Sort of Normal

Chapter 22

Boone

Police lights are flashing as my truck comes skidding to a halt in the middle of the road. Cops are stationed in front of my building and farther down by the parking lot.

"Shit," I mutter, stomach sinking. How the hell did I not think to look for her car? I just assumed if she wasn't here then her car wouldn't be either. I thought she'd be gone. If I had just looked down the fucking street, this wouldn't be happening. She might already be safe …

Kara gropes my hand, then squeezes. She glances between Gabe and me, that fearlessness she'd had before gone. I have to look away from her because she looks too much like Carter right now. Hell, she could not even be related to Carter and I'd find something similar in them.

She has to be okay. I have to make things right. That letter … we can't end this way.

Someone turns in the distance, looks our way, and starts walking toward us. My attention zeros in on him like a camera finding focus. Find Carter now, worry later.

I drop Kara's hand and head for Officer Taft. He's holding a notebook in his hand, ready to get down to business. "Her car was locked; no sign of her," he explains. He taps the notebook with his pen. "Tell me everything you know."

I recount the whole night, ignoring Kara's gasp when I talk about the letter and Declan. I go all the way up until the point where we got into the car to drive here. We all show him our cell phones so he can see our last conversations with her and when they were.

By the time we're at a point where there's nothing left to say, I'm on edge—ready to jostle everyone and anyone in my path until I find her. Why are we standing around talking about this? We should be looking for her.

"Do you think it was one of Tish's people?" Gabe asks.

Officer Taft remains deliberately calm. "We can't be sure. It sounds like there was quite a conflict about to brew with Boone here, so who knows what she could've done because of—"

"Don't—she wouldn't do this to any of us," I interrupt. "There's something wrong."

He gives me a complacent look. "We will take character into account, but often in situations like—"

"Got something!"

The proclamation feels as if the heavens had opened up and angels had swooped down to the rescue. I'm not much of a religious man, but this might just make me into one. We all jog over to where an officer is standing on the sidewalk ways down from her car. He's got a crinkled paper in his gloved hand. The letters on it are written in neat, cursive handwriting.

"Do any of you recognize this?" Officer Taft asks.

Kara nods beside me. She brings a hand up to her mouth. "It's my handwriting—it's the recipe I gave her.

"It's hers, then. She must've been going in this direction. Any idea where she'd go from here? And on foot?"

My mind feels too foggy to place where we're even at, let alone where she'd go. All I can focus on is my fear of losing her—I've already lost her once and I can't survive it again.

"Declan," Gabe says. "His grave. She goes there whenever something's wrong."

My mind might be lost, but my body's not. I take off running.

#

By the time I get to the cemetery, the police sirens are getting louder—closer. I never thought I'd be so happy to hear sirens in my life. Hopefully we all get here and find her hanging out with Declan. God, I hope she's here and not somewhere else. She didn't mean to worry anyone; she just wanted to escape.

I've got the path to Declan's grave memorized. Whenever I run, I usually run through the cemetery to check in on him. Any other time, I've got time to follow the path out of respect for the dead. Right now I don't. I run across the lawn, feet pounding on graves. Hopefully they'll understand.

It's too dark to see now, but I don't hear any voices or anything suspicious. I came here with her about a week ago and she talked to him out loud, as I sometimes do. If she's here, then I'd be able to hear her speaking to him. All I want is to hear her voice.

Unless she's not here but somewhere else. God, please, let her be here.

I charge up a hill and nearly collapse when I hit the top and see her.

She's here, only not in the way I hoped to find her. She's lying in a little lump on the ground with her face pressed against Declan's grave. In the moonlight, she's pale and glistening with sweat. What looks like the contents of her purse are all around her, littering the ground.

"Carter?" I say, approaching her slowly. I don't know why I'm going slow now when all I want to do is grab her and hold her.

A series of flashbacks involving finding Declan after his overdose and then when he was dead bombard me. I thought that moment was the worst moment of my life. But this is paralyzing to my mind, body, and soul. This feels as though I were meeting my end. "Carter?"

I kneel down in front of her and press my hand against her cheek. Cold. There aren't any marks on her face. I slowly move my hand down the length of her body, assessing what I can see. I don't want to move her.

My fingers slide into something warm and wet at her collarbone. Blood. It's hard to see against her dark shirt, but it's there. I pull her shirt back to see the damage I already expect—a bullet wound.

I can't see straight, and my heart is dead. I wish I had taken the shot for her. I wish I was the one out cold and bleeding. That I was—

"Boone."

Her voice is a whisper, but it's loud in the silence of the cemetery, even with the sirens approaching. Her eyes are closed, making me wonder if I just imagined it—if it was something I only wanted to hear—but then her lips move to form my name again, this time nothing coming out.

"Hey, Junebug," I say, emotion wrecking me. "Hey."

I should be saying how it'll be all right, but I don't know if I can. I can't lie to her again when I feel as though the whole world just fell off its axis and now we're hurtling toward the sun.