****
Utter and complete silence enveloped me. No dreams, no memory sequences, just blissful silence. Drew coughing woke me from a sleep that felt like it’d lasted a hundred years.
“Eden!” He leaned in, and his face hovered next to mine, “Can you hear me?”
I shook my head and a relieved smile slid onto his features. I felt weak and kind of out of it. When I looked down, I noticed there were far fewer tubes than I’d had the last time I was awake. All that was attached to me was an IV and the typical monitoring equipment. Drew looked like his color had come back, and a glance to his waist told me the lack of bulge under his shirt meant no more bandages.
“How long have I been here, Drew?”
He sat back and took my hands in his. “Three days since the last time, you were awake. And you were in ICU thirty-six…ish hours before that. I was there with you. My injuries looked bad, but your’s were way worse, Eden.”
“I was so scared, I thought you were going to die. When I saw you sprawled out and not moving in Potter’s Field, Drew, I was sure I was too late.”
“Well, that makes two of us then because you almost did die, Eden.”
Drew stroke the stray hair from my brow and bent to kiss me. Dad clearing his throat, had Drew jumping and redepositing himself in the chair with a painful groan. Crossing the small room, Dad stood beside my bed, his worried expression faded slightly when he got a good look at my face. “Thank you for not dying on me, Honey Bear.”
I gave a weak smile, and he ran a fatherly hand over my hair. “Are you feeling good enough to eat?”
“Actually, Dad, I’m starving.”
****
Two more days in the hospital proved to be the slowest days of my life. I was ready to get out of that bed, get home, and eat some real food. Everyone hovered around me like I was as fragile as a piece of glass. I let them worry over me because, at that point, I knew I was fine, they just needed to reassure themselves. The less I fought it, the sooner it would end.
When Dad asked Drew and me to come down to the station, I was sure that it had something to do with Vivian Vaughn. We were led into a room, the kind that had the one-way mirror, and I wondered why.
When Dad walked in and sat opposite me, I hiked a curious brow, “Dad, what’s all this about?”
Steepling his hands in front of his face, he peered at me, and I saw that whatever this was about really had him on edge.
“You ready to get some long-overdue answers, Eden?”
Not knowing what to think, I nodded, and Dad sighed then looked back toward the door. “Hey Tony, bring him in, please.”
Tony came through the door with Mr. Masson, and he was in cuffs. My level of alarm shot through the roof. “Why is Mr. Masson in cuffs? “Dad, he wasn’t involved. He saved us!”
Dad raised a hand. “I am aware of the parts he played in this Eden, you, however, do not have all the facts.” Dad pulled out the chair across from me, and Mr. Masson took it. He was looking down at his hands for a long moment before he finally lifted his gaze to mine. When he did, I almost choked on my own spit.
He pinned me with eyes that reflected my own, and in that millisecond, nothing else needed to be said. Tears filled his eyes—eyes that before that point had obviously been hidden behind dark brown contacts. “I’m sorry Eden, there was no other way. I had to stay away, keep my distance so that Vivian would not suspect who you really were. A lot of good that did, she was able to connect the dots anyway after your mother’s case was reopened.”
I looked at Dad, and his expression was a sympathetic one. I returned my gaze to the teacher I’d grown to trust over the last few weeks and said, “It’s okay Danny, I understand why you hid in plain sight all these years, but this all could have been avoided had you just turned her in.”
He sighed and shame-filled his face. “I wish it could have been that simple, but it wasn’t. She’s my sister and I was torn, not to mention scared. If I’d turned her in, there would have been my family to contend with. Believe me when I say the last person who crossed them is still missing, and I wouldn’t put it past them to be behind it.”
“So what changed then, Danny? Because right now, Vivian is sitting in a cell awaiting her court date and has no bail set.”
“She won’t get one either,” Dad assured me.
“I had to come forward. To tell my side of this, Eden.”
“Why now? Why not seventeen years ago?” I practically shouted at him, he made no sense.
Leaning in, he strived for the calmest voice he could, I could see it in the way he struggled to keep his emotions in check. “Because if I hadn’t come forward, she might have been granted bail! Don’t you see? I was the only eye witness when Echo died and my testimony will ensure she stays behind bars and as far from you as possible?
