Page 129 of Running from Drac

Sniffing, I wipe at my face to blot out my tears. “But I didn’t care about her, not like that. And that was the problem. That’s why she was up here, because I wouldn’t date her.”

He nods. “You can’t blame yourself for this, Eddie. Some people are just sick, and if she came up here to kill herself, she wasn’t okay. Is there anyone you can call?”

My fingers dig into my scalp, dragging them through the ragged strands as I try to block the image of her eyes seconds before she fell.

“Eddie?” he says, his voice a bit louder.

“Huh?”

“Is there anyone you can call?”

There were a billion people I could call, but only one that mattered.

Fumbling with my phone, I tug it out of my pocket and dial her number before I can even rethink it.

It rings…

It rings again…

It rings four more times before it goes to her voicemail.

“Amber, it’s me. God, there’s so many things I want to say to you right now, but none of that seems as important as… God, I don’t even know how to say this, but Pippa’s dead. I tried to save her. I really did, but I just wasn’t strong enough. I know you’re mad at me and probably hate me right now, but Poppy’s going to need you. Please come home. We don’t even have to talk, but we can if you want to.” I pull at the hair on my head, surfing through two kinds of grief. The kind where you lose someone you care about to your own stupidity, and the other where you blame yourself for someone else’s death. “I love you, Amber. If anything else, please believe that. I’ll wait for you forever if I have to. But please come home. I can’t live this life without you.” I hold the phone another ten seconds before it clicks off, tears already swarming my eyes and threatening to fall.

Cipher’s hand comes down on my back again, forcing me to look up at him and the moon illuminating him from behind.

“You can’t blame yourself for this.”

“But I do.”

“I know, Eddie. I can see it in your eyes. But you’ll grow up bitter if you keep doing it. I went through it for years… not being able to look at my reflection in the mirror, staring at the man who could’ve done something to save her. The man that’s haunted every time he looks in his daughter’s eyes and sees her mother staring back at him. Grief is a difficult thing to navigate, but if you don’t forgive yourself for it, all it will do is eat away your soul and suck the life out of you.”

I can already feel it happening. The emptiness inside is growing, a strange type of living death that I can’t quite shake. My pulse is still going, but my will to keep going is diminishing more every second that she stays gone. I have no idea where she went, nor do I feel like I ever will.

“You gotta look at the bright side, Eddie. You’re still here. That mountain crumbled beneath your feet, and you survived.”

“But at what cost, Cipher? A young woman died today all because I didn’t have the strength to hold on. It’s my fault she was even up here in the first place. She was my friend, and I—” My voice stalls with heavy emotion. “I let her fall.”

He shakes his head. “You can’t think like that, Eddie. You gotta look at it from a different angle. You hung on. That’s the most important thing. Sometimes things don’t go your way, or how you had planned, but if you keep hanging on—keep thinking positively, the universe will bless you with something great. I never imagined being a single dad, but here I am, raising a beautiful daughter all because the universe decided to throw me a curveball that brought me back home.”

“Keep hanging on…” I repeat the words robotically, wishing I knew how to do that when I feel so lost.

“Come on. I’m going to need you to follow me to the station to make a statement.”

“Okay…”

I somehow manage to stand, but the second I do, another realization hits me like a slap in the face.

Fuck, what the hell am I going to tell Poppy?

Chapter Thirty-Three

Amber

The Next Morning

I’m not sure how long I sleep before I feel him shifting beside me. The mattress dips, then there’s a faint clink of something in the distance. A smell filters into the air. Eggs? Bacon? Maybe even a little toast. My stomach rolls the second it hits me.

I pry one eye open to see Ryder coming back into the room, bare chest glowing faintly in the morning light, a plate in his hand.