Dr. Marshall points to the ceiling. “Visiting hours are over.” He must sense the tension. He claps the mayor’s back and steers him away from me. “Never underestimate a survivor, Jim.” He winks at me. “Have a good night, Lia.”

The mayor nods. “Take care of yourself.”

As Dr. Marshall and the man who ruined my life walk away, my fists clench until my nails crease my palms. I turn toward the exit, where Ryan waits to drive me home, when something catches my eye.

Katie. She staggers toward me down the long corridor, bracing herself against the wall like she might fall over. Her silky hair sways with each jerky step.

My legs twitch. Their first instinct is to turn. Run.

Katie’s crying and her lips are parted, and I know down to my core I don’t want to hear whatever she’s coming to say. I want to escape and hide and curl into a ball in some deep, dark corner where nothing is changed.

But my limbs are confiscated. They’re not my own. They grow light and hollow and empty. And by the time Katie reaches me and hugs me, she’s the one holding me up.

She sobs into my ear.

I cling to the uncertainty of what she’s come to tell me. Hold on to a few more seconds in a world where Adam still exists.

We clutch each other. Her nails dig into my back.

By the time she says it, I’ve already conceded.

Adam is dead.

Chapter 25

CHAPTER 25

No matter how many hours I sleep, it’s not enough. Heaviness seeps into my veins, saturating me, dragging me down to the murky bottom of Lake Michigan.

It’s insatiable.

I lie in bed wrapped in my comforter like a corpse beneath the sheets, drifting in and out of wakefulness, only half aware of fleeting moments as days pass.

Detective Irving stops by. I drift off to the muffled back and forth between his gruff rumbling and my mom’s steady replies, unsure whether he came to talk to me or my mom. Either way, he’s two deaths too late.

We get a new security system. Drills rizz and alarms screech as they install it. Somehow, Ryan still sneaks in every night. He refills my water glass and whispers I’m sorrys when he thinks I’m sleeping.

But it’s not his fault.

I should’ve stopped Adam. Never involved him. Adam would be alive, on the other side of Chicago, hacking Internet trolls and exposing their hypocrisy if it weren’t for me.