I sleep in Lanston’s hospital room the night Liam opens up to me. He tells me everything. It’s… painful. The three of us cry like traumatized kids, but once we pull ourselves back together, we plan how we will survive.
Lanston gets discharged after two days. When we get back to Harlow, nothing is the same.
The walls look different now. Knowing that someone as corrupt as Crosby was here ten years ago leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. The missing people… I wonder what he did to them. Where they are now. Liam seems certain that Crosby did something to them.
Liam insists that I stay in Lanston’s room. He’s keeping me as far from him as he can; while I understand why, it leaves me with such deep anguish.
Lanston holds me tightly against his chest, smoothing his hand over my head in calming strokes. He tries to comfort me. “It’s going to be okay.”
I shake my head. It’s already well past midnight but my mind won’t rest. It’s filled with fear and dread and worry for Liam.
He’s alone against the devil and I hate it.
I thought once that I knew what a broken man looked like. I thought I knew what their eyes held.
I was wrong.
I don’t see Liam all morning. Lanston even skips some sessions and drives to Bakersville to see if he can find him. It isn’t until the afternoon music session that we find him.
A broken man is like a dead flower.
I think I’ll die, sitting as silently as I can as I stare at Liam. He sits at the piano bench with his back arched, leaning over the keys, staring hollowly at them. Both of his hands are bandaged, blood seeping from the fabric over his knuckles and staining most of it red.
“I can’t play today,” he says so shakily that I want to go to him and take him far, far away from everything.
Jericho narrows his eyes at Liam. “I want you to sit there for a few more minutes and think about what you did to yourself, Liam. I want you to understand why you can’t play today and whose fault it is.”
My chest scorches with rage and I stand abruptly.
Poppie gasps from a few chairs down. And all eyes in the room shift toward me.
“It’s not his fault.”
My blood is boiling so hot I can barely get the words out. My fists clench tightly at my sides. “It’s not his fault.”
Jericho looks at me and shakes his head. “Then whose is it, Coldfox? Since you’re so eager to talk today. Whose fault is it? Did you cut his knuckles? Did you break his pinkies?”
My breaths come harder as the rage keeps spilling, growing inside me like a dark beast. I want to scream and throw my chair at the counselor. He doesn’t understand. He doesn’t know.
I look back at Liam.
He sits on the piano bench, hunched and weary. His eyes are so dull today that it shatters my heart to look at him.
I help him up.
And together we walk out of the room.
