12

Missy’s Point of View

“Girl, what are you doing?”

I flinched at Sienna's voice.

I was standing by the window again, arms wrapped tightly around myself, staring at nothing  but still feeling everything.

My eyes hadn’t moved from the street below since morning.

Not because something was happening.

But because I felt like something would.

“I… don’t know,” I mumbled, fingers gripping the curtain.

She walked into the room, barefoot, her perfume trailing behind her.

She leaned on the wall next to me, crossing her arms with that knowing look she always wore like armor.

“Waiting for someone?”

I didn’t answer.

The truth was  yes.

I was waiting.

For him.

Mark.

The brother I thought was dead.

The brother I mourned like half my soul had been torn out.

He was alive. I’d seen him. At the race. That stupid race.

I let out a nervous laugh. “I think… he’s going to come here.”

“Who?”

“My brother.”

Her eyes widened slightly. “The dead one?”

I nodded slowly.

She didn’t say anything for a while. Just let the silence sit.

And then softly, “Do you want him to?”

That part was harder.

Yes.

And no.

Because if Mark came, it meant everything I believed was a lie.

And it meant danger.

I remembered the gunshots.

The blood.

His screams telling me to run, to hide, to live.

I remembered promising him I would.

But now? My legs were weak. My heart was weaker.

“I don’t know,” I whispered, voice cracking.

She stepped forward and held my hand. “You don’t have to make any decisions right now.”

“I feel like he’s going to take me,” I admitted, chest tight.

“Do you want to go?”

“I should. He’s my brother.”

“But?”

“I’m scared.”

Sienna pulled me into a hug. “You don’t have to be scared anymore. You have me. And Nico. And the guys… well, most of them.”

I let out a soft laugh through my tears.

“Even Alexander?”

She pulled back and smirked. “Especially Alexander.”

My cheeks flushed. “He’s… confusing.”

“He’s a loaded gun who only points at you,” she teased.

I giggled, wiping under my eyes. “That’s not comforting.”

She raised a brow. “You like him?”

“I don’t know.”

“I think he does.”

That silenced me.

I stared back out the window. No cars. No movement. Just wind rustling the trees.

“But if he comes back… if Mark comes back…”

“We’ll deal with it,” she said firmly. “You’re not alone anymore, Missy.”

And for the first time in a long time, I started to believe it.

“Can you tell me about Alexander, though?” I asked gently, still leaning against the window frame.

My roommate gave me a look. The kind that said, Really? Of all people, him?

She scrunched up her nose. “He’s confusing. And a weirdo.”

I giggled, shoulders shaking. “No, I mean like… what’s his favorite color? What does he like to eat? That kind of stuff.”

She tilted her head, a teasing smirk playing on her lips. “You want to make him lunch or something?”

I blinked. “What? No! I just—”

She raised a brow.

“Okay maybe a little,” I mumbled.

She chuckled and walked over to her side of the room, grabbing her phone from the desk. “Don’t you have his number?”

I looked at her like she just said I should perform brain surgery. “Why would I have his number?”

“I don’t know. Why wouldn't you have his number?” she replied, unlocking her phone.

“I don’t think he even wants to talk to me. He just… stares.”

She let out an exaggerated sigh and tapped on her screen a few times, then held her phone out to me. “Fine. Take it.”

I stared down at the screen. His name, plain as day. Alexander.

I blinked. “Why the emoji?”

She just shrugged and muttered, “Seems fitting.”

I hesitated before copying the number into my phone.

My fingers trembled as I did it, like I was doing something illegal.

Like he’d somehow feel me typing his name and burst through the door demanding why.

“Text him,” she said over her shoulder as she walked toward the bathroom.

“What? No!” I whisper-shouted, holding my phone like it was a bomb.

She didn’t answer just shut the bathroom door behind her, leaving me alone with a number I wasn’t supposed to have… and maybe feelings I wasn’t supposed to feel.

I looked at the screen.

Alexander.

Just his name.

No emojis.

No heart.

No knife.

Just him.

I bit my lip, then locked my phone and threw it onto the bed like it burned.

Hell no.

But even as I flopped onto the bed beside it, I kept glancing at it.

At the way his name sat there.

Waiting.