Chapter 3

The panic in the dining room escalated quickly. Eleanor was no longer just worried, she was frantic.

"Something is wrong, Mark! I feel it. He wouldn't just ignore us like this. What if he crashed his car? What if he's hurt somewhere?" Her voice was rising with each word, bordering on hysteria.

My own parents, who had come over with me, tried to help.

"Eleanor, let's not jump to the worst conclusion," my dad said in his calm, steady voice. "He's a young man. Maybe his phone died. Maybe he just got caught up and lost track of time."

"He hung up on me!" she cried, her body shaking. "His phone didn't die, he rejected my call!"

Mark grabbed his keys from the bowl by the door. "I'm going to his apartment. Just to check. Maybe he fell asleep or something."

"I'm coming with you," Eleanor said, grabbing her purse.

"We'll come too," my mom offered. "You shouldn't be alone right now."

I didn't want to go. I wanted to scream the truth, to show them the video on my phone and tell them that Liam wasn't hurt, he was just a monster. But looking at Eleanor's terrified face, the words died in my throat. How could I do that to her? How could I tell a mother her son was not in a ditch, but in a hotel room with another woman, laughing at her pain?

So I found myself in the back seat of my parents' car, following Mark and Eleanor down the dark, rain-slicked streets. The drive was tense and silent, the only sound the rhythmic thump of the windshield wipers. My heart ached for them, for their genuine, pure love for a son who deserved none of it.

Mark pulled into Liam's apartment complex a few minutes ahead of us. As my dad parked our car, we saw Mark and Eleanor hurrying back to their own vehicle, their faces etched with even more fear than before.

"He's not there," Eleanor said, her voice breaking as my mom rolled down the window. "His car is gone. He's not there."

"We'll drive his usual routes," Mark said, his voice strained but determined. "Maybe he pulled over somewhere."

It was a desperate, grasping-at-straws plan, but they needed to do something. We followed them back onto the main road. My dad was driving slowly, keeping a safe distance. I stared out the window at the blurry city lights, feeling trapped in a nightmare of someone else's making.

It happened in a split second. A flash of headlights from a side street, a pickup truck running a red light. I heard my dad yell. Then came the deafening screech of tires on wet pavement. Mark, driving ahead of us, swerved hard to avoid the truck. His car fishtailed wildly, the back end swinging out and slamming into a telephone pole.

The sound was sickening, a violent crunch of metal and glass that echoed in the sudden, dead silence. My mom screamed. My dad slammed on the brakes, our car stopping just yards from the wreckage.

For a moment, everything was frozen. Then chaos erupted. The world tilted sideways. I was unbuckling my seatbelt before I even realized what I was doing, shoving the car door open. The rain was cold on my face. All I could see was the crumpled rear of Mark and Eleanor's car, steam hissing from under the hood.

My own breath was loud in my ears. I felt a strange, terrifying calm settle over me as I started to run towards them, the world narrowing to that single, horrifying point of impact. My legs felt heavy, as if I were moving through water. The back of their car was completely destroyed. I couldn' t see inside. I didn't know if they were alive or dead. And all I could think was, this is your fault, Liam.