Page 45

Scanning the second floor of the library, I quickly spot Levi. Unlike everyone else—with their headphones on and heads bent over their work—he’s staring straight ahead.

My eyes lock on the white envelope in his hands.

He looks up and smiles when I get close enough for him to sense my presence. It’s reserved and nothing like the megawatt smile I’m used to seeing from him, but it still makes my heartbeat speed up.

Things between us have been…better. Better than before, but nowhere near what they once were. This moment has been looming over us like a dark cloud for two days. I’m hoping that after today, we can officially put this ordeal where it belongs—in the past.

Sliding into the chair opposite him, I nod to the envelope. “Is that it?”

“Yes, I haven’t looked at it yet. I grabbed a letter opener downstairs to save us some time.” He says, lifting the flap to show me.

“Okay,” I whisper. “Go ahead, read it.”

“Bear, whatever this says—” he starts, but I hold up a hand, stopping him.

“No,” I say, shaking my head. “Just open it. We’ll deal with the rest after.” I sound confident, but inside, my stomach churns, and my breakfast threatens to resurface.

He hesitates before nodding reluctantly and pulling out a single sheet of paper. I clasp my hands tightly together on the table as I watch him unfold it.

Levi’s eyes scan the text, and I’m desperate to see what it says. I should have dragged my chair closer to read it with him, but now nerves have me frozen in place. Worry grips me tighter when his frown only grows deeper the longer he reads.

“I don’t understand,” he murmurs, his eyes lifting to meet mine. The look on his face isn’t what I pictured when I imagined this moment. There’s no relief, only confusion. “Everything is negative.”

“What?” I blanch, surely having heard him wrong.

I take the paper from his hand without waiting for an explanation. My mind whirls as my eyes scan over the text.

It’s mostly medical jargon, too many technical terms for my brain to process, but the context doesn’t matter. Next to each drug listed, the same number repeats down the list: 0.0%.

His urine sample is clean. There’s no trace of anything illicit or abnormal.

“Remember, we knew this was a possibility,” I say firmly, grabbing my bag in one hand and the piece of paper in the other.

“It might have been flushed from your system before you gave the sample. It was over twenty-four hours later, and you barely drank from the bottle. It’s possible,” I repeat, needing the words to cut through the confusion so clearly written on his face.

The hopelessness in his expression twists around my heart. I drop my bag onto the ground and cup his face.

“This doesn’t mean what you think it does, okay?” I make sure to keep my voice low. Not only because we’re in a library, but because no one else needs to hear this conversation. “Do not give up on us.”

We’re so close to this being nothing more than a chapter in our book. Giving up on each other now would shatter me.

This is our hurdle, but I need him here, with me.

“Do you still believe me?”

“Of course I do.” Now that everything is in the open, I can’t believe I didn’t connect the dots sooner. “I’m not going anywhere, Levi.”

His exhale is heavy with relief.

“That’s all I care about,” he says softly, tucking a strand of my hair behind my ear.

I drop my lips to his. The kiss is quick and soft, but when I pull away, it feels like the contact has breathed life back into him.

“What happens now?”

“Now, we go find some answers,” I tell him.

Levi will only continue to beat himself up about this. He needs proof that he’s not the terrible person he’s making himself out to be in his head right now.

Unfortunately, Plan A didn’t work out, and Plan B requires more effort, but we’re finishing this today.

He points to the paper in my hand. “I thought that was our answer.”

“No, it was only one kind of answer. There might be another way to find out what happened.”

He looks at me with raised brows, but I simply take his hand and lead us out of the library.

I don’t even know where to start looking, honestly. This campus is enormous, and she could be anywhere. Kristen might not know anything, but it’s worth a try, and at this point, we have nothing to lose.

When I veer left outside the library, Levi follows, but after ten minutes of aimlessly wandering, I’m less hopeful than I was when the idea first came to me.

“Bear, as much as I love the view from back here, are you going to fill me in on what we’re doing?” Levi asks from behind me, and the tease in his voice makes me grin despite being on what feels like a futile mission.

Coming to a stop, I turn to explain. “The night Sadie was at Static, she was with a girl. A friend, maybe. I think she might be able to help us.”

“And the plan is to find her amongst thousands of students on a campus with two separate buildings?”

I groan. “Don’t sound so doubtful. We will find her.”

“Fine, lead the way, Teddy Bear. But first, tell me what she looks like because she could be anyone.”

I give him as many details about Kristin as I can remember, but it’s not much. I know my description hasn’t helped when Levi starts pointing out every short brunette he spots, making it even harder to keep track of the ones I notice.

After thirty minutes with no luck, I pause at the door of one of the many lecture halls, leaning against the wall, feeling defeated.

“We don’t have to keep looking,” Levi says, stepping closer to me.

“I just want to know what happened. More for you than me,” I admit softly, frowning at the floor.

“Hey,” he tips my chin with a finger, forcing me to meet his amber eyes. “I want to know too, but not like this. Not when it’s making you miserable. You’re worth more to me than the truth, Bear.”

I open my mouth to respond, but the door we’re standing beside suddenly opens, and students begin spilling out.

My eyes are immediately drawn to one girl ducking her head as she tries to slip out unnoticed. But there’s no mistaking her. Not when her face is the one I’ve been searching for the past hour.

Call it fate, luck, or coincidence—whatever it is, I’m not questioning it. And I’m not about to let her slip away.

“Kristin!” I shout loud enough for her to look over her shoulder.

When her eyes lock on mine, they widen, then widen even more when she sees Levi next to me. She looks around like she might make a run for it.

“We only want to talk, please,” I say, softening my tone so she doesn’t feel threatened or, worse, scared we might do something to her.

Her shoulders slump, but she nods slightly and walks back the way she came. Levi and I quickly follow.

The room is empty except for the lecturer, who glances at us curiously before grabbing his briefcase and walking out.

“I don’t have a lot of time. I need to get to my next class.” Kristin says, hugging her books to her chest like a shield.

“We’ll keep this short, then,” Levi says, folding his arms and staring her down. “Tell us what happened Halloween night.”

Kristen’s pale skin turns even paler as tears pool in her dark brown eyes as she looks between the two of us.

“I’m sorry,” she chokes out. “I didn’t send it. She did.”

Levi and I share a look, knowing she just admitted to everything in that one sentence alone.

Schooling my features, I raise a brow. “Did what?”

I need verbal confirmation. I’m trying to keep my anger in check, but it’s hard when I don’t know her role in all of this. All I see when I look at her is an accomplice to something awful.

Kristin’s eyes stay glued to the carpet beneath our feet as she speaks, her voice small. “Are you asking me because you don’t know or because you think I had something to do with it?”

When her eyes lock on mine, they’re wet with unshed tears. The time for her to feel guilty should have been before this happened, not after.

“Tell us what happened that night, and we’ll be on our way,” I say, knowing she could shut down and refuse to talk if we push too hard.

Kristin nods, and I’m relieved when she starts talking. But with each word, that relief slowly turns to dread.

“Before I tell you, you should know I had nothing to do with Sadie’s plans, I swear.

” Her gaze flickers to Levi and me before dropping to a spot on the wall behind us.

“The night of the Halloween party, she cornered me and demanded I hand over my phone. I gave it to her, and she started typing. When she handed it back, I saw she’d texted an anonymous number.

I didn’t realize it was your number until I saw him next to you,” Kristin says, tipping her head in Levi’s direction.

That explains why she looked so frightened out there in the hall.

“So, I take it you saw the video she sent?” I ask, my voice tightening in disgust.

Kristen turns a deep shade of red and nods. “She didn’t bother deleting the text. I called her out on it, knowing that she dragged me into it by sending it from my phone.”

“Did you know she drugged me?” Levi demands, his tone colder than I’ve ever heard.

Kristin locks eyes with him.

“No,” she gasps, shaking her head. “Something about the whole thing felt off, but when I asked Sadie about it, she said the two of you weren’t doing anything you hadn’t done before. She said you were ‘relaxed’ enough to enjoy it. I thought she meant maybe you had too much to drink.”

Even though we knew this all along, it still makes my heart sink. A fleeting glance at Levi tells me he’s gone rigid. Besides his tightly clenched jaw, his face remains a blank mask.

“So, you knew what she did was wrong, yet you still kept quiet?” I ask, surprising myself with how angry I sound.

Anything could have happened to him after taking whatever had been put in his drink. It doesn’t matter if it was a muscle relaxer or worse. He could have died!

People have bad reactions to stuff all the time. Illegal or not, taking more than the recommended dose of anything or mixing medication with alcohol is dangerous .