Levi didn’t say anything in response. What was there to say to this sad truth?

As we closed our eyes to sleep, I heard my mom’s voice: there’s no place for us in this world, baby girl. Even as I lay here in Levi’s arms, safe and adored, I couldn’t help but wonder if she’d been right.

I wasn’t sure I could live with this fear anymore.

I was sick of hiding my voice.

I was sick of the power people had over others.

… To victor cruelty, not hope…

Chapter Fifteen

Levi

I opened my eyes, my head banging like I’d been hit by a truck. I stared at the wall beside my bed and immediately felt my stomach drop. I’d hardly slept all night, too busy holding Elsie in my arms, my mind circling with what she’d told me, how she’d opened up… and I felt shamed. Shamed that I hadn’t seen those scars, never questioning why those cuffs were around her wrists. And those girls at the dinner? Those cruel bitches…

I gritted my teeth, my blood boiling with rage. I took a deep breath, and turned in the bed, my arm reaching out to pull Elsie close. I frowned when I felt her side of the bed was empty. I sat up when I felt the linen beneath my palm was cold.

Throwing the comforter off me, I searched the room with my eyes. “Elsie, bella mia?” I called, but there was no reply.

I looked to the clock on the wall, and my eyes widened when I saw it was nearly midday. I’d slept in. I took a deep breath. Elsie was probably in with Lexi. After losing Clara I wondered if she’d gone to the center.

I threw on a Huskies Football sweatshirt, sweatpants and my chucks and ran across the yard. The day was dry, completely different to last night.

I entered the kitchen through the back door, only to see Lexi with Dante and Austin sitting at the table with coffees. I quickly searched the front room.

“You okay, Lev?” Austin asked.

“Is Elsie in here?”

Lexi and Austin looked to each other with questioning glances. “No,” Austin said and got to his feet.

My pulse kicked into a sprint. I looked to Lexi. “Could she be at the center?” Lexi lowered the spoon she was feeding Dante with.

“I’ve just been there, Lev. I’ve been with Celesha all this morning taking care of Clara’s family and all the paperwork for what happened.”

“And she wasn’t there?” I affirmed, dread setting in my chest.

Lexi shook her head and I ran my fingers through my hair. “You can’t find her?” Austin questioned.

“She ain’t in my room. I slept in. I got no sleep last night after dealing with Elsie…” I shook my head, “the shit she told me… what she’s been through.” I looked to my brother, then Lexi who had stood and was by her husband’s side. “Last night, what those girls did and Clara too. She’s lived that. She, she nearly died, Lex.”

“I know,” Lexi said quietly and all my breath rushed from my lungs.

“You knew?”

Lexi’s face fell. “I checked on her records, Lev. She was a runaway. She ran from a group home after she’d been in hospital for attempting to commit suicide. I saw the scars the first night we brought her back here when I cleaned her up.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It wasn’t my story to tell. You know how I feel about forcing someone to talk about their past. It normally does more harm than good. I know this first hand.” Austin wrapped his arm over her shoulders and pulled her closer. Dante squirmed in her arms and she kissed him on his chubby cheek. “Lev, I didn’t know what she was dealing with, if it was something she’d moved on from or whether it was still part of a struggle.”

“It’s a struggle,” I rasped, thinking back to her numbness last night, of her haunted stare and sad voice as she told me about Annabelle and her suicide attempt. “A real struggle. And after last night…” I turned away, panic setting in. “She wasn’t right. She told me about trying to kill herself, and she told me how she’d wanted to die.”

I stilled. “What if last night brought it all back? What if…” I trailed off unable to finish that sentence.

Austin gripped my arm. “Don’t, Lev. Don’t fucking do it.” He pushed me toward the door, back to the pool house. “We’ll find her, come on.” Spurred on by Austin’s words I ran back across the yard, briefly stopping at Lexi’s craft shed. It was empty.

When I was back in the pool house, I rushed to the bathroom, finding it the same with nothing moved. Next was the closet. Most of her clothes were there, but I saw her jacket, scarf and hat were gone, as were her Uggs. And my hoodie. The hoodie I’d given her that first night she came into my room, returning my stolen rosary. It had gone from the hook on the door.

“Anything?” Austin asked as he stood the center of the main room. I shook my head, wondering where the hell she could go when I looked to her bedside table.

“No,” I whispered, my eyes shutting as reality hit.

“What?” Austin pushed and I met my brother’s eyes.

“Her jar’s gone.”

Austin’s expression was of confusion. “Jar?” he questioned.

“Her lightning bug jar, like the one’s in Dante’s room.” I felt my face heat. “I made her one. She didn’t like the dark, and I told her about Mamma and how she’d make us real ones.”

“Fuck, Lev,” Austin hushed out and came to pull my head in his arms.

“She’s gone, Austin. Ain’t she? She’s fucking gone.” I pulled away from my brother to look into the small pot where her jar’s glow sticks were held—gone.

All gone.

“We’ll find her. You know where she used to go before she came here?” I shut the drawer and nodded my head.  Austin slapped me on the back. “She probably just needed some air, Lev. Shit, she went through a lot last night. She won’t be gone. She won’t have left you.”

I wasn’t so sure. Grabbing my keys from my desk, I looked at her side table and raced to its drawer. When I opened the drawer and found her poetry book was gone, along with the book I’d gotten her for her birthday, a part of me knew, it just knew, that she hadn’t just gone out for air.

She’d gone for good.

“Lev?” Austin pushed, waiting by the door. “Let’s go.”

I followed him out of the door, my hand in my pocket as it ran over the wooden beads I always had with me. And I prayed, I prayed on every single bead that we’d find her and that she hadn’t done anything to hurt herself.

I climbed in my Jeep and pulled out onto the road. The tension in the car was thick. I couldn’t calm. I just kept seeing her tortured eyes. Kept feeling her limp in my arms as I washed and held her in the bath.

I’d known she was hurt, was broken, but I never thought it ran this deep. I never imagined bullying could have been this soul destroying until Lexi opened the center. It made me realize how vicious some people’s words could be.

Austin stared out of the window as I drove to the alley I’d found her in. “You ever seen anyone get bullied, Aust? Like, real bad?”

Austin shrugged. “I saw kids get beat up or roughed around, but I think the kind of bullying Elsie went through is the kind that no one sees, yeah? The kind that fucks with your mind?”