The doctor shares a look with my parents before he nods, drawing his brows together, deep in thought. He clears his throat. “I think we have enough for now, Ms. Wright. I’m going to give you some time with your parents, and I’ll be back shortly with something for the pain.”
The officers, my parents, and the doctor huddle near the door, speaking in hushed tones. Every so often, they look back at me, and the look in their eyes leaves dread pooling in my belly. This isn’t good. I can feel it.
The doctor claps my dad on the shoulder, then shakes my mother’s hand, before he slips out of my room, taking his nurses and the officers with him. I narrow my gaze, watching my parents have a silent discussion before me. They don’t speak, but I see the conversation passing between them all the same. Whatever it is about, it changes the atmosphere in the room almost immediately. An icy chill of trepidation lingers at the base of my spine and pools in my belly.
Slowly, my parents turn and walk toward the bed. Michael takes one of the open seats and drops his head in his hands. Surprisingly, Monica perches on the hospital bed I’m lying on, careful not to get too close. I can’t tell if it’s out of fear she’ll hurt me or because she just can’t stand being that close to me. Sometimes, the way she stares at me hurts more than the way she doesn’t look at me at all. It’s like she’s looking at me but not truly seeing me. She’s seeing the lesser version of Madison. She’s staring at the ghost of her dead daughter, and of course, it’s too much for her. It’s why she can’t look at me for long.
“Honey, we…” My mom’s voice cracks, and when I see the glimmer of tears in her eyes and the tremble in her chin, I steel myself for the next blow that is surely coming. “We think maybe being transferred to a different facility to help speed up the healing process would be best.”
I frown, not sure what I was expecting, but this wasn’t it. “Okay? I guess.” I glance toward the door, waiting for the doctor to come back with those pain meds.
“I promise, the doctors will take care of you there,” she says, her trembling voice dragging my attention away from the door and back to her. “Your mind…it isn’t right, sweetie.” A lone tear slides down her cheek, and I hate myself for wanting to reach out and wipe it away. I hate myself for wanting to care for her when I’m the one in pain in a hospital bed. She sniffs, wiping at the single tear with the back of her hand. “But they’ll take care of you. This is for the best. When you come back, your mind will be clearer, I promise.”
My breath gets lodged in my throat as realization dawns on me, prompting my eyes to widen. “What?” Hysteria claws at my veins. I try to jolt upright, but my body rejects the movement, and a howl of agony rips from my chest. “No. No, this is a mistake. I’m not crazy. She was there. You have to believe me! I know what they did to her!”
My mom’s face crumples, and the dam breaks as tears roll down her cheeks. “You need help, Madison,” she whispers.
My heart shatters in my chest, and the anger I’ve tried to bury for all of my childhood rises to the surface. “My name is Mackenzie!” I yell, startling both her and my father. “I’m Mackenzie! Not Madison. I’m not her! When will you stop wishing I was her?”
My dad shoots to his feet, his face screwed up with anger. “When you stop pretending to be her! We’re trying to help you!”
Tears spill from my eyes, and the pain slicing through my chest intensifies. “You don’t want to help me, you bastard. You’ve never cared about me. Admit it!”
Nurses storm the room at the sound of our raised voices. I’m hysterical as they crowd my bed, holding me down. My mother cries in the corner as she watches them subdue me. My father’s shaking his head as though he truly can’t believe it’s come to this, and the last thing I see is the doctor hovering over me, his concerned face an unwelcome reality.
“It’s going to be okay, Ms. Wright. This is all for the best, you’ll see.”
Darkness swallows me whole, and unlike last time, I welcome it.
The second I close the door in Mackenzie’s face, I sag forward, resting my fist against the wood, and slam my eyes shut. Her sobs ring in my ears on a deafening repeat, traveling through the entire level of the penthouse as she flees. I shouldn’t feel sorry for her. I shouldn’t feel anything at all. But I do.
Fucking hell, I do.
I hate her at this moment, and my entire body thrums with rage. For the first time in years, I’m feeling something, and I fucking hate it.
The moans drifting from the bed recapture my attention. The two women I picked up at Kings earlier go at it with each other, touching and groping. They both eye me beneath their lashes, sending me their come-hither stares, hoping this will be the night they finally bag the Baz King. As I watch them, a foreign heaviness settles in the pit of my stomach. It’s troubling.
The blonde takes the redhead’s hardened nipple into her mouth. Both of them watch me, beckoning me to come over and play with them for the rest of the night. My grip around the neck of the bottle tightens, and I grind my teeth together, hating what I’m about to do.
I stalk toward the bed, and instead of climbing on there with them and fucking them both senseless, I snatch their discarded clothes from the foot of the bed and toss them at the women.
“Get dressed, then get the fuck out.”
They jerk back, stunned by my rejection. It’s plausible, what with the way they look, that they don’t get rejected often. The redhead scoffs, and the other shakes her head disappointedly, as she climbs off the bed and dresses, her movements jerky with attitude. I rake a frustrated hand through my hair, tugging on the ends as I glance out of the floor-to-ceiling window toward the balcony. The people out on the balcony are still partying in full swing—as happy and as carefree as fucking ever—but I don’t want any part of it.
I throw the doors open and shout at everyone to get the fuck out. Most of them ignore me, still groping, dancing, and drinking. With my patience depleted, I toss the bottle of bourbon at the stone wall, and chaos erupts. Women run, screaming in fear, and everyone else finally jumps into action, heading for the exit. Once everyone is gone, the only sounds from the penthouse are the trickling of liquid, still spilling from that broken bottle, and silence. An uncomfortable silence that is just as deafening as it is still.
Heaving a tired sigh, I plop on the bed and rest my head in my hands. I don’t know how I didn’t see it. I should’ve seen her lies from a mile away, but I fucking let her in. Stupidly thinking she was different. Stupidly believing I could trust her.
I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Stumbling out of the room, I don’t spare another glance at the mess on the bed or out on the balcony. My eyes home in on the thick stack of papers placed neatly on the coffee table. They’re the same ones Mackenzie begged me to open and read. Against my better judgment, I lower myself onto the sofa and snatch up the thick stack, a disgusted expression marring my features. I fan the pages and see each one is filled with words. Probably more lies.
Lies on top of lies are all she seems to be capable of at this point.
I grit my teeth just thinking about it. The guys were right, and I hate the fact that I stood up for her. I brought her into my life, damn-near vouched for her, and they were right all along. She was exactly what they said she was—our ruin and my downfall. Every instance I think back on now, I wonder if it was all lies. Was she playing me from the start, or was she just as deep in as I was, and she just couldn’t see her own way out?