Exit Wound
Authors: Alexandra Moore
Tags: #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Thrillers & Suspense, #Suspense, #Romance, #New Adult & College, #Romantic Suspense, #Mystery & Suspense
EXIT WOUND
By Alexandra Moore
Exit Wound
Copyright © 2015 by Alexandra Moore.
All rights reserved.
First Print Edition: December 2015
Limitless Publishing, LLC
Kailua, HI 96734
Formatting: Limitless Publishing
ISBN-13: 978-1-68058-392-2
ISBN-10: 1-68058-392-1
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.
Dedication
For my two dads: The first, who gave me life and loved me the best way he could, and for the second, who chose me and has never left my side since.
I love you both.
Table of Contents
Even though I had vowed to never be like my mother, there were times I liked to taste sin on the tip of my tongue. Mackynsie made the desire for the taste even worse.
“You ready to go?” she asked. She wasn’t drunk at all—though, I was.
“Yeah, sure,” I replied. We had just raged on at yet another party. Fall Break was in full swing, and the chilly New York air caused my skin to ripple with little bumps on my arms and chest. I had spilled beer on my jacket, and I didn’t really feel like wearing a beer-soaked jacket home. The smell was only bearable for a little bit—although, once I got home, the smell would become something I’d regret.
My apartment always reeked of alcohol and sometimes drugs on a rare occasion, a very rare occasion.
“C’mon, Bea. Time to take you home.” Mackynsie didn’t sound so pleased about this, but then again, she hadn’t been properly pleased since I started going to Rosewood. I knew this was due to the fact that everything had changed in her world and in mine. Mackynsie wanted what I had. I never understood why she did, considering half the time I felt like I had the short end of a shitty stick.
Once I was buckled up and secure in her car, we drove down the long winding road from the countryside and back into the city. I didn’t really know the time; all I knew was that it was pitch black outside, which was enough to tell me that I had been out way past my respectable curfew.
Mackynsie turned on the radio, and our favorite song came on: “Heaven Knows” by The Pretty Reckless. We both did our own fangirl montage, singing at the top of our lungs. I was on top of the world, so naturally, I rolled down the window, stuck half of my body out of it, and screamed loudly as we zoomed past a bunch of trees.
“What the hell, Bea! Get yourself back in the car!” Mackynsie tugged on the waistband of my jeans, and as she pulled me in, I felt something. My heart knew before I did. The moment hit me, painfully, etching itself into my mind, and like the artwork I carved into trees, it was permanent. Further down the spiraling road was a driver who was weaving in and out of his lane. Mackynsie was too focused on yelling at me about my reckless actions to notice. I didn’t get the chance to say anything to her, because speeding headlights were growing brighter than the sun, and they were heading toward us. A big truck swiped the side of Mackynsie’s car, causing the small vehicle to slide across the road, heading toward the trees, spinning us around and around until we crashed into a tree. After the initial shock of impact, I groaned. I touched my head and the warmth of something liquid surprised me. I knew it was blood.
“M-M-Mackynsie?” I stammered once I found my voice. I heard nothing—though considering the sounds that had been made from the crash and the skidding, I thought that maybe my ears were adjusting to the silence. Only, it couldn’t be completely silent. I wasn’t alone. I couldn’t be alone.
“Mackynsie, are you all right?” I tried to move, but I found that I was too sore to move a muscle. Despite the seatbelt restraining me, I had been tossed around quite a bit.
“Mackynsie?”
I was able to find my phone, and I shined my light against the driver’s side of the car. What I saw was unforgettable, and I wanted to be able to forget. I didn’t think I could ever forget. Everything I had known was left to die in the mud and rain.
The only difference was that this time I was able to wake up and think of other things. All I could think of was drunk drivers.
I was left alone and angry. Death by car crashes are like lightning bolts within a hurricane. They have the ability to kill everything in its wake and, at the same time, leave the very thing next to it untouched—still breathing and fighting to live.
That was six months ago, and it still felt like it happened yesterday. I was cursed with dreams of my best friend and the car crash that took her life. This dream came to me nearly every night, and other nights, she’d tell me that I should be the one who’s dead. It wasn’t a dream. It happened to me. I lost my friend. Yet I sat in the dark, repeatedly telling myself, “It’s just a dream. Just a bad dream.”
This wasn’t just a memory or a dream—it was the lightning bolt. I could hear the thunder, yet I never saw it coming, and the only evidence was the exit wound it had left behind.
I pulled my knees up to my chest and wrapped my arms around myself, tucking my head into my arms, trying to recall the soothing breaths that an on-call nurse from the hospital had taught me when I came in that night. I could still remember the saline drip and smell of alcohol on every surface. There was so much blood—I never knew the human body could house so much blood.
I emerged from the crash almost entirely unscathed. I hit my head and sustained a couple of cuts and bruises. That, in conjunction with sore muscles, was meaningless when compared to what had happened to Mackynsie. She was gone before I could even get a last word from her.
We had been best friends since kindergarten, and I couldn’t help but feel a new form of emptiness as I went on with the remaining days in school as if she hadn’t existed. She was everywhere. Rosewood Academy for the Arts was
her
domain, and I was only the replacement. Rosewood had its own little secret society—The Rosewood Royals—a hierarchy of sorts. The only people who didn’t really know about it were the faculty and staff. People left the school wishing they had been the reigning queen of their time at the school. At the time of Mackynsie’s death, she had been the reigning Queen Bee. Crosley was the King, and I was the Queen Regnant. We were days away from graduation, when our ladies and men in waiting would take their places amongst the ranks, replacing us. If I was grateful for anything, it would be the fact that today would be our last day not only as students but as royals. All I wanted was to walk the stage and get the hell out of Dodge. I hadn’t told anyone—not even Mackynsie—that I had been accepted into Dartmouth’s music college. It would be a big deal because I would be the first in my family to attend college. And this wasn’t just any college—this was
Dartmouth
.
I had been waiting to tell my brother Ben, who was the one shelling out the money I needed for application fees and for all the other fees and expenses I had to pay. Since my brother was the breadwinner of the family and everything and since my FAFSA was based on my mother’s income—or lack thereof—my brother ended up footing the bill for a lot of my things, even my college fund. Ben had been traveling the world with his band since I was twelve. He and his band, Eden Sank, were pretty popular. I could never go a day without hearing one of their songs or seeing someone wearing one of their t-shirts. I was going to see him and his bandmates at my graduation, and if no one noticed him, maybe everything would be all right. I didn’t want my graduation to become a circus ring for my brother’s fans. It may be selfish, but I wanted him all to myself that day. I hadn’t even ever been able to attend one of his concerts. Everyone else had at least done that.
If I remembered my brother as he was pre-band fame, he wouldn’t be one to put out a message across his social media saying:
I’m at Rosewood’s grad ceremony!
Row A-3!
Then again, I hadn’t seen him in six years, during which I’d grown and changed in ways he couldn’t possibly imagine. I could only imagine how much he had changed in his own way.
***
The next morning came all too quickly, and I had a lot to do. My last day at school consisted of paperwork and throwing out old papers from my locker. While most of the students at Rosewood were still in classes for another week, all of us seniors were on cleanup duty. That included me. I was stuck in these dusty halls until every debt was paid and my locker was cleaned out.
“Bea, you headed out to that party tonight?” Crosley asked as he walked across the hall, staring at me devilishly while I tried to decide whether to keep or trash the paper in my hand. I decided to trash it along with old sheets of music and assignments. When Crosley came up to me, I smiled kindly at him. It was what was expected of me.
“Well, Bea? Are you going?” he asked, leaning in close to me. I could smell his breath, and it was horrible.
“Depends, which party?”
He laughed at this and shot me a wink, stalking off with one of his friends. There were so many parties that I wasn’t sure how I was going to be able to make an appearance to all of them and be home in time to get enough sleep. The graduation ceremony was tomorrow, and I needed my rest. It took a lot to make me look as hot as I did on any given day. Though I technically wasn’t required to attend any of the parties since I wasn’t officially Queen of Rosewood, most people expected me to be there anyways. I think they wanted to see if I was as much a party animal without Mackynsie as I was with her.
Rummaging through the last of my locker contents, I found a picture of Mackynsie and me together. We were in eighth grade, and we had gotten back from a carnival on Coney Island. She still had her braces, and they were bright with neon green and pink bands. My hair was frizzier then, and I didn’t try to hide the sectoral heterochromia that was in my left eye. It made me remember that I even had it. I wore contacts so often I’d forgotten what my real eyes looked like. Right now, I was wearing violet-colored contacts, and it hid my normal viridian green eyes and the little section of brown that curved underneath my left iris. Ben always loved how unique my eyes were, and I always used to think it was great. However, as I got older, I started to hate it, along with many other parts of me.
“Splint-ass alert!”
Someone was shouting this repeatedly through a megaphone, and when I looked behind me, I saw Splinter Nightingale. He was a very talented drummer, yet a very unfortunate person amongst the Rosewood Royal Hierarchy, always at the butt end of jokes and teasing. I always tried to convince the boys that teasing him wasn’t worth it, but to be honest, calling yourself “Splinter” kind of made it easier to become a target for harassment. Today was our last day, though, and that meant he should be given a break. Plus, I was pretty tired of hearing “Splint-Ass” multiple times a day all week long.
“Frank, leave him alone!” I shouted, slamming my locker door shut. I was above Frank and technically always had been, and as Queen Regnant until midnight tomorrow, I needed to pull rank quickly.
“He’s only a commoner, Your Highness,” he said.
I rolled my eyes and waved toward Splinter, telling him he could go if he so pleased. He did, and I stopped Frank from following after him.
I held out my hand. “Give me your megaphone.” When he handed it over, I stepped up to him, stood near his ear, and spoke into the megaphone loudly.
“We’re not in high school anymore. Start acting like it, dickface.” I dropped the megaphone into his hand, and he left with his ears ringing.
***
When I got home, I could smell the alcohol reeking from the corners of the apartment.
Mother was home today, and chances were she didn’t know who I was. She rarely did. She always called me Brenna. I didn’t understand it—it was a part of her sickness. What sickness she had, I couldn’t be sure—although, I was certain she was getting worse every day.
I set my backpack on the floor in the entryway and started picking up the trash that was strewn across the living room. It was always a mess in this apartment, no matter how many times I cleaned it. I was picking up what looked like fliers, and I noticed that it was in a trail. Sucking in a deep breath, I rounded the corner, and that’s when I screamed at the sight of my brother jumping out at me.
“I’m home!” he shouted. I didn’t have time to process what was happening, because soon enough the punch that was meant for the nose of an intruder connected with his nose.
“Damn,” he laughed. “You throw a good punch.”
***
Even though I’d said I was going to the party, I decided spending time with my brother would be time better spent. Since we had been apart so long, I wanted to get to know him as he was today. We fell asleep around 2AM with Thai food boxes scattered across the living room.
When my phone rang at 6AM, I tried to answer it quietly.
“‘Ello?” I whispered in a tired drawl.
“Bea, it’s time.” I looked at the clocks and saw it was indeed time for the event I had been dreading: The Rosewood Royal Coronation.
“I need to get ready.”
“We’re outside. Just grab a jacket.”
I hung up the phone, grabbed my jacket, and pulled the blanket further over my brother’s sleeping body. I left a note telling him I was out running errands, just in case he woke up before I got back. Pulling one boot on each foot as I hobbled outside, I leaped into a large van that held Crosley, the former men and women in waiting, along with all the new initiates. From here, we would go to a top-secret (or so we liked to believe) location that was pretty popular among Rosewood students. From there, we would crown the new King and Queen, and then I would finally be free.