Winter (Four Seasons #1) (13 page)

I growl at
him, baring my teeth, which are sadly half missing.

“
You’re
getting ferociouser and ferociouser every day, my little mermaid
monster.” He laughs and lobs one of the shells I’ve collected back
to the bottom of the pool. I growl even louder, throwing in a stern
frown and a downturned mouth for good measure.

“
Miss Wilmott
says ferociouser isn’t a word, Papa.”

Dad’s brow
creases, and he bends down to pull off the Italian leather shoes my
mother bought him. “She did, did she?”

“
Uh-huh.”

“
Well you
just tell her that it exists in Dr. Evil’s dictionary, okay? She
won’t be able to argue with that.”

“
Okay, Papa.
She taught us about a Greek moth today.”

My dad laughs
out loud—a hearty belly laugh, even though he doesn’t have the
paunch to back it up. “Do you mean myth?”

I nod
solemnly. “It was about a man whose papa made him some wings out of
feathers and wax so he could fly out of prison. He went too high up
in the sky, though, and they melted off.”

“
Ah, I know
that story. That’s one of my favorites. Do you remember his
name?”

“
Icarus,
daddy! His name was Icarus!”

Eleven

Midnight
Run

AT FIRST I
think the thumping is loud bass music coming from a car out on the
street, but the rhythm is off. It’s more of a hammering sound. I
roll onto my side and try to block it out but it’s no use; it just
keeps coming. After another ten seconds I realize someone is
actually shouting my name. My eyes snap open and I sit bolt upright
in bed.

Shit! Shit!
Shit! Shit!
I scramble out of bed so I can
rush to get the front door, nearly face-planting when my ankle
snags in the bed sheets. The living room is freezing and pitch
black.

“
Avery! Avery,
open up. It’s Luke.”

I falter, my
hand on the doorknob. What the hell’s going on? He said he’d call
when his shift ended, not try and knock my door down at 3.45 in the
morning. I yank the door open in the huge, threadbare t-shirt I use
to sleep in, immediately noticing the woman from 6b standing in the
hallway leaning against the wall, her hair at angles. Luke looks
grim when his eyes meet mine. He’s in full uniform and his partner,
the same stocky, short guy with the Brooklyn accent I saw him with
at the Irish party, stands beside him. Why would he bring his
partner here to talk to me? I frown and try to chase away the
remnants of sleep from my head. Luke clears his throat.

“
Sorry to wake
you, Ave. We need to talk to you.”

“
Couldn’t this
have waited until the morning?” I hiss, wrapping my arms around my
body. “You said you were going to
call
. And you didn’t tell me whether
or not you have the—”

“
This isn’t a
social call.” The tone in Luke’s voice is clear:
this has nothing to do with your
dad
. His deep brown eyes are wide,
unblinking like he’s focusing really hard. I take a second to
actually look at him properly, to take in the way he holds himself
and the way he’s staring at me. This is exactly how he looked when
he turned up on our doorstep five years ago. A sudden stab of panic
rises up in my throat, making me choke.

“
Oh God, what
is it?” My hand flies to my mouth. “Is it Uncle Brandon? Is it
Mom?”

Luke shakes
his head and gestures past me. “Is it okay if we come in for a
second?”

“
Just tell
me!” The wall of calm I’ve trying to keep in place comes crashing
down. “Tell me right now!”

He places his
hand gently on my shoulder and pushes me into the apartment,
walking in after me. His partner follows, pulling the door closed
behind him.

“
Luke, what’s
going on? Please, just tell me. If it’s Brandon, you can tell me.
Whatever it is, I’m fine, I can take it. Please, Luke—”

“
Stop, okay.
Take a breath, Beautiful.” He guides me through the apartment,
peering through doorways until he comes to my bedroom. He sits me
down on my bed, then positions himself by the window. “It’s not
your mom or Brandon. It’s that girl, the one I saw you with coming
out of that frat party—Morgan.”

“
Morgan?”
Every part of me goes still. I’m dizzy from lack of oxygen before I
take another breath. “Is she dead?” I whisper.

“
No, she was
taken to hospital. Looks like she’s overdosed on something. She was
asking for you before she passed out. The doctors have her in an
induced coma while they try and clear the drugs out of her system.
She’s pretty sick, Ave.”

A strangled
sob fills the room—a weird, alien sound that couldn’t possibly have
come from inside me. I cover my mouth with my hands and suddenly I
can’t see. My room, Luke, everything—it’s all consumed by the tears
flooding my eyes.

“
I have to go
to her. Can you take me to the hospital? I need to go right now.
Her parents, they live in Charlestown. They need to be told. It’s
going to be hours before they can get here. She needs someone with
her, Luke. She needs…” I’m incoherent before I know it, trying to
form words but only managing more sobs. Luke picks me up from the
bed and pulls me into his arms, and then I’m crying into his police
jacket while he strokes his hand over the back of my head,
whispering things into my hair. I’m too numb to hear what he’s
saying; I just cling onto him until I feel like I can handle
standing on my own.

“
What kind of
drugs do they think it is?” I mumble, while trying to formulate
what I’ll need to take with me to the hospital.

“
It’s looking
like ecstasy at the moment but it’s too early to tell. Do you know
who she might have gotten pills from?”

“
No, no way! I
don’t know anyone like that. Morgan would never take anything
willingly. She must have been spiked.”

I’m pulling a
sweatshirt over my head when he asks, “When was the last time you
heard from her?”

“
Uh...I guess
about six, six thirty or so. She was…she was already drunk. She
wanted me to meet with her at Tate’s place to party. Is that where
they found her?”

Luke’s radio
starts to chatter but he ignores it, and for some bizarre reason I
find myself marveling at how damn tall he seems in his uniform.
“No. The ambulance picked her up from an address in Williamsburg.
She was with a bunch of guys from King’s College.”

“
But that’s in
Manhattan.”

“
I know. They
were at a party and no one seemed to know who had thrown it. None
of them had ever met Morgan before tonight.”

That makes
even less sense. I feel sick. Morgan was slipped drugs at a party
where she knew no one? What the hell was she doing out there in
Williamsburg with a bunch of complete strangers? And where the hell
had Tate and Noah been? Luke averts his eyes when I pull a pair of
jeans up my naked legs. I tug my boots on angrily and get my
coat.

“
I’m going to
kill whoever did this to her.”

“
Let’s just
make sure she’s okay first, yeah?”

Luke and his
partner, Officer Tamlinski, drive me down to Woodhull hospital in
north Brooklyn, where Morgan was taken by the ambulance. I do my
best to keep myself in one piece; Morgan will be pissed at me if I
collapse into a useless wreck and I can’t handle Luke seeing me
like that, anyway. It’s bad enough that he feels sorry for me
because of everything else. I won’t add this to the
list.

The city
traffic is much lighter at four in the morning but it still isn’t
great. Being in a cop car definitely helps move things along,
especially when Tamlinski hits the lights and sirens to get us
through the most congested areas, but the cab drivers are still
jerks and there are plenty of people on the streets. I hunker down
in the back of the cruiser, pulling my coat up around my ears, and
I wrack my brain, trying to figure out how Morgan has landed
herself in an induced coma. Fuck, I’m going to wring that girl’s
neck when she wakes up.

“
Okay back
there?” Tamlinski asks as we pull into the hospital parking
lot.

“
Yeah, I’m
freakin stellar, thanks. My best friend’s possibly dying and half
of Columbia just saw me get carted off in the back of a police
cruiser.”

Luke doesn’t
say anything, just continues staring out of the windshield with a
clenched jaw. Tamlinski sucks his teeth and mutters something under
his breath. As soon as he parks up, I unclip my seatbelt and am
trying to open the door when I realize there’s no handle. Luke gets
out and opens the door for me, offering me a tense
smile.

“
We prefer it
if the people we arrest don’t tuck and roll.”

“
Uhuh.” I
climb out and start to head inside, but he catches me by my
elbow.

“
This didn’t
go down in our precinct so I’m not technically supposed to stay
with you, but I will. I’ll show you where Morgan is
and—”

“
No! Luke,
it’s fine. Don’t get yourself into trouble on my
account.”

His jaw sets
as he slams the cruiser’s door closed behind me. “I’m not leaving
you alone, Avery.”

“
Luke! I
don’t…I don’t
need
you to stay, okay!”

“
I’m not
leaving you alone.”

I glance up at
the hospital, light pouring out of every window, staff loitering
around the side so they can smoke out of sight of the lung cancer
patients, and I feel myself wilt a little. The thought of sitting
in a waiting room on my own for who knows how long isn’t appealing
at all. But what choice do I have? “Okay, fine, I’ll call
someone.”

“
Someone?”

“
Yeah
, someone
. Morgan’s boyfriend, Tate, or maybe I’ll call
my
boyfriend.”

Luke’s eyes
frost over. He voice is positively arctic when he asks,“That guy
from the bar?”

“
Yeah, the guy
from the bar.” And then, “No!” I hide my face in my hands, trying
to get a grip. This is ridiculous. Now I’m lying to him? “Not the
guy from the bar. I’m not really seeing him, but—”

“
It’s okay,
Beautiful. Just focus on Morgan right now, okay?” Luke’s eyes have
defrosted, although he still looks seriously pissed when I lower my
hands. “Are you going to be all right?”

I bite the
inside of my cheek, feeling tears prick my eyes. “I think I got
it.”

“
All right,
well call me if you need me.”

Luke remains
behind in the dark, his eyes burning holes into my back as I stomp
across the parking lot. I don’t look back when I reach the
entrance; I just pause to wait for the automatic doors to open, and
then rush inside. The nurses’ station is deserted when I get there,
which is typical. I wait ten minutes before someone shows up, and
when the stout nurse does arrive, she’s hostile to say the least. I
ask her where I can find Morgan Kepler and she stabs her finger at
the floor.

“
Follow the
blue line to the ICU. There’ll be another nurses’ station there.
You’re not going to be able to see your friend until she’s stable,
though. I’d have stayed home and gotten some sleep if I were
you.”

I almost snap
that if she were me and had stayed home, she would have been a
royally shitty friend, but I manage a tight smile and set off
following the thick blue band on the floor. I trace it to an
elevator, where it disappears. Does that mean I’m supposed to get
on the elevator? Thankfully there’s a blue sticker next to the
button for the fifth floor, and when the doors roll back the line
picks up again. I pull my coat around myself, trying to avoid the
hollow gazes of the people sitting in chairs along the hallway,
until I locate the nurses’ station. An older nurse with smudged
mascara and a weary expression tells me that the angry nurse
downstairs was right—there’s no chance I can see Morgan until she’s
out of the woods. She directs me to take a seat with the other
folks in the hallway and promises she’ll come find me if there is
any news.

I collapse on
a plastic fold-down chair and stare at my sneakers, immediately in
need of someone else to be here with me. The fear coming off the
others, all sitting in silence, is palpable. They’re in the same
boat as me, waiting to find out if someone they love is about to
die. Car crash. Assault. House fire. There are a hundred and one
different ways a person can end up in a place like this. I don’t
want to think about any of them.

I need Leslie.
Maybe Tate and Noah, depending on what they have to say for
themselves. My hand goes to my pocket, searching for my cell, and I
almost choke when I realize I left in such a panic that I forgot to
bring it. My purse and all my cash, too. I’m stranded way across
New York City with no money and no cell phone, and no hope of
having either one any time soon. There isn’t much I can do about it
so I sit back and stare at the wall, trying not to contemplate what
will happen if Morgan dies. I don’t want the first time I meet her
parents to be when they find out she’s dead. Sleep takes me after a
while, but it’s an awkward, restless sleep thanks to the
uncomfortable chair. The nurse comes and finds me at six am to tell
me nothing has changed, and the next time I wake up I find Luke
sitting next to me. He’s in his regular clothes: a dark hoodie
pulled up over his head, ratty jeans and beaten up DCs. He doesn’t
notice I’m awake for a minute and I watch him tapping away on his
cell phone, gently frowning. He looks tired, but he still came.
Gratitude washes through me. I was hideous to him and he still
showed up.