of his daughter’s bed while Layla was on the other, both of them glaring at each other as they yelled back and forth at each other.

“I won’t let you send her away. She needs us more than anything right now. If she’s across the country how will we help her? Huh, Layla? How?” His voice shook with the force of his emotions as he pointed his finger out the window. “I won’t let you and Emmie send her away, godsdamn it. My little girl needs me.”

“Lana!” Lucy had lifted her head and spotted her sister. “Lana, don’t let Mom send me away. Don’t let her.”

Lana moved toward the bed, going straight to Layla. “What’s going on?” she demanded, her gaze going from one person to the other, lingering on her upset baby sister before landing on her oldest sister who was openly crying just as hard as Lucy was right then, but the determination in her brown eyes told me she wasn’t going to give up the fight.

“I told Emmie to get Lucy’s paperwork ready. She’s going to Georgetown on Monday.” Layla wrapped her arms around herself, her body shivering as if she were physically sick.

“What?” Lana exclaimed, her honey-brown eyes widening. “Layla… Do you think that’s a good idea right now? Look at Lucy. She’s a mess.”

“Weren’t you a mess after what happened with Drake?” her older sister demanded and Lana’s mouth tightened just as the man in question walked through the bedroom door. “How wrecked were you, Lana? And how much did it help to put distance between you and here?”

With a hand that noticeably trembled, Lana pushed her hair back from her face and turned away from them all. Her eyes on the carpet, she seemed to take in what Layla had said and consider it.

Drake moved to stand beside Jesse. He must have heard what Layla had told his wife and was choosing his brother-in-law’s side. “Leaving doesn’t solve anything, Layla,” he growled. “You’re just showing her she can run from her problems and it will make everything okay.”

“No, I’m showing her that sometimes you have to walk away and put yourself first,” Layla snapped.

“That’s bullshit.” Jesse yelled so loud I was sure the Armstrongs heard him two houses over.

“I don’t want to leave,” Lucy cried. “I can fix this with Harris if you would just give me time.”

“The boy’s head isn’t on straight and neither is yours,” Layla told her daughter in a tone that was full of pain. “You can’t fix this when you don’t even know how you feel right now, baby.”

“I do know. I love him. That’s all that matters.”

Lana finally turned around and sat down on the edge of her sister’s bed. With a watery smile she pushed Lucy’s tangled hair back away from her face. “Lucy, Layla’s right. You need time to clear your head. So does Harris. Give yourself some space, honey. Go to Georgetown for a semester. Focus on school and let your heart heal a little.”

Lucy went still at her sister’s words just as everyone else in the room seemed to suck in a deep, pain-filled breath. For a moment Lucy looked like she was going to argue, but at the last second her face crumbled and she fell against Lana’s chest. “It hurts, Lana. It hurts so much I can’t breathe.”

Lana wrapped her arms around her, gently rocking her back and forth. “I know, baby. I know.”

Both Jesse and Drake seemed to lose all steam for the argument as they watched the two sisters. With a haunted look in his blue-gray eyes, Drake moved to stand beside them and rubbed both their backs as Lucy cried. Jesse lowered his head, tears already pouring down his face.

“You’re right, Layla,” he muttered. “She needs to go.”

Jace

At his stepmother’s urging, Harris went home with his parents.

I thought it was better for him to go with them rather than return to the place where he’d nearly died. Plus, I doubted he could get much rest with the way things were going with Jenna right then. Jenna was basically trapped in her apartment for the moment. Even though she was an adult, she lived off of the allowance her brothers put into her bank account every month since she didn’t make much off of her artwork. With the threat of having her livelihood cut off, she had no choice but to listen.

I felt bad for her but at the same time knew Jenna had only brought it on herself. She should have told her family about rehab. She should have broken up with Tessa before she’d even come back. Fuck, she shouldn’t have gotten involved with a drug addict in the first place. Her bad decisions had brought her to this point, no one else’s.