Page 64 of Deacon

“Chloe.”

Her mouth trembled. “She’s not with us.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

She stared at her lap, and the shame in her expression knotted my stomach before she said another word. “We’re not really friends anymore.”

For a second, I thought I had heard her wrong. “What?”

Her crying worsened. “We haven’t been since high school started.”

Something inside me went very still.

“No one’s nice to her,” Chloe choked out. “Not really. Because she doesn’t have a dad, and because you keep who he is secret, and people talk about you and they passed it all down to her and...” She sobbed and covered part of her face with her good hand. “She keeps to herself. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to be a social pariah too, so I...” Her shoulders shook. “I was mean to her too. I stopped being friends with her.”

The room seemed to tilt beneath me.

I stepped backward without meaning to, and Evan went rigid behind me with gauze still in his hand. “What a little bit...”

One look from me cut him off.

Chloe’s parents rushed in a moment later, pale, breathless, and already panicked. Her mother’s expression changed the instant she saw me beside the bed.

“What happened?” her father asked.

“Car accident,” I said, reaching for professionalism because if I lost it now, I wasn’t sure I would get it back. “She was drinking. The boys she was with were drinking and driving.”

Chloe’s mother turned toward me with sudden venom. “So this must be your daughter’s influence, no doubt.”

Chloe gasped. “Mom!”

I straightened slowly. “Actually no,” I said, my voice cool enough to frost glass. “My daughter is at home doing homework and studying.” I held her mother’s gaze until she finally looked away. “Perhaps if your daughter hadn’t been bullying my daughter and had remained friends with her, that influence might have kept her from making a decision like this.”

The silence afterward was absolute.

I refused to fill it emotionally. “X-ray will be here shortly to take images of her arm and wrist. Then the doctor will be in. She needs to keep the stitches on her head clean and dry. The call button is right there if you need assistance.”

Then I walked out with my head high and my pulse beating hard in my throat.

Evan followed immediately. The moment we cleared the bay, every word he had been holding back broke loose.

“Those people are unbelievable, and honestly so is this whole damn town. Wicker Falls loves to dress itself up in pearls and Bible verses, then spend the rest of the week chewing people to pieces behind closed doors. It is shiny on the outside and slimy underneath, and I am this close to setting something expensive on fire. I swear to God, if I had five minutes and no witnesses, I would ruin that whole family’s week.”

I stopped walking.

So did he.

The adrenaline began draining out of me now that I knew Jade was physically safe, leaving my hands trembling and my legs suddenly unreliable. I braced one palm against the wall and tried to drag air into my lungs without letting it turn into panic.

Evan’s face changed immediately. “Hey.”

I shook my head once. “Tomorrow,” I said. “Tomorrow I’ll figure out what’s going on with Jade.”

He stepped closer, all the fury in him settling into something gentler. “You want me to come over? Help talk to her? If anyone knows what it feels like to be ostracized, it’s me.”

That nearly undid me.

I turned and wrapped my arms around him hard, and Evan held me just as tightly.