Witness

30. Chelsea

I can still hear the sirens as we drive away from my street. 

It was a terrible, terrible idea, calling the police, but I couldn't just leave him there outside of my house. What if he'd have broken in again? What if he threw up on Mrs Dain's petunias? I'd never hear the end of that. Christ, it's bad enough dealing with him at the Mierro house. 

"How fucked do you think we are?" I ask, every last nerve bleeding into the words. 

Kade grimaces. 

"Yep," I lean back into my seat. "Yeah, uh huh, that face said it all. He's going to tell Damien the second he gets his phone call." 

"Just let me think," Kaiden murmurs. 

I let him think for all of two seconds, but those two seconds feel like five minutes and my foot is already bouncing with impatience. 

"But-"

"Chelsea," he warns. 

"But..." 

He shoots me a look. 

Fine.

But Damien is going to find out about us. Tony's going to get his jail phone call within the next few hours, and we can both bet on him calling the older brother who's rescued him every time before. The first words out of Tony's mouth are going to be our names. 

Then we're fucked. 

So, so fucked. 

No cops? 

Every word I've spoken to Damien in the past few weeks has been a lie. Every time I've reassured him of course, no cops, I've been lying. Because I know that Kaiden is updating them periodically and I've been telling him everything anyway. 

Now what will he do? 

I'm thinking of that tally of six on the back of his hand, on the fading teardrop inked underneath him eye. 

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. 

"Are you still thinking?" I ask.

Kaiden rolls his eyes.

Finally we pull onto his driveway and then into the garage. Being more patient than I thought I ever could be, I silently follow him into the house. 

"He's going to fucking kill us," I say quietly, and then the sudden onslaught of panic hits me. "Oh my God, he's actually going to kill us over this. We're going to die, Kaiden. I've not even... I'm barely even an adult. I don't think my mother will be able to take it, to be honest. Fucking hell, she's going to have another mental breakdown, isn't she? And Damien will just be-"

"Please," he cuts me off, and then stares at me as I lock my lips together. "Stop talking." 

"You're being too quiet," I bite. 

"One of us should be."

"You're - ugh!" 

He looks up at the ceiling, jaw stretching out, neck so open and-

And Damien's still going to kill us. 

He could be getting the phone call from Tony right now. 

He could already have Kaiden's name on his lips. 

"I could call the station, ask them not to give him his phone call." 

"Isn't that illegal?" I ask. Kaiden's face slowly turns to my own, deadpan. "Right, obviously it's illegal. Would they actually stop him from having it?" His face tells me that they probably wouldn't. "That's not even to mention that he could've already had his phone call by now."