ANMELDENDanny's POV The phone screen was smudged, making Erica’s face look like a blurry mosaic. I held it with one hand, my arm shaking from just the weight of the thing. God, I was so weak."I just miss you so much," Erica was saying, her voice tinny through the speaker. "You have to get better, Danny. And listen to me, remember none of this is your fault okay."I just nodded. I didn't have the energy to argue. I was a good actor, or maybe I was just too tired to be anything else, so I pretended to actually obey her. Inside, it was a different story. Every time I closed my eyes, I heard the crunch of the metal. I felt the water."Have you heard from my mum?" I asked, my voice cracking. I picked at a loose thread on the hospital blanket. "Like uhmm maybe anything? Have you stopped by our house?"Erica’s eyes shifted. She wasn't looking at the camera. "No, actually I haven't." She sighed, leaning back. "I have been in touch with your step Dad and he told me, your mum... kinda found out about
Chadwick's POV It’s been a week. Seven days of this plastic chair, the smell of bleach, and the sound of Danny’s breathing. Or rather, the lack of it. He doesn’t talk. He doesn’t even look at me. He just stares at the wall like there’s some kind of secret code written in the peeling paint.I sat on the edge of the bed, holding the tray. The porridge was lukewarm and smelled like cardboard. I hated it. I hated everything about this room."Danny, you haven't even said a word in two days now," I said. My voice sounded like it had been dragged through gravel. I hadn't slept either, not really. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Noah’s mother howling on the floor.Danny didn't blink. He just sat there. Then, without looking at me, his hand reached out. It was thin. Too thin. He took the spoon from me and started shoving the food into his mouth. He wasn't enjoying it. He was eating like a machine. Like he was just fueling a body he didn’t want to own anymore.I felt a knot tighten in my ch
Danny's POV "Is Noah dead?" Chad just stood there, and for a second, I thought he had stopped breathing. He didn't blink. His jaw was tight, so tight I could see the muscle in his cheek jumping. He looked at the wall, at the floor, anywhere but at me. Then he moved. He didn't give me an answer. Words wouldn't have worked anyway. He just leaned in, slow and heavy, and wrapped his arms around me. He pulled me into his chest. It was a suffocating, desperate grip. He held me so hard it hurt my ribs, the ones that were already aching. It felt like he was trying to hold me together because he knew if he let go, I would just dissolve into a pile of nothing on these hospital sheets. "Noah didn't make it." That was it. The words landed flat. I didn't cry. Not yet. I just went stiff. I felt like a statue carved out of ice. I stared at the beige, peeling wallpaper on the hospital room wall and my brain just started spinning. It was like a loop, a film strip flickering over and over in
Danny's POV Darkness surrounded me. It was static. Like a TV screen without a signal, just fuzzy gray noise buzzing in the back of my head. Then, the beep started. Beep. Beep. Beep. It was rhythmic, steady, annoying as hell. I tried to open my eyes, but they felt like they were glued shut with sand. I couldn't move my arms, couldn't even twitch a finger. I was floating somewhere between here and wherever I had been, and honestly, the floating was easier. Then I heard him. A voice. Low, ragged, shaking. It sounded like he had been screaming for hours. "Dear father in heaven, I know I have done a lot of bad things, ended family and lives but if you save my boy. I will leave everything, I will even turn myself in to the police, I will hand them all the evidence to convict me for life imprisonment." Chad? What the hell? My brain tried to process the words, but they didn't make sense. Chadwick? Praying? Handing himself in? The man was a hurricane in a suit, I have never seen him pra
Chadwick POV I was hitting the freeway, doing eighty, maybe ninety. The asphalt was a blur of gray. My phone buzzed. Rojit. I didn't even look, just hit the button on the dash."Boss. Something happened."His voice was thin. Too thin. My foot hit the brake. The tires screamed, chewing up the road, and I swerved onto the gravel shoulder. The car rocked to a stop. My heart wasn't beating, it was slamming into my ribs like a trapped bird."Is he dead?" I barked out. My voice sounded wrong. My own ears didn't recognize it."No... no, Boss. But his friend is. Noah. He is gone."The world tilted. It didn't spin, it just fell out from under me. Tears didn't stream down my face, they fucking exploded. I was gasping for air, clutching the steering wheel until my knuckles turned white."I just left the hospital," Rojit continued, his voice shaking. "We have a trail on Leo, we are following it up now."I killed the call. I didn't say goodbye. I didn't say anything. I just slumped forward, slamm
Noah's POV My eyes snapped open. The ceiling was spinning, all white and blurry, then I blinked, trying to shove the fog out of my brain, but it felt like my eyes were glued with grit. My head was pounding, a rhythmic, hateful thud against my skull. Then my vision finally sharpened into focus, my mum was there, leaning over me, her face a mess of tears."Noah? Noah! You are awake," she was saying, but it sounded like she was underwater. Everything was muffled. Like the world had cotton stuffed in it.She ran out screaming for someone. A bunch of people in white coats swarmed the room. Needles, beeping, cold hands checking my pulse. I didn't care. I just lay there, quiet. My mum was crying, thanking God, but all I could think about was the car. The water. Danny."Where.... where is Danny?" I finally croaked out. My throat felt like I had swallowed sand.My mum leaned over, trying to hold that smile together, it was the fakest, most painful thing I had ever seen. She looked at me and
Danny's POV The lecture hall felt like a pressurized chamber. The hum of the air conditioning was the only thing filling the silence as Professor Chadwick stood at the front of the room. He wasn't teaching. He had a slide projected on the screen behind him, something about parasites and the way th
Danny's POV I felt like a walking open wound.I was back in that bathroom, the water scalding, turning my skin a raw, angry pink. I scrubbed and scrubbed until the soap stung, but it didn't matter. I could still feel the phantom weight of Miguel’s hands, the way he had pinned me against that door
Danny's POV The walk back to the dorms felt like a trip to the gallows. I kept pulling the sleeves of my pink hoodie over my knuckles, trying to hide the fact that I was shaking. Every shadow under the trees looked like a person reaching for me, every flicker of a streetlamp felt like a camera len
Danny's POV The lecture hall felt like a pressurized chamber. The hum of the air conditioning was the only thing filling the silence as Professor Chadwick stood at the front of the room. He wasn't teaching. He had a slide projected on the screen behind him, something about parasites and the way th







