“Okay.” I reluctantly let go of his hand. “Call me when you get home.”

“I will.”

His attention shifts to something behind me, and I turn, seeing a new set of people enter. A worried-looking woman walks in, clutching her purse in front of her, and I recognize her as Mason’s mother. But there’s another face I vaguely remember, a man in a business suit with the same striking eyes as Mason, though they seem to be laced with something dark. He has a commanding air about him as he strides through the room, and most heads turn in his direction.

His father.

Mason bends forward slightly. “I’ll talk to you later,” he says through his teeth, nudging my back to push me forward softly, and I take the hint.

I rejoin my family, glancing over my shoulder to see a guarded mask has slipped over Mason’s expression as he speaks with his father. He looks at me fleetingly, revealing nothing, before looking away again.

The minute I reach my mother, she guides me out the door. As we walk through the station, I catch a glimpse into one of the interrogation rooms.

Zoe sits alone, her arms resting on the table as she stares despondently at the wall. Her hair is matted, splotches of blood dotting her skin, and her expression looks soulless and vacant. I only see her for a second before I’m ushered outside.

In the parking lot, the night weighs upon me heavily. It feels like a hand is pressed to my chest, making it hard to breathe, a cloud of death and destruction hanging around me. Everything that I thought I knew about myself was ripped away from me and then given back in tattered shreds, and I’m unsure of how to fit it all together again.

But still, it’s over.

24 | End / Begin

Time passes in a blur, sometimes moving quickly like a violent rush of water and at other times, unbearably slowly. Through all of it, my brain is under a constant cover of fog, and my days are hazy around the edges.

Despite how little I want to go back to school, my mother ensures that I finish out the rest of my senior year. My grades are far from stellar, but nearly dying twice seems to give me a free pass to do as poorly as I please. The hallways of Pender Falls High feel empty even during the busiest times of the day. Without Zoe, Damien, and James roaming them, the school is cavernous and haunting.

It’s not the only way Damien haunts me. I often see his decaying face in my dreams.