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Amber Blake is having dreams, and they just might be the key to saving her best friend, Mark.
Unfortunately, she's too preoccupied pretending to hate the boy next door, Carter Hayes. Secretly hoping to rekindle what once was, Amber atte...
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"I'm sorry." Darren squeezes his eyes shut. The gun rattles against his jaw bone, making my blood run cold.
"Hey, hey," Carter holds his hands out as he creeps towards him, "What did we talk about, huh? This isn't your only option, Darren. Let's put that away again and—"
"You knew?" I ask incredulously. "This whole time you knew he had a gun and didn't think to give your very impulsive wife a heads up?"
"When he first came in, he had it out." Carter keeps his steps steady, even as his voice waivers. "When you came in, he'd just put it away. I was afraid having you here would rile him up again, and I didn't want to redirect his attention back to the gun."
"I'm sorry," Darren repeats, but he's looking at me now, his eyes glossy. "For lying the day you came. Should've confessed then." He grips the gun harder, his knuckles turning white. "Should've confessed years ago."
"D-Darren." I say it just to stop him. Sure, I was close to ringing his neck a second ago, but that doesn't mean I wanna watch him blow his brains out. "This isn't making any sense. You've been living with this just fine since your party. Why do this now?"
It's the best I can muster up. Beneath all the fear, I'm livid, the power behind it so strong it makes me shake. Contrary to what Carter told him, this is Darren's fault, and no amount of tears can change that.
Talk him off the ledge now — kick his ass later.
"Living," Darren spits, his face contorting in pain. "What's that anymore? Smile through it all, that's what he used to say. Never let them see you sweat, even when the tremors set in after hours without it. Day, night... whenever I can get it. Always there, always in control. I'm not living— heroin is. I've been dead for years."
"No." My anger melts away any initial sympathy. "Mark has been dead for years. He's the one who paid the price for a drug ring you ran for fun, while you've sat here and wasted your life away on the drug that killed him!"
"Is this supposed to be helping?" Carter asks heatedly. "Because I promise you, it isn't."
"I don't care," I snap back. "I don't care that you're sad, Darren, or that you finally feel guilty about something you're responsible for, or even that you're an addict. My best friend is dead." I dig my nails into my palms to stop from crying. "He was sad. He was abused, and to top it off, he died because of someone who hated him. And now, you wanna take the easy way out? Fuck that. You're gonna spend the rest of your life living with this guilt, and when I'm through with you, you'll do it behind bars. Now, put down that gun."
