irrevocable

{Twenty-Eight}

Bury A Friend // Billie Eilish

Jackson

Holly wasn't answering her phone. I called her the second I finished telling Brax about the the fucking Apple tag in my truck. I called her again when I stormed back upstairs and into my apartment. Nothing.

I walked in to find my mom was indeed spread out on my couch with a glass of something. Didn't look like water but I didn't ask. She rolled her eyes when I shoved the little device in her face, screaming what the fuck was going on.

"You know Jay."

That was her answer. But no, I don't know Jay. Because she's made sure I was scarce whenever he came around, kept me from finding out what she was really involved in. Together they created some kind of alternate persona for him so I wouldn't put two and two together. And I don't know Judge, the side of his persona that treated my girl like garbage her entire life, either. Not really.

I do know Holly. I know what that fucker has put her through. I see the scars. Not on her flesh. He was calculated enough to avoid marking her skin. I see every scar he's left on her soul. She's overcoming them, my badass girl. But that doesn't make what he's done okay. It's the exact opposite and I'm damn sure going to make the asshole pay.

I call Holly again. Still nothing. She often puts her phone on silent when she's working but I know she clocked in not that long ago. I figured she wouldn't have shut it off yet. Realizing this method isn't going to work, I decide to haul my ass over to her job to talk to her in person.

Right after I kick my mom out of my house.

Holly

I sit in the backseat of the car watching my dad as he paces in front of the water tower. He's frantic. Unhinged in a way I've never witnessed. Dad was always a land mine—ready to blow from the least little hair trigger. But this is different. More. Scary in a way I haven't been scared in the past. I keep my breathing steady, reminding myself that panic won't help. I need to stay calm if I'm going to figure a way out of this.

I don't even know what "this" is.

I know he sat behind me while I drove, eerily quiet. Holding a gun. Caressing it would be a better term now that I think about it. He'd ordered me to drive up this hill to the town's water tower using the back route, which meant through the neighborhood that gave Fallbrook Hills its name. The rich part of town where no one from his club were welcomed. I went to school with a few kids from this part of town, but they kept their own circle of friends so it's not a place I ventured. Most of the Richies, as we referred to them, went to Jefferson High on the other side of town from my high school, Miller.

None of the kids who lived in the hills would lower themselves to hang out in my part of town, the industrial slums with low income housing and drug dens. At least that's the impression we give off. Looking at my dad, probably strung out on something based on his crazy energy, I can see why that rumor is considered fact. Hell, there probably are more drug houses than I realize. I have a feeling there's a lot I've missed by keeping my head down and pushing through life. The least of which is the crime right in my own back yard.

Literally.

He'd instructed me to pull off to the side of this dirt plateau on the hillside about fifty feet from the tower. As soon as I stopped the car, he reached over the backseat and yanked the keys out of the ignition before I could. He ordered me into the backseat and watched with narrowed gaze as I climbed over the seats. Now he's twirling the keys on his finger as he paces the dirt in front of the car. The amazing view of the town below is astrange backdrop for what's happening in front of me. Which I'm still trying to figure out.