Chasing Spring

  He spoke first. “I don't want to hear it.”

  His ambivalence pissed me off even more and I narrowed my eyes on him. “You're such an asshole.”

  The layer of respect that's supposed to underpin a father-son relationship no longer existed for us. He was a pathetic excuse for what a father should have been and I was so angry with him I couldn’t control it any longer.

  “Watch your mouth. You think you can disrespect me now that you're eighteen and going off to some fancy college?”

  I rolled my eyes at his empty words. He was currently constrained to a hospital bed, probably still half-drunk. Respect wasn't even an option any more.

  I was about to open my mouth again when I felt a vibration in my back pocket. I looked down and saw Lilah’s name across the screen; my heart sank. Finally. I left my father's room and stepped out into the hallway to answer the call.

  “Lilah? I need you to come down to the hospital.”

  “Chase. Chase? This is Ashley.” She sounded like she was inside a tunnel; I could hardly hear her.

  “Ashley? What? Speak up.”

  “Chase. Can you hear me? Lilah needs your help.”

  Those four words were enough to bring me to my knees.

  “What? Where is she?” I tugged my hand through my hair, already heading toward the entrance of the hospital.

  “We're at Blake Vaughn's house and I think one of the guys put something in her drink.”

  My heart hammered in my chest as I tried to process her words.

  Blake Vaughn.

  Blake the big time dealer.

  I rushed through the hospital doors and ran out into the parking lot, only to realize that I didn’t have my truck. Fuck. I was helpless. It was at least two miles from the hospital to Lilah’s house. I shouted at Ashley to text me Blake’s address, pocketed my phone, and took off in a dead sprint.

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chase

  Those two miles were endless. My feet pounded the pavement, my heart hammered in my chest, my breath echoed in my ears, and my legs stung with exhaustion. I rounded the corner to Lilah’s house and saw Mr. Calloway's car sitting in the driveway. Harvey barked behind the front door, but I didn't have a minute to spare. I hopped in my truck, slammed the door, and gunned it out of the driveway.

  I plugged Blake's address into my phone as I sped away from downtown. During the drive I tried to calm my racing heart by repeating the same phrase over and over. She’s okay. She’s okay. I shoved my hand through my hair, tugging the ends, and trying to figure out how shit could hit the fan so quickly and completely.

  The map lead me down a road with tire tracks leading through mud. I pushed my foot down on the gas and passed a grouping of trees. Heavy bass was the first clue that I was getting closer to the party and then I finally saw a doublewide trailer surrounded by cars. My eyes locked onto Trent's silver Camry and my hands squeezed the steering wheel so hard I thought I’d rip it right out of the dashboard.

  I swung my truck behind the parked cars and hopped out into the mud. I couldn't think beyond getting inside and finding Lilah. I didn't bother knocking on the cheap door. I pushed it open with my shoulder and broke it off one of the hinges.

  The smell of marijuana and cigarette smoke mingled in the air as my eyes darted around the small space, trying to find Lilah’s short black hair. There was a group of guys sitting on the couch, too high to care what was going on around them. I looked past them, into the kitchen, to find Ashley shouting at a guy that I vaguely recognized. Blake. I charged forward just as Ashley tried to get past him. He wrapped his hand around her arm and pushed her back against the counter. She yelped as his grip tightened around her arm.

  “What the hell are you doing?” I yelled, throwing myself between them. Blake hadn't noticed me until that moment. His eyes widened and then narrowed accusingly as he dropped Ashley’s arm.

  “Who let you in? This is a private party, asshole,” Blake spat out, stepping closer and sizing me up. I was smack-dab in the middle of the hardest day of my life. I could have easily taken my anger out on his face.

  “Chase, get Lilah!” Ashley said, tugging on the back of my shirt to get my attention.

  I shoved past Blake in pursuit of the closed door at the end of the hallway. He shouted after me, but I didn't listen. I could see light streaming through the bottom, but when I tried the knob, it was locked. I reared back and threw myself against the door. It sprang open and I stumbled inside the room, catching my momentum as Trent jumped from the bed.

  “Bro, this isn’t what you think,” he said, holding his hands up in innocence.

  His words meant nothing; I was already in a blind rage as I caught sight of Lilah flat on the bed. Her head was lolled to the side. Her short black hair covered half of her face. Her eyes were closed, her cheeks were pale, and her clothes were still on.

  “I was trying to take care of her,” he offered lamely.

  I rounded the bed and leaned over to check her breathing. Her breaths were shallow and slow. I was about to scoop her up into my arms when Trent's movement caught my attention.

  He was trying to leave.

  Maybe on a better day, I would have let him go. Maybe on a better day, he could have escaped. But it wasn’t a better day.

  I reached for the back of his shirt and threw him against the wall of the trailer. His head hit the cheap wood paneling and a few shelves clattered to the floor along with all of the cheap shit piled on top of them. I didn't give him time to recover; I walked over and pulled him up off the ground with the collar of his shirt.

  “Do you think this is fucking game? Do you think you can play with people’s lives like this?” I asked, fighting my grip around his throat.

  His gaze darted back and forth between my eyes. His hands scraped at my fist, but I was working off too much adrenaline and rage to notice the sting.

  “Listen, man,” he pleaded. “We were just having fun. I didn't know she...” His voice was starting to crack. He had been about to rape my girlfriend and he thought he deserved pity. I tightened my grip around his neck and his eyes widened in fear. I couldn’t see past my anger. Red rage clouded my vision as Trent struggled for air.

  I would have killed him. Had I walked in five minutes later and Lilah’s shirt been on the ground or her pants unbuttoned, I would have destroyed him.

  I heard commotion in the kitchen and I knew I only had a few seconds before Blake came in to help out his friend. I looked Trent straight in the eye and then tossed him to the ground. He crumbled to a heap and clutched his legs into the fetal position. He was prepared for more abuse, but it wasn’t coming.

  I needed to get Lilah out of the trailer before things got worse.

  Blake was yelling in the kitchen as I reached down to scoop her up off the bed. She stirred in my arms, blinking her eyes open just barely.

  “I was just dreaming of you,” she whispered, rolling her head toward my chest and inhaling.

  “Are you my angel?” she asked with a small smile. “You smell like one.”

  My heart broke.

  “Lilah, can you hear me?” I asked, trying to keep her awake and cognizant.

  “Silly, silly, silly. Your mom tried to be my mom's angel, but she didn't know she'd get her wish.” She tapped her finger against my chest in time with her words. “I don't want you to end up an angel,” she crooned, nestling against my chest and continuing to mumble. “I can't be saved. We can't be saved. Don’t you see that?”

  She was laughing, a soft, quiet laugh that turned dark. Suddenly, her smile contorted and she squeezed her eyes closed as she started to cry.

  “I’ll only hurt you.”

  “You can't hurt me,” I argued, though I knew it was pointless. She wouldn’t remember any of this in the morning.

  “I already have,” she slurred.

  I glanced up to see Blake standing in the doorway gripping a long kitchen knife. Sweat collected on his brow and he fidgeted on his feet, nervous despite the fac
t that he was the one wielding a weapon.

  “Get out of my house,” he yelled, pointing the knife out toward me. “NOW!”

  I should have been nervous. He was a maniac with a knife, but with Lilah in my arms, there was no room for fear.

  I stepped toward him and he stepped back. I knew he wouldn’t use the knife. He was holding it out like he was going to do something with it, but he was scared. The blade bobbled back and forth in his shaky hand. He backed up into the kitchen, careful not to stumble over his feet. Everyone was gone.

  “Where's Ashley?” I asked.

  “She gone. I kicked ’em out,” Blake answered gruffly. I'd have to take his word for it. I needed to get Lilah out of there.

  He backed up to the kitchen counter and trailed my every move with his knife. The blade was only a foot away from me; he could have reached out and used it, but he backed up and ran for the bedroom to help Trent.

  I kicked the front door open and walked out into the quiet woods without glancing back. Had Blake been a little bolder, maybe he would have thought seriously about using that knife, but when it came down to it, guys like him were cowards. Drugging girls to take advantage of them was a testament to that.

  I held Lilah up with my knee while I opened the door to my truck. Once she was lying across the bench seat, I rounded the front, slid inside, and propped her head up on my lap.

  After her slurred speech in Blake's trailer, she'd drifted off. I couldn't tell if she was sleeping or passed out, but I made sure to keep checking her pulse as I drove the few miles back to the hospital.

  I carried her into the emergency room and did my best to ignore everyone’s stares. I could only imagine how bad we looked. I was carrying my girlfriend in my arms, she was unconscious, and I was covered in mud and sweat.

  I walked up to the nurse sitting behind the glass window, relieved to find that she wasn’t the one I’d dealt with earlier. As soon as she saw Lilah in my arms, she hopped up and buzzed the swinging doors so I could step back into the hallway. She pulled out a rolling bed from a spare room and I laid Lilah on top of it as I began to explain the situation as best I could.

  “My girlfriend was drugged at a party. I don't know what they gave her, but her breathing has been inconsistent since I got to her. She was awake and talking for a second, but she hasn’t said anything in a while.”

  The nurse nodded and started wheeling Lilah down the hallway. I moved to follow after her but a police officer stepped up and blocked my path. I tried to look past him to figure out where they were taking Lilah, but his burly shoulders made it impossible to see around him.

  “Would you mind coming with me for a moment, son?” His dark eyes stared down at me and I knew he thought I’d had something to do with the drugs.

  Despite my protests, the police officer led me to a conference room down the hall. It was small, with a simple round table and six plastic chairs positioned around it. A white dry-erase board took up one entire wall and there was still writing on it from a previous meeting, a bunch of medical jargon I didn’t understand.

  “Take a seat,” he instructed.

  I had to fight to control my temper. I’d just lived through six hours of hell and now I was about to get interrogated by an officer. It was complete bullshit.

  “So you brought your friend in after she'd been drugged. Were you two at a party?” he asked, leaning forward to rest his hands on the top of the table.

  I sighed and started from the beginning. I described my afternoon: rushing to the hospital to take care of my father who was still in room 178, probably passed out from the morphine they were giving him for the pain. I told him about Ashley's phone call, described Blake as best as I could, and gave the officer his address. Somewhere in the middle of my explanation his brows relaxed and he took a seat across from me, dropping the tough guy act altogether.

  He believed me because there was no reason not to. My explanation added up and he revealed that Blake already had a criminal history a mile long.

  “Thank you for cooperating,” he said, pushing back his chair. “Just had to follow protocol.”

  I nodded and shoved my hands through my hair. I was tired down to my bones. My brain was fried and my limbs felt heavy. I could have passed out in my seat, but Lilah still needed me. I was at a total loss for where to go. The police officer didn't know where they'd taken Lilah, so I had to hunt down a nurse to help me find her. Before I went into her room, I went into the men's room and splashed water on my face, trying to regroup and collect my scattered nerves. I could still picture her on Blake’s bed, ghostly pale. I’d been so close to losing her and my nerves were still frayed.

  I took a deep breath before opening her door. She was lying on the same kind of sterile bed my dad was still occupying on the other side of the hospital. Her dark hair was matted with sweat around her temples and her lips were dry and chapped. I walked to the side of her bed and reached down for her small hand, closing my fist around it. I stared down at the connection between us and let the last hour sink into my bones. The first tears that came were surprising and I wiped them away quickly. The ones that came after were heavy and sad. I bent down and rested my head on the side of her bed, completely exhausted.

  The nurses came in and I stared at Lilah’s soft features as they assured me she’d be fine, that her dad was already there talking with the doctors. Trent had put Rohypnol in her drink, but by the morning she’d be good as new. No signs of abuse, no lasting damage. All was well.

  Mrs. White brought me a cot and a gray wool blanket. The cot fit in the space between Lilah's bed and the wall so it was easy to settle in next to her and watch her chest rise and fall as she slept. I reached back out to hold her hand, wrapping my palm around her cold fingers. She never stirred once, but I still watched her for hours, trying to read her calm features for signs of the lost girl that lived inside.

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Lilah

  I woke up Saturday morning with a splitting headache and a gaping void where memories of the night before should have been. I blinked open my eyes and stared up at a pristine white ceiling divided into eight panels. I adjusted on the bed and felt the IV needle in the back of my hand and the unfamiliar scratchy bedding. My mind was still foggy until I saw the hospital gown and Chase sleeping soundly in the cot beside my bed.

  I remembered being with Trent at the arcade. I remembered him driving us to a party at one of his friend's houses, and I remembered seeing Ashley there¸ but there was nothing beyond that. I couldn’t figure out how I’d landed in the hospital or why Chase was laying there beside me. The last time I'd seen him he’d been hopping into Kimberly's car.

  The door to my hospital room slid open and a young nurse with a bright smile and tired eyes sauntered in to check the machines beeping methodically next to my bed. She fidgeted with a few cords and then reached down to adjust something beside my bed.

  “How are you feeling?” she asked, keeping her voice low so she wouldn’t wake Chase.

  “Fine, I guess, but I'm not sure why I'm here.” My words scraped against my sandpaper throat.

  I wiggled my fingers and toes and then lifted up the neck of my gown to look down at my chest. There wasn't a scratch on me.

  “Last night you were given a drink with Rohypnol in it while you were at a party,” the nurse explained before pointing at Chase. “That boy right there found you and brought you in here to make sure you were okay.”

  I looked at Chase's sleeping features as the pieces of my memory started to slowly reform: Trent getting me a drink, feeling dizzy after I took a few sips, and then nothing.

  I focused on the curve of his cheekbones as I asked the next question.

  “I wasn't, um…” I looked down at the bed sheet. “No one took advantage of me, did they?”

  The side of her mouth tilted up. “No. Seems that your hero has good timing. I think the police have already brought the two men from the party in for questioning though.”

  She che
cked one last thing on my vitals and then headed back for the door.

  “The doctor will be in to talk to you soon, but you should be cleared to head home today. The drugs are all out of your system now,” she said.

  “Okay. Thank you.”

  The noise of her closing the door jarred Chase from his final remnants of sleep. He turned on the cot, blinked his eyes open toward the ceiling, and then glanced toward me.

  “Hi,” I said, suddenly feeling vulnerable.

  He groaned as he sat up in the cot and then stretched his arms overhead, undoubtedly sore from his makeshift bed.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked in a sleepy tone.

  “I'm good. Thank you for coming to get me last night. How did you know I was there?”

  He grunted. “Ashley called me after Trent pushed you into the bedroom.”

  The audible sound of my heart rate picking up served as an indicator of how pissed I was at the mention of Trent.

  “Why were you even with those guys?” Chase asked.

  I took my time trying to think of a good reason, but when I couldn’t, I shrugged and looked him dead in the eye. “Trent gave me a ride when I was walking home in the rain. He invited me to the party and I decided to go for a little bit. It was a better plan than sitting at home by myself.”

  Chase's eyebrows tugged together in confusion. “Are you angry?”

  I shrugged, remembering how easily he’d left me behind to get in the car with Kimberly.

  “Don’t you know what happened?”

  His earnest expression made my shoulders sag. “No. What are you talking about?”

  He pinched the bridge of his nose and then explained in shorthand what he’d gone through the day before: the car accident, Kimberly telling him at school. The scene in the parking lot made perfect sense, but I’d seen what my insecurities had wanted me to see.

  “I thought you were ditching me for Kimberly,” I admitted with an embarrassed whisper. How could I have been so self-centered? How could I have had so little trust in him? Maybe in my obsession, I had started to see secrets where there were none.