Bury Me with Lies (Twin Lies Duet Book 2) Read online

  They both grow deathly still. The silence around us all is almost unbearable.

  His lips thin into a grim line. A darkness I’ve unwillingly encountered before enters his eyes. “That’s not what happened that night, and you know it. We were fucking drunk.”

  “And I begged you to stop!” I yell, my voice bouncing off the redwoods surrounding us. I risk a glance at Zach and find the color drained from his face. The shock is ever-present and lasts a good ten seconds before he seems to gather himself and clears the emotion off his expression. His gaze darts toward Vincent who, in turn, looks murderous as he stares down at me.

  I’ve made him look like shit in front of his friend. I’ve exposed him for the monster he truly is, and now, he’s going to make me pay for it.

  “You should really learn when to keep your mouth shut, Wright,” Vince growls, taking a threatening step toward me. My heart bangs against my rib cage, and I swallow the sudden lump of fear in my throat.

  I’ve never feared much in my life. But here, right this second, I’ve never been more scared. They say you know when you’re going to die. It’s a bone-chilling experience few people can feel coming. It’s one I feel with my entire being as Vincent and Zach close in on me.

  “Kenzie, you gotta get up. You can’t stay here.”

  The voice penetrates my dark thoughts, but I can’t seem to move. I can’t do anything at all. Fear claws at my chest, and I can feel the dampness of my tears trailing down my cheeks, but I can’t stop them. I can’t seem to do anything at all.

  My body is immobile. It feels like I’ve been strapped to a table, and knives are being stabbed into my flesh repeatedly.

  “You’re going to die here if you don’t move, Mack. Get up and move. Please.” I hear Madison. Her pleading voice is distant, so far away, and I can’t help but wonder where we are. I feel like I’m in such a dream-like state, and I don’t want to wake up. There’s a dull throb at the base of my skull, and the darkness that’s ebbing and flowing around me is calling to me. It’s telling me to touch it, to fall back and let it hold and caress me. With each step closer I get to that comfort, I hear Madison’s voice more urgently, begging me to listen and follow the sound of her voice. So, I do. And with each step closer, I feel it. The pain. It’s all-consuming, traveling through my body, sending every nerve screaming with agony. The stabbing of knives in my flesh gets worse, the blade is struck deeper each time, the tormenting ache that much stronger.

  I don’t want the pain. I want the bliss the darkness has to offer.

  “That’s it, Mackenzie. Just follow my voice. I can help you, but you have to listen to me. Please.”

  Fighting past the extreme discomfort, I peel my eyes open and suck in a ragged breath of air. The smell of copper and the metallic tang of blood are what hit me first. My vision is distorted as I look around, slowly blinking the edges of darkness away, but I get the gist. I’m still trapped in the car, and when I glance down, my stomach revolts. I choke on a sob, as I realize I’m bleeding. It’s everywhere. The blood stains my clothes and the material of the driver’s seat.

  I’m bleeding to death.

  “Take my hand.” I jolt at the sound of the voice and cry out in pain from the movement. I manage to turn toward the source, and I’m surprised when I see Madison. She’s stricken; I see it in her eyes. This is bad. Really bad.

  A scream tears from my lips when I try to lift my arm. It feels like everything is on fire, and I’m burning up from the inside out. Those knives feel like they’re now dipped in fire, branding my skin, tearing me open. The effort it’s taking to even attempt to lift my arm is all-consuming. I feel like I’m being torn in half, my head is splitting, screaming with pain. Each limb feels like it weighs a million pounds; they no longer feel like my own.

  Madison’s hand grasps my outstretched one, and she pulls. I’m like a rubber band being stretched beyond its breaking point. My body feels like it’s being ripped, right down the middle. I can practically feel the flesh and tendons tearing, and I can taste the pain curdling on my tongue. It’s rancid.

  Tears flow down my cheeks, and once I hit the center console, I let out a blood-curdling scream that rattles the trees surrounding us. It hurts. It hurts so much. I can’t keep going.

  “I can’t,” I sob out.

  Still pulling me out of the wrecked vehicle, my sister shakes her head. I can feel her desperation radiating off her. “Yes, you can. You have to. You’re not going to die here, Mackenzie, understand me? I won’t let you.”

  It feels like an eternity of pain later when I drop onto the dirt beside the car with a thump, and the searing pang in my abdomen grows stronger. Still clasping my hands, Madison drags me a safe distance away from the car to allow me to catch my breath.

  There’s a sudden creaking noise and the sound of something sliding. I shift, as much as my battered body will allow me, craning my head toward the sound, and my eyes widen when I see the wrecked vehicle teetering on the cliff. All it would take is one puff of air to make it drop and go rolling down the hill. And that’s exactly what it does.

  There’s a loud metallic groan, and the bumper lifts in the air, before the car rolls down the hill with a mind of its own. Metal crashes against trees, glass shatters, all of it is an explosion of noise that rattles the forest surrounding us. Slowly, I turn back toward Madison, who’s staring down at me.

  “That would’ve been me in there?”

  She nods slowly, letting me process the situation. Tears spring to my eyes, and it’s all I can do to hold back the impending sob.

  “I’m so sorry, Mads,” I choke, burrowing into the dirt and allowing the damp earth to hold me for the time being. “I tried. I really did try. But I failed you. They’re going to walk free.”

  Madison shifts on the ground beside me, mirroring my position. She reaches out, her hand gently caressing my head as she smiles sadly. “You didn’t fail me, Mack. I never wanted any of this for you.”

  “You deserved better.”

  “And so did you,” she counters. “Help is coming. And when you make it out of here? You’re going to forget about this. You’re going to forget about me, about Ferndale, and you’re going to live the life you were always meant to. You’re going to be happy, Kenzie. For once in your life, you’re going to be truly happy. And I know you’re going to make a little girl really happy someday.”

  My face crumples. “I’m not ready to let you go.”

  “I’m never far. I live right here, always,” she whispers, pressing her hand over my heart. I can feel the warmth from her palm seeping into my chest. It only serves to make the tears fall harder. “Now, close your eyes and listen to my voice. When you get up, everything will be different. I promise.”

  “Please don’t go,” I beg in a whisper. It gets lost in her harmonic singing and the distant sound of sirens, before the darkness pulls me under.

  My head feels grainy as though someone recklessly shook a carbonated can; everything is fuzzy and bubbling inside. A continuous beep rings in my ears, and someone is saying something. Whispered tones that sound like they’re coming from every direction. They’re so loud, so clear and distinct; yet, every time I actively try to clear away the fuzz in my brain to listen, I can’t. I can’t make any of it out.

  But I know one thing for certain.

  I recognize one of the voices. I don’t know who or where I know it’s from, but I recognize the voice as though I’ve heard it my entire life. It tugs at someplace deep inside me. The place where I hide my emotions, the closet where I stuff my skeletons and force myself to box them up for good. Only someone had the key to that closet, and they were slowly opening drawers and emptying the shelves of my past and a pain that was long forgotten.

  Summoning all my strength, I blink, trying to push past the sleepiness weighing my eyelids down, but nothing happens. That stark darkness still calls to me, trying to pull me back under like a black weighted blanket.

  It would be so easy.

  I ca
n feel just how simple it would be to pretend the pain isn’t there and go back to that dark, cold place that somehow felt like home. I didn’t even truly know what home felt like anymore since I hadn’t had one in so long. I wasn’t sure I ever knew what the true feeling of home was.

  After several struggle-filled attempts, my eyes open to bright white lights, sterile walls, and dark silhouettes. I home in on the hazy figures hovering around me. I feel a deep throb behind my eyes, and my mouth is painfully dry. My mind actively tries to decipher the commotion surrounding me: where I am, how I got here, what is wrong with me, but I fail with every thought.

  I can’t form a single coherent idea or calculate an answer to any of those questions.

  Steering through the fog clouding my thoughts, I blink past the film covering my eyes, and the second I look up, my breath catches when my eyes land on a familiar pair of blue. It’s a shock to my system. A deeply rooted bomb to the core. I shake my head, certain I’m imagining things, but immediately stop when pain rips down my spinal column from the movement.

  This can’t be right.

  This can’t be happening.

  I never thought I’d see this person again. Hell, I never thought I’d see them both again, but I was wrong. So very wrong.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I notice a brace running from my ankle to my hip. Metal bars run up both sides. I wiggle my fingers on my left hand and feel one there, too. My stomach churns. I’m wrapped from head to toe in metal and casts, but I don’t have the capacity to grasp that information, not right now. Not when my parents are standing a few feet away from me with pain in their eyes.

  It’s been nine years since I’ve last seen them, and in that time, they’ve changed immensely; yet, as I stare up at them, not at all. Monica Wright looks like a mirrored image of the woman from my childhood, only now, she wears her pain on her sleeve. It’s written, like beautiful scripted cursive across her skin. It is in the pallor of her skin, the frail way she holds herself, and the dark circles beneath her eyes. When I shift my gaze to Michael Wright, it’s like stepping into a time machine with the man. As I look up at him, I still feel the same disconnect from my father as I felt as a child. He looks down at me with such blatant disappointment, I don’t know whether I should be surprised or overjoyed that they haven’t changed all that drastically over the last nine years.

  With his hair a salt-and-pepper gray and the lines set on his face a little deeper than I recall, for the most part, Michael has aged well since the death of his two daughters. I say that because that’s technically what happened. The night Madison died, I died, too. Instead of losing one child, my parents mourned as though they lost us both. Caught up in their own grief, they forgot they had another child who needed them.

  A heaviness settles in my chest. It wraps its way around my lungs, squeezing the organs in a vise and making it nearly impossible to breathe as I try to process. It’s the same sensation I’ve always had when I’ve been near my parents. It’s why I ran.

  It’s why I cut them out of my life.

  Because I couldn’t breathe in that house.

  I was dying in there, and they never even cared.

  Forcing my gaze elsewhere, I take in the rest of my surroundings. Four stark white walls, a window covered with bland, hospital-grade curtains, a looming door that presumably leads to the restroom, and another door that is the only means of my exit. It’s the only thing in the stuffy, ammonia-smelling room that I can seem to focus on.

  An escape.

  As if he heard my thoughts, an older man dressed in a lab coat pushes through my exit, eyeing me closely. My mouth goes dry, and my stomach drops when two uniformed men walk in behind him, wearing hard expressions. With a clipboard in hand and skin that is far too tan to be natural, the doctor walks straight over to my parents to shake their hands. His nurses flank him, whispering in hushed tones, to which he just nods and glances at me. I feel the officers’ gazes incinerating my flesh, but I force my gaze to look anywhere else, too afraid looking at them will be cause for them to haul me away.

  “This is for the best. I plan to lead and ask the questions, so she doesn’t get too frightened,” I hear the doctor tell my parents in a low, reassuring tone.

  My gaze narrows into thin slits, and I press my lips together in a firm, grim line, not liking the idea of them discussing anything about me without my knowledge.

  I eye the doctor dubiously as he closes in on me. He offers a small smile that’s meant to be comforting. It’s anything but.

  “Glad to have you back with us, Ms. Wright. How are you feeling?”

  “I-I…” My throat closes, refusing to let me speak. My esophagus feels dry and scratchy, as though I haven’t spoken in days or weeks. I close my mouth, giving up, still taken aback by the fact that my parents are really here in the flesh. Then I sneak a glance at the officers who are standing back, waiting for something.

  “What’s your pain level?” The doctor prompts at my silence.

  “High,” I rasp. It isn’t a lie. I feel like every bone in my body is broken. Even breathing is a nuisance.

  “That’s to be expected. You’ve sustained quite the list of injuries. You’re lucky to be alive.” He starts digging in his coat for a pen as he steps closer to my bedside. “I’m going to have you follow the light as best as you can for me. Think you can do that?”

  I grimace, still trying to process what’s happening. Part of me wants to snap at him and tell him to hell with his damn light test, just give me something to take away the pain. Maybe then, I’d be able to escape this reality for an alternate one. One where it’s dark and quiet, and there’s no pain or ghosts from my past to haunt me like there is in this room.

  I know he wants me to follow the light attached to the pen, but I’m not quite sure I have the strength to even do that. Everything hurts. I can’t do it. My head drops back onto the pillow, with not an ounce of strength to hold it up any longer. Flashes sprint through my mind, like photos on a pinwheel. The trees. A tumble in the dirt. The winding road. There was yelling. So much yelling.

  I slam my eyes shut, trying to put the puzzle pieces together and figure out what I was remembering. It felt like the cogs churning in my brain were stuck and needed a spray of WD-40 to start working properly again. I couldn’t formulate a single coherent thought. There was a car, someone’s hands tightening on the wheel, a foot pressing down on the gas pedal, swerving. Then a kaleidoscope of colors, then pain. So much pain.

  It was a wreck.

  I was in a car wreck.

  I knew it, felt it within my bones, but for the life of me, I couldn’t remember why or where I was going. Who was yelling? And why did it all hurt so much?

  Pain radiates from my abdomen that, even now, I can’t quite shake. It travels through my body in torturous waves, threatening to pull me back under.

  “Ms. Wright, I know you’re tired and in a lot of pain, but I need you to stay with me. Can you do that?”

  At the sound of the doctor’s voice, I heave a deep sigh and force myself to give him a semblance of a nod. Doing as instructed, I open my eyes and shift my head just enough, so I can follow the light attached to his pen as best as I can, considering my condition.

  “Good, very good,” he praises, pocketing the tool in his coat. “I have some officers here on behalf of the Humboldt County Sheriff. I know this isn’t ideal, but they need a statement from you about the night of the accident. You’ve been in a medically induced coma for the past five days to relieve the swelling in your brain. It’s okay if you can’t remember what happened; the brain is complex, and yours has been through quite a bit. But can you try to tell us what you remember about the accident?”

  I lick my dry, cracked lips and open my mouth, but no words come. Because truth be told, I don’t remember what happened. I remember yelling, and the car going off the rails, but I don’t remember why. The only thing I’m remotely sure of is Madison. She saved my life.

  My gaze flits around the room i
n search of her. I don’t know how she managed to do it, but she was there. I felt her. I felt the warmth of her hand through my clothes, seeping into my skin. During that time, I felt like she was alive and well.

  She was there.

  I work a thick swallow and force my lips to move. “I-I don’t remember,” I rasp. “I just remember being in a car…and there was fighting. Someone was yelling at me.” I pause, slamming my eyes shut, as more images come in flashes, but they don’t make sense. Just trees, so much dirt, and the car. The sound of metal crunching. I pry my eyes back open, trying to think clearly. “Then the next second, we were rolling.”

  The doctor nods, a crease forming between his brows, as he waits for me to put the pieces of my jumbled mind together. I close my eyes, and the flashes come faster. Faces, pain, blood, Madison’s shirt, Vincent, the disgust on Baz’s face. It all comes rushing back, and tears leak down my cheeks.

  “He stabbed me with something,” I whisper, bringing my trembling hand toward the searing pang radiating in my abdomen. I hiss out a curse, forgetting my injuries for a split second. “I don’t know what happened after. He was there one second, then he was gone.”

  The doctor nods, concern written in the lines on his face. “Do you remember how you got out of the car? Did this other person help you out?”

  “No.” I shake my head adamantly, even though it hurts to do so. “He left me there for dead. I think we…we were arguing…then the car crashed. I was…” I pause, choking on a sudden wave of emotion, as the memory slams into me. “I was in so much pain I couldn’t stop him when he stabbed me. She helped me. I heard her voice, and she helped me.”

  The look of concern on the doctor’s face at this moment should be alarming, but I’m so caught up in the memories and the pain currently swarming my body like a hive of angry bees that I don’t pay it any mind. “Who did?”

  “Madison. My sister. She helped me out of the car. She told me everything would be okay. I…I don’t know how she did it, but she dragged me out, and not long after, the car rolled. I would’ve died if it wasn’t for her.”