Page 63 of Dream On

Darkness skates across my vision.

And the curtains close.

Chapter 17

Lex

“You are not saying asingleword until your father gets here.”

My head throbs as I sit partially upright in a hospital bed, staring into space, a dark film clouding my vision.

“Fall back on your head wound,” Mom continues, texting a million miles a minute from the plastic chair beside me. “When the doctor comes back, just say everything is hazy. You’re not lucid.”

Bullshit.

I remember everything. And if I hadn’t passed out at the scene, I would have confessed every sordid detail right there on the spot. Unfortunately, I woke up in this shitty hospital bed twenty minutes ago to my mother interrogating me.

I told her the truth: I fell asleep behind the wheel and almost killed my only friend in the world.

Mom nearly flatlined.

“I knew that girl was trouble.” My mother taps her jeweled stilettos against the linoleum floor as her gaze remains fixed to her phone. “Luring you to a party, getting intoxicated, demanding you drive her home. I figured you’d have good enough sense to not get involved with her kind.” She sighs, pink-cheeked and flustered. “Your father will fix this.”

I see red.

Dragon fire burns smoke through my nostrils as my achy chest heaves, andmy fists clench to stones at my sides. “Fix this,” I echo, my voice sandpaper raw, a deadly kind of low.

“As long as you keep your mouth shut, yes.”

My eyes slam closed as I clench my jaw. “How is she?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Is she even fucking breathing?”

“I. Don’t. Know.” She punctuates each word. “Her injuries are not my concern.Youare my concern. Thisfamilyis my concern.”

Wretched tears bite at my eyes. Guilt, pain, debilitating sorrow. It’ll be a miracle if Stevie makes it out of this without lifelong injuries.

I need to know how she is. I need to see her.

I rip the IV out of my arm and untangle the mess of cords, launching myself off the hospital bed and doing a one-legged hop out of the room.

Mom whips up from the bedside chair. “Where the hell are you going?”

It’s just a head wound, some bruises, and a busted ankle.

I’m fucking fine.

“Lexington!”

I turn the corner and wind down multiple corridors, holding on to the wall for support. Nurses try to stop me, but I barge through, narrowly focused on finding Stevie’s room.

Mom’s voice pitches behind me. “Get back here! Your father is on the way.”

I ignore her.

When I collapse against the emergency-room desk, a nurse blinks up at me, taking in my half-tied gown and the bloodied bandage around my head. “Um, sir—”