Winter (Four Seasons #1) (31 page)

“
I can’t. I’m
sorry…I…it’s someone you know.”

Someone I
know.
It’s someone I know?
My mind races a million miles an hour. And it
keeps racing, lightning speeds compared to the twenty mile an hour
traffic we find ourselves in as we crawl across the city later.
When we finally reach our destination, we enter the building
together but Morgan is immediately whisked away. I’m abandoned to
my own company in the thankfully empty waiting room, until a
buzzing sound disturbs the silence and Noah emerges from inside the
station. Our eyes meet and my stomach falls through the
floor.

It’s someone
you know.

Surely not
Noah? “What are you doing here?” I ask, my voice a sub zero level
of cold. Noah winces. He approaches me slowly, his hands shoved
deep into his pockets. He gestures to the chair beside me and I’m
too confused and concerned over everything and everyone to object.
He slumps down into the chair, sighing heavily.

“
I had to give
a statement about when I last saw Tate,” he says
quietly.

“
Right.”
It’s someone you know.
Somehow the possibility that Noah could be the one
responsible for Tate’s death and for Morgan’s time in hospital
hurts way more than the secrets he kept from me. It’s all I can
think about—
is this all his fault?
Memories of Noah meeting Tate and Morgan in the
library that day, them swapping a huge amount of money for some
textbooks, come flooding back to me. Oh, Lord, no. Dealers do that,
don’t they? Put their stashes inside books or CD cases or whatever
they have handy to disguise them. I glance at Noah cautiously out
of the corner of my eye, only to find him staring at me.

“
Avery, I
really would like to talk to you, please? If that’s okay?” He
reaches out to touch my knee. I go stiff, which he reacts to
instantly. He doesn’t withdraw his hand, though. He tightens his
grip, squeezing so hard his fingertips go white. “Listen, I’m
really sorry about what happened in your place. And in the hallway,
too. I get a little hot headed sometimes, but I would never hurt
you. There’s no reason to freak out.”

“
Well,
I
am
freaking
out,” I tell him. I shift my leg but he doesn’t let go. I swallow
down my panic and turn fully to face him, wanting to look him in
the eye when I ask him. “This isn’t just about that. I have
something I need to know. That day…when we met Tate and Morgan in
the library?”

Noah goes
totally still. “Yeah…”

“
Well, those
books. Were they just books, or—”

I can’t finish
my sentence. I can’t finish my sentence because one second Noah is
gripping tightly onto my leg, a cold blankness in his eyes, and the
next he is sprawled across the police station floor. A fury of
black and gold rushes forward, and Luke—
Luke!
—grabs a fistful of Noah’s
shirt, practically lifting him off the ground.

“
Get your
fucking hands off her, you freak.”

“
I wasn’t
doing nuthin’ wrong!” Noah cries, hands held high. “She’s my
girlfriend.”

“
She is
not
your fucking
girlfriend.” Luke raises a fist back, and the cold realization that
he’s about to hit Noah and end his career shoots through me. I leap
up and launch myself at him, grabbing hold of his wrist from
behind. The second my hand touches his skin, Luke’s fist uncurls.
He blows out a sharp blast of air through his nose, growling at the
back of his throat, and then lets Noah go. Noah slumps to the
floor, eyes round and filled with fear.

“
Get the fuck
out of here, right now,” Luke snaps. “If I ever so much as hear
you’ve whispered her fucking name, I will break every bone in your
goddamn body.”

Noah struggles
to his feet and hightails for the door. Luke pivots slowly, his
dark eyes almost black with anger.

I swallow,
trying to keep my back straight. I’m flooded with relief and
gratitude that he showed up when he did, but I’m too worried to
tell him that. Instead, I say, “What are you doing here, Luke? This
isn’t your station.”

Luke’s eyes
narrow. “Prisoner transfer. Why are
you
here?”

“
It turns out
our friend Tate died the same night Morgan got sick. She’s in there
giving a statement right now.”

Luke’s anger
falters. “The guy on the roof?”

“
Yeah.”

He nods once,
clenching his fists by his sides. This really isn’t good. I’ve
never seen him like this before. “You need to come see me later. I
have some more news about your dad. I tried calling.”

He
has
tried calling, but
frankly I’ve been avoiding his ass. “I can’t, I have to take care
of—”

“
Just
come.”

He turns and
stabs a code into the keypad by the door that leads into the
station proper and disappears without looking back once. On any
other day, I’d ignore a demand like that. But not today. Not after
what just happened. And Luke hardly seemed happy about the prospect
of my company. Whatever he needs to tell me probably has something
to do with the feds’ investigation. I wait alone for another
awkward hour, tensing when the door buzzes open, hoping and praying
in equal measure that is and isn’t Luke each time. Finally the door
opens and it’s Morgan that walks through. She cries the whole way
home, refusing to tell me anything besides the fact that she
admitted to who provided the pills.

Twenty Five

Admissions

“
WHAT MAKES
you think you can just tell me what to do?” The door isn’t even
open before I start speaking. At least I
am
speaking, not shouting. Luke
stands in his doorway with a towel wrapped around his waist,
dripping wet. I’m silently congratulating myself on the fact that
I’m not staring at his ridiculously toned body when he grabs my
hand and yanks me into his apartment.

“
Shut up,” he
snaps.

“
What
the—”

“
Stop
talking!” He slams the door and storms through his apartment
towards his bedroom, the muscles in his back tense. “I’m sick to
death of this. Come with me.”

“…
hell
?” I finish. Stunned, I follow
after him, pausing in the doorway to his bedroom. I look away as he
drops the towel and angrily kicks his way into a pair of jeans. He
pulls a t-shirt over his head next and pads barefoot over to me.
I’ve never seen him so wound up before. Well, I hadn’t until this
afternoon, anyway. He takes a firm hold of my wrist and pulls me
into the room, sitting me down on the end of his bed.

“
Luke, what
the hell?”

“
Wait here.”
He storms out of the room, and then returns a minute later with a
stool from his breakfast bar in one hand and my Super Eight camera
attached to a tripod in the other. Wait,
my Super Eight camera?

“
What the hell
are you doing with that?”

“
I borrowed
it.”

“
From my
apartment?”

“
Yeah, from
your apartment.” He places the camera, attached to the tripod
directly in front of me and then turns it on. Once he’s done that,
he sets the bar stool down a couple of feet in front of me and sits
on it. “Let’s do this,” he tells me.

“
Do what? What
the fuck’s going on, Luke? You broke into my place?”

“
I’ve done a
lot worse. Now come on,” he grinds out.

“
Come on,
what, Luke? What’s this supposed to be!”

Luke grasps
his hands together in his lap, apparently trying to stop himself
from snapping. He presses his lips together in a white line and
stares away from me, out of his bedroom window. “Your college
assignment. You have to hand it in tomorrow, right?”

“
What?” How on
earth does he know about that? And then it hits me: Brandon. He
didn’t mean I should ask my mom to do the interview with me. He
meant Luke. And he told him all about it. Seriously? “Oh, we
are
so
not doing
this, Luke. You’re the last person I want to interview about what
happened back then.”

Luke’s
shoulders slump but his face remains hard. He’s still not looking
at me, still staring out of the window, the cold wintery light
casting his face into a contrast of light and dark. “Why
not?”

“
Because you
won’t be honest and that’s the whole point of the
exercise.”

He finally
turns and meets my gaze. “If you think you’re fucking bulletproof,
Avery, I’ll tell you every single gory detail of what happened that
day.”

“
It’s not just
that, though! It’s not…it’s not that you didn’t tell me my father’s
dying words until years later. It’s everything. It’s why he was
mentoring you. It’s why you were so fucking close to him, and all
the other secrets that you won’t fucking tell me!”

I hate myself.
I hate that I’m crying and screaming and swearing and I can’t get
my words out properly. Luke tucks his hands underneath his thighs,
literally sitting on them. If I didn’t know him better I’d think he
was being a cold son of a bitch, refusing to look at me and glaring
at the floor. But I do know him better. I know that if he doesn’t
sit on his hands, if he doesn’t keep his eyes off me melting down,
then he will be standing over me, trying to comfort me in two
seconds flat. That makes my crying worse. I let my head fall
forward, my hair obscuring my view of him, and that’s when he
starts to talk.

“
The first
thing you should know is that I’m in love with you, Avery.
You
know
I
am.”

He loves
me.

The world
stops turning. I stop breathing. Everything just…stops. I should
look up at him, should meet his eye. Should take in the look that
he’s wearing on his face, but I can’t. Because if it matches the
tone of his voice right now, it will set my very soul on fire and
there will be no saving me. Luke sits quietly while I struggle to
try and remember how to breathe. He loves me? Oh my God. How do I
survive this?

“
The second
thing you should know is this…” Luke’s chair creaks. “You were
fourteen. You hadn’t spoken in five days. The doctors were getting
worried and your mom wouldn’t even go into your bedroom to check on
you. My partner and I came to the house to get a further statement
from your mom, but I was feeling…I couldn’t even step foot through
your front door. Chloe left me outside, said she’d handle it. I sat
in your front yard, right there on the front lawn, alone and
crying. It was pathetic. But then you…you came down and sat with
me. I was so embarrassed.”

I don’t
remember any of that. I stifle back a sob and shunt myself back on
his bed, hugging my knees to my chest. Luke continues, unfazed that
I’m paralysed and his words are hitting me with the force of a
sledgehammer.

“
You spoke.
Your first words after five days were to
me
. You asked me why I was sad.” Luke
looks up, straight at me, straight through the camera, straight
into my soul. “And I told you why. I told you exactly why I was sad
and why your dad dying was the worst thing that had ever happened
to me.

I shake my
head, my eyes blurring. “That didn’t happen. I don’t
remember.”

“
It did
happen.”

“
Then what did
you tell me?”

Luke just
shakes his head. “You were quiet for a long time, but after a while
you collapsed into my arms and started sobbing. You kept saying the
same thing over and over, ‘it hurts, it hurts, it hurts’. I
couldn’t bear that, Avery. I swore to you that it would stop
hurting one day, I promised you it would. I carried you into the
house and put you to bed. After that, Chloe came to get me and we
left. But I made you that promise, Ave, and I wanted to keep it.
That’s why I kept coming back to see you all those
years.”

“
And that’s
what this is now? You’re still trying to make it stop
hurting?”

Luke’s eyes
harden as he shakes his head again. “No, I told you. Everything
changed when I came back to Break and saw you with that Justin guy.
I wanted to kill him. You weren’t a kid anymore, you were a woman,
and I was blindsided by how strongly I felt for you. How…” he looks
up at the ceiling, clenching his jaw, “how
insanely
jealous I was. I had to
leave. I didn’t even speak to you that time. I just fucking
left.”

He remains
quiet for a moment, a moment where I search my memory, scour it
trying to find a snippet of recollection, anything that correlates
with what he’s telling me. But I can’t. There’s nothing.

“
I was
catatonic for eleven days after my father died, Luke. I couldn’t
have spoken to you after five.” Luke doesn’t argue with me. He just
looks at me, brown eyes wide, t-shirt a little damp over his chest
where he didn’t dry his skin before putting it on. His shoulders
are still slumped like he’s resigned himself to something awful. I
can see how much pain he’s in. I can see how badly he needs me to
believe him. And, for some reason, I do. “Why were you so angry
with me at the station?” I whisper.