Donny pats the tire iron against the palm of his hand like he did the first time he beat the shit out of me, but he’s not looking at me, but at Nova. This is so fucking bad. And all my fault.

“Trace wants to see you,” he calls out as he approaches us, his black boots scraping the dirt.

My muscles wind into painful, guilty knots, connected to Nova. I think of Roy and what Trace did to his girlfriend, how he raped her. I have to get her out of here. Now. She should never have been here to begin with. I should never have let her into my life like this. What the hell was I thinking?

I hurry around the front of the car, startling Nova by how quickly I arrive on the other side, right in front of her. I grab her arms roughly and yank her to me, our bodies crashing together. “Please, if you care about me at all, you’ll get in the car and drive away. Right now,” I whisper in her ear.

She clutches my arm and I can hear how fast her heart is beating. “What’s that guy going to do you?”

“Nothing,” I say, lying to her and myself. “He’s just here to get Trace’s money.”

“But do you have it?”

“Part of it,” I say, which is the truth. Tristan and I have managed to collect half of what we owe Trace.

“Is that enough for him to leave you alone?”

“Yeah, for a little while,” I lie, but it’s the right thing to do, because if I don’t lie she’s not going to leave. I hear the sound of Donny’s boots crunching close behind us and I know he’s getting closer. “Just get in the car.” I kiss her cheek, pleading. “And go home.”

She holds her breath for a moment and then nods. I relax as she pulls away and turns for the door, but then I feel the presence of Donny behind me and I immediately tense. Just having someone like him so close to Nova is enough to make me feel like I’m going to lose it.

“You need to go inside,” Donny says from right behind me. “Trace wants to talk to you. He’s up in your apartment with your lovely little friend that got you into this mess.”

Nova’s eyes dart over my shoulder and widen. I quickly turn around and step in front of her, blocking her from his view. “I’m headed up there now.” I glance over my shoulder and tell Nova, “Go.”

“No, you should bring the girl,” Donny says. He purposefully moves the bottom of his shirt up a little and I see something tucked in the front of his pants, sparkling silver. A gun. He’s got a fucking gun and he wants Nova to come with us.

It hits me all at once. Hard. The entire situation—how much bigger this is than I realized. And Nova is here to witness it. Just the idea of something happening to her nearly crushes the air out of my chest. I don’t even want to think about it—can’t think about it. Yet images press their way into my head, like shrapnel. I can picture myself back on the side of the road, lying beside Lexi, covered in her blood, only it’s not Lexi’s eyes staring up at me, but Nova’s bluish-green ones. And again I’m the one who hurt the girl I love…shit, it that what this means? Does this fear of losing Nova mean that I love her? The revelation makes me hate myself more than I already did. Hate myself for being here. For allowing myself to feel this way toward another girl. God dammit, why did I let myself keep breathing, keep living, feeling, loving? Lexi’s dead and I might be falling in love with someone? This is how I repay her for crashing the car that night and killing her? I break my promise to her and forget her enough that I let myself feel love for Nova? I let Nova take her place?

I’m so angry at myself that I almost forget the situation until Trace’s guy rams the tire iron against Nova’s beautiful car, scraping the cherry-red paint.

“Get in the fucking house!” he shouts, his calm demeanor suddenly gone, uncontrollable rage in his eyes.

I shove all my feelings aside and sober right up. I’m very aware of Nova’s presence. Very aware that everything I do for the next few minutes is going to matter, unlike the last few years of my life. But once I fix this—get her out of here—everything can be over and nothing can matter again.

“I’m going in the house,” I tell him calmly, folding my fingers inward and digging my fingernails into my palms as I glance down at the gun. If I have to, I’ll go for him, if it means she’ll have time to get away. “But she’s going to leave.”

He laughs at me. “Like hell she is.” He steps forward and reaches to my side, trying to get to Nova, and I don’t even think. I just smack his hand out of the way. His eyes flicker with fury and his hand starts to lift, not in my direction, but in Nova’s. He’s going to hit Nova and it’s going to be all my fucking fault. I’m going to destroy the girl I love again. I’m such a fucking screw-up again.

I need to do something to get her away from this. I rack my brain, looking for an answer. I remember how he took the drugs out of my pocket and I see the rings of red around his nostrils that are rings of gold at the moment. I could bribe this guy with drugs, but I doubt what I have in my room’s going to make him happy.

I need something bigger.

Something that will make him forget about everything, even if it’s for a minute or two, enough time for Nova to get away.

“I know where Dylan keeps his stash and he has a couple of ounces and if you let her go, I’ll show you where it is,” I blurt out, which is a total lie, but it’s all I can think of at the moment. It’s a viable lie, too. Dylan’s a dealer and he has a large stash—somewhere. But I have no clue where he keeps it, whether it’s even in the house or how much he has. It doesn’t matter, though. All I’m looking for is getting him away from Nova and then letting whatever’s going to happen happen. Let him beat me. Hurt me. Kill me. I don’t care, just as long as I know she’s safe.

The guy pauses, the tire iron still lifted. “How do I know you’re not full of shit?”

I shrug, pretending to be calm, despite the panic inside me. “You’ll just have to come with me and see. If I’m lying, then you’ll still get to kick my ass, like you were planning on anyway.” Just let her go. Please just let her go. “But if I’m not, then you could have the stash for yourself. No one would have to know.” It’s like tempting a dog with a bone. As a drug addict, I understand that the need—want—is more powerful than anything else.

The guy seems wary, but then gives in, lowering the tire iron. “Let’s go then,” he says and starts toward the house, all the anger leaving his body. Part of me thinks he was only going after Nova to fuck with my head. Still, she’s free to go and that’s all that matters.

I start to follow him, but Nova grabs my arm and pulls me back. “Quinton, don’t go,” she says. I don’t even look at her, shaking her hand off me and moving forward. But she relentlessly enfolds my arm again.

I shoot her a cold look from over my shoulder, knowing that the only thing that matters at the moment is getting her into the car. “Get in your car and go.” My voice is low.

Her eyes are filled with horror. “Quinton, I—”

“Get in your fucking car and go, Nova!” I shout venomously. “Leave, like I’ve been telling you to do from the start!”

She starts to cry, tears rolling down her cheeks, and I want to comfort her, but I know it’ll make things worse if I do.

“I’ll be fine,” I say in a low voice. “I’m going to go pay this guy back and then everything’s going to be fine.” I feel like such a dick for lying to her, but I’m doing what I have to to get her away from this.

“But how will I know if you’re okay?” she asks, glancing at the guy.

“I still have your number and I’ll call you later,” I tell her, touching my back pocket, where the piece of paper with the phone number on it rests inside my wallet. “I promise.” Another lie, but I don’t feel bad because I can see in her eyes that it works.

She leans forward and gives me a kiss on the mouth. I barely kiss her back, even though I desperately want to. But I make myself hold on to the image of Lexi, like I should have been doing the entire time—make myself suffer for loving Nova and putting her into this mess.

Everything is all my fault.

“This is all your fault,” Ryder’s dad says to me while her mother sobs in the background. “Dammit, you shouldn’t have been driving that car so damn fast.”

My dad stands in the background, watching him yell at me, letting him vent, because everything he says is right. It is my fault. I was driving too fast. “Why couldn’t you have just driven slower?” he asks, and then he starts to cry, sorrow haunting his face, and even though I want to cry, I don’t because I don’t deserve to. I don’t get to hurt like they’re hurting, because I put the hurt there.

I caused this.

As Nova drives away, I feel strangely calm, sedated, dead inside. I turn to Donny, who’s waiting for me just a few strides away. I could run, out into the desert or down the street. But then I’d be bailing out on Tristan. I’ve already fucked up on paying Lexi back for killing her, the last thing I need to do is fuck up on paying Ryder back.

So I follow Donny upstairs, listening to him ramble about what he’ll do if I mess this up. Maybe if I weren’t crashing so badly, I’d feel the pain of what lies ahead for me a little bit more. I’m only half focused on it, the need to get a hit or two taking up the other part of my mind. But when I step inside the apartment, reality sort of just crashes over me, like a violent waterfall. The entire place is trashed, even more than it normally is. There’s broken glass all over the floor, holes in the walls, the table in the kitchen has been tipped over, along with the sofas, like someone went on a rampage.