Page 84 of Grave Love

I can’t leave her like this.

Chapter31

Blaze

Brody resists coming at first,but after I threaten to expose our shared past, he rushes over. Gives her some sort of nasal spray. Ren’s breathing immediately returns. She stirs, then goes back to sleep.

Her chest rises and falls. As long as that’s happening, I can breathe too.

My knuckles are bleeding, blood drying in the bed of my nails. Brody pretends he doesn’t notice the new hole in the wall. We both know it’s there.

It’s like waking up from a nightmare.

I stare at her sleeping form. I can’t stand the way I feel, seeing her like that. A doctor within arm’s reach. The fact that she’s breathing.

She’s okay.

“What did she take?” I ask.

“Could have been a number of things,” Brody says. “We won’t know unless we can take her to a hospital and test her.”

I grit my teeth. The fucker probablyhasthe tests; he just doesn’t want to give them to me. He’dliketaking her to a hospital so that he can get me under public scrutiny. So that someone else will see me and know my tendencies. So that if I go to jail, it’s not on his hands.

“You can’t find out here?” I ask. I get into his personal space, my breath hot and venomous. “There are over-the-counter drug tests. You can get sedatives, but not a test?”

“For a test like this, you need a lab,” he says, his eyes darting away from me. His mouth twitches, holding something back. Fighting his natural responses. He doesn’t want to give himself away.

And then I know exactly what happened.

He gave her the drugs.

I rush to the nightstand and check for the lozenges and the pills. Panic fills me when I see them there, because that means Brody hasmore.I run to the bathroom. Flush that shit down. It swirls like a bird’s nest caught in a drain. It backs up, clogging the hole. With one quick pump of the plunger, it goes down the pipes. Once it’s all gone, I rush outside. Ren’s car is unlocked; she must’ve been too doped up to lock it, and that pisses me off even more.

A lozenge, partially corroded, lies on the passenger seat. A wet stain underneath it.

“Wait!” Brody shouts. He grabs my shoulder. “Listen—”

A roar erupts from my chest. I shove Brody back. He stumbles onto the grass. I find that brown bag with identical contents to what he gave me. I storm past him and go straight back to the toilet.

Brody deserves to die. Not Ren. Just him.

I watch the contents swirl again. This time, they flush easily. The partially used lozenge goes down last.

She didn’t even consume all of it.

Why? So she could try it out? See what it was like?

Was she testing me?

How the fuck did it get this out of hand?

“This is bullshit, man,” Brody shouts. “That cost—”

“Me,” I growl, my voice vibrating through the walls. I point to my chest, pounding at it like a madman. “I’mthe one who gives her the drugs.I’mthe one who helps her end her life.Not you.”

“I didn’t put it in her mouth!”

“You inserted yourself into herlife,” I say, my voice full of rage. “Her time of death was neveryoursto decide.”