Chapter Twenty-Three

"You're peppy today," says Liz as I meet her at our lunch table. The staff serves us hamburgers that are probably made from dog food. I scowl at the repulsive smell and push my tray away.

"I think I had what professionals call a breakthrough," I admit, half sarcastically.

She smiles. "Yeah? Are they letting you leave?"

Even though my conversation with Dr. Taylor was freeing, he still wasn't ready to discharge me. "Not yet," I say. "How are your sessions going?"

"My therapist isn't nearly as cool as yours," she responds. "She's a divorced middle-aged woman who seriously needs to get laid."

I chuckle, then glance around the room. Usually, we're joined by Camila at lunch, but she's nowhere to be found. Liz, noticing my confusion, announces that she left this morning.

"Really?" I gasp. "She went home?"

"Yep." Liz rolls her eyes. "Lucky bitch."

I laugh, choking on a sip of apple juice. We talk about high school and the different cliques at Dekalb. I'm sad I'll be graduating before she starts her freshman year, but I don't doubt she'll be fine on her own.

The head of staff interrupts, "Lunch is over!"

I poke the hamburger in front of me, not daring to take a single bite.

By the time I'm being shooed off to sleep, I'm so exhausted that my concrete wall of a bed is comfortable. Sleep finds me quickly. I drift into a dream untainted by my mother's screams.

A faint tapping noise on my window wakes me up in the middle of the night. I groan. This place is full of weird sounds. I shove my pillow over my head to cover my ears, but then it happens again.

And again.

Frustrated, I chuck the pillow to the floor and stand up. The tapping doesn't stop; in fact, it only gets louder. I inch closer to the sound and peek out the second-floor window, expecting to find a bird or some other confused animal.

Not a bird or a rabid squirrel. It's a person. A thick mess of hair that belongs to Elliot's brother, Luke King.

I stumble backward across the cold, tile floor.

Luke points toward the window latch. I shake my head.

"Please," he mouths.

I turn around and peer out the door to my room. Nurse Mia is camped out at the corner of the hallway watching YouTube on her phone.

I push open the latch.

Luke's pale battered hands appear on the edge of the window frame. He throws himself forward and climbs through the gap, crashing onto the floor with a pained moan. I peer out the window and find a hastily assembled stack of crates. I have to give him credit for resourcefulness.

My hands curl into fists at my side. I speak in a hushed whisper, "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't scream right now."

Luke dusts the dirt off his knees. His square jaw is tense, and he checks behind him as if he might have been followed through the tiny crack in the window.

"Elliott," he replies. "That's the reason."

I don't like his tone. My feet shuffle into a defensive position. "Why are you here?"

Luke ignores my question. "Are you in love with my brother?"

"Why does that mat—"

He cuts me off, "Just answer me."

I have nothing to lose. "Yes," I confess, surprised by how easy it is to admit. "Why?"

Luke exhales. "I know it seems like I don't give a shit about him, but I do. My dad wants him to fight tonight against a guy even he is afraid of."

During my last practice at Midtown, Andre mentioned a fighter with a reputation. I shudder.

Luke continues, "I know Elliott. He'll die before he loses this fight if he thinks he has nothing to live for."

I picture Elliott's bloodied, lifeless body on the floor of a dirty boxing ring and shake my head. "No," I stammer.

"You need to stop him."

I almost laugh out loud at his request, but then I remember Nurse Mia in the hallway. I lower my voice. "Do you see where I am right now? What the hell do you expect me to do?"

"Get out," Luke states, as if escaping these antiseptic walls is the simplest task in the world.

Luke, as intimidating as he is with his broad shoulders and muscular arms, looks desperate, weak, and lost. He wouldn't have come here if he didn't absolutely need to. That much is obvious.

I spit, "Why don't you tell Elliott the truth? I'm here because of you and your father. Not because of anything he did."

When Damon called the ambulance, Luke blocked my escape through the doorway, a sympathetic smile on his face. At the time, I thought it was bullshit, a trick of the mind to further twist the knife into my chest, but maybe those emotions were real.

"Elliott won't believe anything that I say," Luke implores. "Not after the things I've done."

I shake my head. "Why should I trust you after all of the pain you've caused?"

"Because I'm not my father," Luke breathes. "Neither is Elliott. He's going to die thinking that he is."

His words send a shiver up my spine. If Elliott really does believe that he's no better than his father, he won't let himself survive the fight.

I inch closer to Luke, going against every instinct inside my brain screaming at me to run.

"Okay," I concede. "I'll help."

His cunning eyes light up.

"I had a feeling you would." He looks over his shoulder and waves at someone out the window.