Hothouse Flower (Addicted #4)(134)

On a bridge.

Outstretching my arms, the air seems to pinch me, wake me up, fill me with something more.

I love escaping to the roofs of buildings and shouting at the top of my lungs, but my voice dries in my throat tonight, pushed too deeply to retrieve. I just want to fly through the air. I just want to soar.

I peer down at the waters, nearly black in the darkness, the crescent moon casting an eerie glow over the rippling surface. I’ve jumped off this bridge before. It’s not too high, but the tree banks are shallow and muddy tonight, and the water line looks low. Too low? I don’t know.

I can’t explain these feelings.

A pressure on my chest threatens to combust.

Just wake up, Daisy.

Jump.

I look around to make sure I’m alone. No lurking cameramen who followed me here. But headlights beam from the left.

I focus back on the water, bumps dotting my arms as the cold sweeps me in a sharp embrace. Half of my feet stick off the ledge. I brace myself.

“CALLOWAY!”





< 65 >

RYKE MEADOWS



She looks over her shoulder, startled by my voice, her face illuminated by the moon. She never anticipated on being found. Drawing attention—that’s not her f*cking ploy. Every time she runs off, she does it alone, and I’ve always feared the one time where she won’t return, floating dead on the surface of a lake, an ocean, a river.

Not tonight.

Not f*cking ever.

I climb off my bike, anger darkening my features and tensing my muscles. Her father has been paranoid since we arrived back in Philly. He put a GPS locator in her bike. One call to him, and I found out she decided to ride to Carnegie Lake.

“Hey,” she says like she’s window shopping at a mall. She smiles and spins around so her back faces the lake, but she dangerously sticks more of her heels off the ledge. “The question is: backflip or frontflip?” She wags her eyebrows.

“Neither,” I snap. “Get the f*ck down.” I rarely tell her no, but I remember when I chaperoned her sixteenth birthday. That cliff in Acapulco. I screamed at her, veins popping in my f*cking neck, telling her to stop.

There are some things so dangerous that death looks more probable than life. That’s when I’ll grab her. That’s when I’ll try to force her down.

“I’ve jumped from this before,” she says with a shrug. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not,” I tell her. “The water levels are f*cking low.” The only reason I know this is Connor Cobalt—a throwaway comment a few days ago about the Princeton row competition being canceled because of shallow waters.

“The danger,” she says theatrically, her mouth curving upward.

I climb onto the f*cking ledge next to her, and she stiffens at my presence, some of the humor exiting her face.

“What?” I snap. “You jump, I jump. That’s how this works, Dais. So you want to break your leg, split open your head, you’re going to do the same to me. Can you f*cking handle that?”

Her eyes flicker from the water to me. And her voice turns into a whisper, no more games, no more jokes, she says, “Just let me go.”

My body runs cold. “Do you want to die?” I question. I’ve asked her this once before, after Acapulco. She never answered me, but I knew it anyway. This light inside of her dims if you watch closely enough, and she’s searching and searching for something to ignite her spirit, a power to keep her alive.

She stares into my hard gaze, where I never go easy on her, and tears well in her eyes.

“You know what you f*cking are?” I ask, edging closer, my hand dropping to her waist.

She shakes her head, and our boots knock together, but we both maintain balance.

I reach out, and I hold her cheek with the scar. “You’re a hothouse flower,” I tell her. “You can’t grow under natural conditions. You need adventure. And security and love in order to stay alive.”

Her shoulders tense and her collarbones jut out from the thin straps of her tank top, barely breathing. She is suffocating. And she’s looking for a way to relieve that pressure. An adrenaline rush is a temporary fix. She needs something more.

“Explode,” I tell her, still cupping her face.

She frowns at me. “What?”

“Let it out,” I say. “Scream.”

She shakes her head like that’s impossible, like what will that help? “I just want…” She blows out a breath from her lips. I can see that pressure bearing down on her, trapping her. She wants to f*cking jump so badly. My hand tightens on her waist.

“I can’t f*cking hear you,” I growl.

Anger flickers in her eyes. Good.

“Get f*cking angry, Daisy. Be something. YELL!”

She opens her mouth but no sound comes out.

I push her harder by saying, “You can’t talk to your sisters because you’re so f*cking afraid of causing a scene, but there’s something inside of you that wants to get out.” I point at her heart. “There’s something in there, and if you don’t burst, it’s going to f*cking tear you apart.”

She breathes heavily. “Stop.”

“It f*cking hurts, doesn’t it?!” I shout at her.

She cringes, and her eyes start to redden.