Samuel's POV
"Olivia?" I call and softly tighten the hold I have over the scar on her left forearm. While a part of me hoped that Isaiah had been lying about Olivia hurting herself, another one wished that at least my charge would never remember it. But as Olivia continues to stare at me with an ashen expression, I know it's too late.
"It's okay," I say. "Whateverâ"
Before I can finish, Olivia tears her arm out of my hold and edges a couple of steps back. As she tries to complete the third one, she bumps into her mother. Mina, who has been standing nearest to Olivia while paying attention to Nick's still ongoing explanation, turns to her daughter.
"Liv?" she whispers. "What are you doing? Stop moving around and help Nick explain what's going on."
"I..." Olivia opens her mouth but then shakes her head. "I need to go to the intersection."
"Don't be silly," Mina waves her off. "Nick said you're waiting for Brooke and her boyfriend."
Olivia, however, shakes her head again and edges a step closer to the front entrance. "I know, but I need to check something first. I... I need to know the truth."
Without waiting for another moment, Olivia spins around and rushes to the glass door. She bolts out of the café before any of the other humans notice what's going on. I immediately step forward to follow her, but before I can finish the third step Eliza squeezes past me. She pauses directly between the front entrance and me, forcing me to a stop.
"I'll follow Olivia," she says. "You stay with your charge and make sure to find the evidence they need to take down that bitch." Without giving me a chance to disagree, she closes her eyes and disappears out of the café.
Even after she's gone I continue to stare at the glass door, contemplating to forget everything and just go after Olivia. Then my senses kick in, and I turn back to the group of humans just as Mina finishes reassuring everyone that Olivia went out for some fresh air and that she'll be right back.
While the humans go back to waiting for Olivia's childhood friend and her boyfriend, I turn to pace up and down the closed café. No matter how many minutes tick by, I can't shake off the feeling that something isn't right. I know that the feeling is mostly connected to my inability to trust Lucien and his words, but there is something else. Just below the surface lingers a deeply unsettling feeling I'm yet unable to name.
What feels like an eternity later, the annoying bell finally goes off, but instead of Olivia and Eliza, Brooke and her boyfriend, Weston, enter the café.
"Mission accomplished!" Brooke lifts her arm, which she has intertwined with Weston's, in a victorious shout. "Weston and I are back together. Oh, and I got there just in time to stop him from selling his car... Wait, where's Olivia?"
For a second the café is filled with dead silence. Then the six humans, with Nick leading the way, jump to life and all at once start asking a chorus of questions. While I'm not able to hear much in the chaos, I'm able to dig out that Weston didn't sell the car back to Anya and that the vehicle is now parked near the café. But as the humans celebrate, I can't help but wonder if this is really it. Can it be this easy?
Once the humans settle down, they agree to head for the police station, where officer Wright is already waiting for them. And while Nick volunteers to call Olivia, Mina decides to call Anyaâclaiming that she also needs to be at the police station when everything goes down.
Despite Nick reaching for his phone much faster than Mina, it's Anya who first answers the call.
"You never give up, do you?" Anya's cold voice comes from Mina's phone, which she put on speaker. Her voice is barely distinguishable over the roar of the engine, but I can still catch a pinch of excitement in her voice.
"It's over, Anya," Mina shakes her head. "We have the car you hit my daughter with."
"And what good will the car do you?" Anya snorts. "I already got what I wanted from the car, so you go right ahead and keep the damnâShit!"
"Anya?" Mina calls, but all that follows is the screeching of tires and then the line goes dead.
Anya didn't give any indication of where she might be or what might have happened, but somehow I just know. Especially because Nick is still trying to reach Olivia but to no avail.
For the first time since I became Nick's Guardian, we jump to our feet at the same time. While a chorus of voices questions Nick where he is going, we wordlessly sprint out of the café and rush in the direction of the intersection from Olivia's accident.
*
Olivia's POV
The moment Eliza and I reach the intersection I stop at the edge of the sidewalk, across the spot from where I crossed the road on the night of the accident. My heart is pounding inside my chest and my breaths are wheezing through my mouth, but I force myself to forget about everything.
I snap my eyes close and browse through the mess that are my memories. Until now I thought I had everything about the accident already sorted out, but Isaiah's words made me doubt myself again. Did I really do this to myself?
With my eyes still closed, I skip through the memories of Dad calling me, me dropping off the medicine at the Davis', Brooke calling me, seeing Charlie attacked, me fleeing, being hit by a car, and finally Anya leaving me on my own in the middle of the road.
The forced memories morph with my real ones and I suddenly remember myself lying in the middle of the road. There are no bright headlights surrounding me; only the cold road underneath me. As I lie wringing in pain, it's Charlie I'm thinking about. Despite not knowing who he is, I keep thinking about the way his tortured eyes locked with mine. And then of course my cowardly decision to flee.
The pain and the guilt mix into a dangerous cocktail that gets more and more poisonous the longer I continue to lay there. Without really knowing what I'm doing, I search with my right hand across the cold asphalt. I'm not sure what I'm searching for until my fingers slip on a smooth but sharp edge. Without looking, I know what it isâa piece of broken glass from my phone.
Despite being unable to lift my head, I somehow find the strength to grab the piece of glass and lift it across my body to my other arm. Then before the guilt can dig its claws any deeper, I jab the sharpest point of the glass into my inner forearm. The pain is excruciating, but at the same time, it takes the edge off the guilt threatening to drown me.
And the further I cut, the blurrier my surroundings become.
I'm not sure how big of a cut I create when suddenly both the glass and my hand refuse to move. Something unexplainable wraps around my hand and then forces the piece of glass away from my arm. Another excruciating wave rips through my arm as something solid presses against my forearm.
With every bit of strength I still possess, I turn my head to the side and find a big guy kneeling beside me. He has both of his hands pressed over the bleeding cut while keeping his eyes directly on me.
"Girl?" he says. "Can you hear me?"
I want to open my mouth to tell him I do, but my muscles refuse to cooperate.
"Damn it. Don't move, okay?"
I'm not able to form a single thought before he disappears out of my view, leaving me on my own. I'm left to stare at the dark starless sky for what feels like an eternity before the big guy returns. He once again presses his hands against my forearm, making me want to scream my lungs out.
"Why did you do it?" he asks, his dark eyes boring into mine.
I try to open my mouth again, but the pulsing pain makes it impossible. The only thing I'm able to do is to turn back toward the sky and allow the heavy eyelids to descend over my eyes.
If only I could forget about everything that happened tonight.
"Come on, girl. Don't give up. You need to keep fighting."
And then all I can remember is darkness.
I snap my eyes open and stagger a couple of steps back. Isaiah was telling the truth. I did this to myself. I couldn't handle the guilt, so I... I...
"Olivia?"
Almost mechanically I lift my head up to find a figure standing across the road. Because my mind is still spinning from the new-discovered truth, I'm sure that my eyes are playing a trick on me. But even after I blink, Charlie is still standing thereâexactly on the spot where I crossed the road on the night of the accident.
Our eyes lock, but while I'm frozen in my position, Charlie begins to move. He sets the crutches onto the road and then lowers first his uninjured and then his injured foot off the sidewalk. Step by step he begins to cross the road between us.
He's almost halfway across when a set of bright headlights drifts around the corner. The vehicle's engine roars, while its tires screech in protest. But instead of stopping, it speeds up and heads straight forward.
Straight at Charlie.
***
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- E