Consumed(70)

He shakes his head. “Not the bruises, Sienna, or the messed up hair. The look of absolute terror when I walked in.”

“You woke me up,” I point out.

“You’ve never woken up like that before.”

“How the hell do you know that?”

Giving me the closest that he’s come to a smile since I was admitted here, he pushes himself back. “I heard Wolfe was here last night.”

“You called him, didn’t you?” I cross my arms over my chest. “Did you not expect him to come?”

And deep inside of me, I’m ashamed to admit that I hate that Lucas had come. I hate myself for pushing once again to find out what it is he was keeping from me. And I hate that right now, knowing everything there is to know about Lucas and realizing just how much I love him, I’m conflicted.

“Are you going back on tour with him?” Seth asks quietly, and I stare down at my hands. There’s a purplish bruise on the inside of my left wrist, and I massage my right thumb over it carefully.

“I’ve got a lot of work to do here.”

Seth seems to consider this for a long time before he nods once. He looks down at his watch. Groaning, he comes over to the bed and sits down on the edge. “I hate school.”

I know what he’s doing. And coming from Seth, I appreciate the distraction because he has no clue what’s going on. All he knows is that I’m hurting.

“Don’t skip. It’s too damn early in the year for you to beg off so save your days for the ones where you . . . do whatever the hell it is you do when you refuse to go to class.” When his mouth flares into a smile and he parts his lips to say something, I press my hand flat against his chest. “Ugh, I wasn’t asking for you to give me an explanation of your extracurricular activities. Go to class, Seth.”

His bottom lip moves slightly as he bites the inside of it. Finally, he slides off of my bed. “Fine.” Bending down, he kisses me on my cheek, his scruffy chin scratching my face. “But you better call me if anything happens.”

When he pulls away, both of my eyebrows are raised. “Are you telling me that you—Seth Jensen—will actually answer my phone call?”

He rolls his brown eyes as he walks to the door. “You don’t give me enough credit, big sister.”





True to his word, Lucas doesn’t return to the hospital, so I have all morning to try to begin the process of sorting out my thoughts. After one of the physicians comes around a little after noon, and a nurse issues my discharge paperwork shortly thereafter, I’m stunned to find that the person who arrives to pick me up at the hospital is Kylie.

She’s smiling when she comes into my room, but her lips are pale. And when she hugs me, taking the utmost care to be gentle, I can feel how violently her shoulders are shaking. “I called your gram and asked if I could—” she begins to explain, drawing away from me. Pushing her sunglasses on the top of her head, my chest contracts when I see that her brown eyes are puffy. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“No. Thank you for coming.”

Even though I’m perfectly capable of carrying it myself, Kylie insists on toting the small overnight bag that Gram dropped off for me yesterday out of the hospital. She leads me to a car, a rental Expedition that she has to practically do acrobatics to get into since she’s so short.

“They’ve upped the bond on that shithead to two hundred thousand,” she says, breaking the silence a few minutes after she pulls out of the hospital parking lot. “So there’s no way in hell that he’s going anywhere.”

“Lucas’s doing?”

She gazes straight ahead at the Mini Cooper in front of us. “I’m not sure.”

“Are you going back to the band tonight?” I ask, but the underlying question is obvious: Has Lucas left already?

“Not if you don’t want me to.”

Choosing not to respond to that, I focus my attention on adjusting the AC vent, playing with the dial until the cold air is blowing into my face. “You’ve always been amazing to me, Kylie, but I’m guessing that you coming to pick me up wasn’t just to tell me that the guy who attacked me won’t be getting out of jail anytime soon.”

She laughs nervously. “You perceptive bitch, you.”

It was funny, I vividly recall her brother saying nearly the same thing to me backstage after the show in Dallas when Cilla had debuted “Second Best.” It was only a couple of weeks ago, so why the hell does it seem like a lifetime has passed since then?