Blue Money | Nick Robinson

Chapter Eighteen: Numb

They were too late.

I don't think I can feel my heart anymore. Nick holds my hand but I barely feel it. I might be in shock.

I sit. I don't move. I don't move when they move Dawn away. Is it the people from the ambulance? I can't see straight.I don't move when Layla is taken away. I don't know where she goes. Mental Hosptial? Jail? Home? Students come to gape at us. Someone is trying to ask me questions. Nick answers them for me. His voice wavers.

Nick makes me stand, his hands guide my shoulders into the hallway, through the crowd of shocked rich kids and befuddled teachers. I am on autopilot. Nick takes me outside. It's cold.
He wants to take me back to my room but I refuse. I bet Eileen is crying in there. I don't know where Blake went.

I can feel the blood drying on my hands. It's caking between the cracks in my palms. I keep walking, I can feel Nick following me.

I go to our spot, the pond. I don't bother taking my clothes off before I submerge myself in the icy water. It hits my waist and I lie back on the water so it can carry me. I'm facing the stars.

They're brighter, brighter than the night I laid on the grass with Nick at the park. I swear this time around I can see them shifting, moving across space, maybe about to fall so they can light up the castle of smashed royals and shattered mirrors.

Breathing sucks cold air into my lungs and I pray to the universe that my body freezes so I can belong to the earth and become a statue, dripping with icy stone.

I close my eyes.

And I become cold.