Unlucky Like Us (Like Us, #12)

by Krista Ritchie

I glance at the wall, the memories foggy. Not where I question their existence or anything. I know what they are. I just choose not to go into that haze. What for? These days, the answer is so vibrant, so clear: For everything. For her.

“What do you think I’d be like?” His face contorts. “That I’d be excited you were in a violent household? That I’d be glad for you.” He starts clapping. I tilt my head and watch, smiling. “Appreciate the applause. You can send me a fruit basket next.” “I’ll do that,” he says dryly. “Right to 2149 You’re Not Funny Lane.” “Sending the basket to yourself?” I nearly laugh. His eyes are knives. “Oh that’s right. Your address is 460 You’re Never Dating My Daughter Avenue.” Straight to my soul. Still, I lower back to my seat. “Been trying to move off that street.”

“The more you’re getting to know me, I know I’m not someone you’d want for her.” I’ve always known that. I’m not parents’ first choices. Detailing my rocky childhood was never going to help my case, even if he could empathize. “No, you’re not,” he agrees. “What you came from is…” His nose flares. “It’s not anything I’d ever want her to experience.” “She won’t,” I assure with everything inside me. We want the exact same things for Luna. He nods tensely, his gaze tightening. “I’m sorry you had to go through that.” “So sorry you keep sending the fruit basket to the wrong place.”

“LUNA!” Lily wails. “DON’T HURT HER, PLEASE! PLEASE!” I’m being stabbed repeatedly, and if a knife is plunging into me, then a bulldozer is running over Lo’s whole being. He’s sheet-white, and when we reach a red light, he opens the car door. And vomits onto the cement.

A ball is lodged in my throat, my muscles just strict bands of anguish and determination and sheer utter pain. It’s taking every…fucking…thing inside me not to break down. I’m clinging to my nerve with my fingernails, and I so badly just want to let go and scream for her. But I can’t…I can’t. I’m security first. Her friend second. Her boyfriend not at all.

Until Xander’s dad says, “I swear to Christ if they rape her, I’m going to burn every one of them alive until nothing’s left.”

“I can’t lose you,” Lo sobs. “You’re okay. Come on, love. You’re okay. Wake up. Please, wake up. Lily…Lily.” Bodyguards speak around me. “Someone get Ryke on the phone.” “He’s already on his way.” I can’t watch Lo being split into a million pieces. Can’t listen to his gutted voice. It’s unbearable, and no one pulls him away from her. I wouldn’t even try. It’d be like separating two halves of one soul.

Luna. Lo is being torn apart, and I don’t think he’s fully here anymore and realized his daughter is missing. I whirl around again, looking left and right. She’s not lost among the stars. She didn’t rocket off to another planet like I know she wanted to after her fics leaked. She’s not invisible. ‘Cause she wasn’t supposed to disappear without me.

Frog teeters backwards away from Lo and Lily, and she turns and sees me in the dark. As she takes a few steps over to me, pain constricts her face. “Donnelly…” Her voice cracks, and I know she’s searching for solace in a friend. I know she thinks that friend is me. And it sounds easy—to just hug Frog. But my eyes sear as emotions barrel into me at caustic speed. I just want to be holding Luna, and I can’t be anything for anyone else right now. I don’t know how to be. “I’m sorry,” I say quietly to Frog and walk away, both hands on my head.

“He doesn’t know anything.” That’s not Akara. Oscar Highland-Oliveira has pushed into the cluster of bodyguards. Severity edges his assertive posture. “You can’t be sure of that,” Price shoots back. “I legitimately can,” Oscar retorts, rain droplets slipping down his golden-brown skin and stubbled jaw. Curly pieces of his brown hair are wet against his forehead, and he’s squinting through the storm. “Because if Donnelly knew where Luna was, he wouldn’t be standing here listening to you. He’d already be gone.”

“Donnelly?” he calls out as wind whips through this dead-end. I approach, just as he says, “Luna—” “I’m gonna get her. I promise you.” Lo has no clue I’ve broken every promise I’ve ever made to him, but this one, I can’t break. Because this is the promise that will break me if I do. A shred of hope is in his amber eyes—hope that I’ve ignited, hope I can’t let extinguish—and the paramedics close the doors on him. The last thing of Loren Hale I see is his hope in me.

Someone sidles next to me. I already know who. His calm, readied demeanor resets mine, a trauma bag slung on his shoulder. There is no wait. No yesterday. No tomorrow if she’s not here. There is only now. Farrow watches the ambulance disappear. “We’ll be with you.” We. Oscar comes up to my other side, dangling the keys. “I’m driving.”

We haven’t been talking about the attack on Lily. Drowning in the dark parts of a night isn’t something any of us like doing. It’s a reason I’ve always loved hanging around Farrow and Oscar, and I’m guessing it’s why they like my company too. But right now, they’re taking me towards a certain darkness. It’s in the landscape. Looming over us. At some point, they’re gonna have to leave me. Together, it’s easier to stay calm in the light.

Good times. Those still exist. I haven’t lost ‘em yet. What do they matter if I’ve lost her?

I’m gonna find her. I’m convinced I will. Because I won’t stop until I do. The power of this certainty holds me upright, ready for whatever needs to happen. Confidence is a weapon I’ve had to wield most of my life, but usually that went hand-in-hand with self-preservation. Now, not so much. What I’m doing is self-destructive. Damning. Pretty sure I’m either gonna walk away with her, or I’m not walking away at all.

“Hey, Thatcher and Akara aren’t telling me a goddamn thing. My dad isn’t picking up his phone. My uncles are being cagey, so what the fuck is going on, Farrow?” “Does he always come in this hot?” Oscar asks Farrow, and I imagine Farrow is either rolling his eyes or glaring at him.

Farrow lowers the brim of his baseball cap. “Promise me something and I’ll tell you.” “Anything.” “Don’t follow me.” “What?” Maximoff says. “Where are the three of you going? Why aren’t you with my mom?” “Promise me, wolf scout.” “…it’s my sister?” “Promise me.” Another long pause, only with this one, I can see Maximoff wrestling with the tough choices in front of him. He’s felt a responsibility to protect his sister, but he’s gonna need to hand that off to someone else. To me. I want to tell him to trust me. I want to tell him that I’ll die a hundred times over trying to save her. I want to tell him that there is no stop in me. There never really has been. I’ll do more for her than he ever could. He’s got a husband. He’s got a son. He’s got another baby on the way. She’s all I have. She’s all I want.

“Despite whatever I’ve done, whatever you think of me, I didn’t set out to be a dad who abandons his son. Maybe given the choice now, it’s not something I wanna do.”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea if they know how much you like this girl—” “I don’t—” “Now you don’t bullshit me,” he interjects, his breath smoking the cold air. “I saw it when you said her name. I’m betting her dad hates you because you fell in love with her—and you’re attached to scum of the fuckin’ earth.” He motions to himself, then out towards the row houses. “And they can’t know how much you love that girl. You can be concerned about her, but remember we’re here to protect them. Otherwise, they won’t give us what we want.” “I just want her,” I admit. He eyes me for another extended beat. “We’ll get her.”

I thought Loren Hale would be the one at my side, and in the end, all of my trust is in a dad who hardly knows me and who I hardly know too. Truth be told, I’d take Xander’s dad over mine—any day, any night. But this is the only dad I’ve got at the moment.

And then I hear a thud above us. My eyes shoot to the ceiling. “Is she up there?” I ask, and when no one answers, I can’t help myself—I can’t stay stationary—I run. I bolt out of the kitchen and back towards the staircase. “Paul!” they yell and chase after my breakneck speed. I’ve run away from that name most of my life, and I don’t turn back. I never turn back.

“I’m not leaving you. I’m not leaving you.” She blinks a few times, woozy, but she’s trying to root herself to my assured gaze. Her eyes start falling to the blue kyber necklace. While I’m bending to her, the crystal hangs between us like the force between me and her, and a swell of emotion pools underneath me, through me, through Luna. Love and light are the powers that’ve guided me. Been racing towards them my whole life. I just never realized all this time I’ve been racing towards her.

She wraps her weakened arms around me. “Where…where are we going?” she asks. “To your planet, space babe.” I scoop Luna into my arms, cradling her carefully against my chest, and she closes her eyes, seemingly breathing in my words like morphine. I whisper, “You’re safe now. We’re gonna fly there together.”

“‘Cause you’re not like the rest of us, Donnelly.” It takes me aback, hearing him call me that. His blue eyes finally meet mine. “You never really were. And according to your mom, that’s always been a good thing.” “And according to you?” I wonder. “I’ve never wanted you to follow us to prison, if that’s what you’re asking, but I do wish you stuck around.” He lifts his shoulders in a tight shrug. “You’re my kid. I do love you, you know.” Nah, I don’t know. The love he had for me was buried underneath his love for drugs, and I didn’t spend time trying to dig it out. Now, it feels different. It’s like he’s been unearthing that love himself, without asking me to do any heavy-lifting, and it’s making this hard—sitting handcuffed in jail beside him, knowing he’s taking the fall for me.

Sterile lights beam down on me in hot waves, and I imagine this is it. I’m on a spaceship. Taken away by an intergalactic species to be experimented on or be crowned queen.

Maybe I’m dreaming. One of those half-awake kind of dreams that’s sleepy and fogged. They’re not my favorite. I like the vivid tapestries of my imagination to overtake my subconscious. Not this cloudy, murky distorted confusion.

Um…oh I know! I have it!! I inch up the bed. Barely budging, but in my excitement, I gain some super strength. “We had family dinner last night,” I say into a confident nod, the words surging out of me. “Mom cooked meatloaf, and Moffy told everyone that Declan is retiring. He’s getting a new bodyguard soon, and he’s completely freaked out about it because Declan has been with him forever.”

🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

Farrow isn’t looking at me. He’s busy typing. I think I aced this. I blow out a breath. It’s okay. I’m going to be okay.

“What’s the month?” he asks. “July.” I imagine opening the drapes and seeing the sunshine and blue skies of summer. “The year?” I do mental math and give Farrow the correct year. The best part of this year will be my eighteenth birthday, which can’t come soon enough.

I take a breath, my gaze falling to the red sparrows along his collarbones. His tattoos are so, so beautiful. Wait…is that…? My brother’s name! My eyes widen. I’m about to inquire more about it when I notice a wedding band. It has to be one. It’s on his ring finger! What. The. Fuck? Does that mean…? The ring. The new tattoo…? Is he married to my brother??? When did this happen?! How could this happen?!

“I married your brother.” He pauses. “But he’d tell you that he married me.” Happiness is submerged beneath a swell of despair. “I wasn’t there.” I missed it. “No, you were there,” Farrow says, getting choked up. He clears his throat, looks to the left, then back at me. “You were in my grooms’ party. You were in the procession walking ahead of me.” I’m crying. “I don’t remember.”

“And-and,” I stammer, “you’re acting like my doctor, but you’re just a bodyguard. Your dad is my doctor.” He shakes his head. “I’m your doctor, and I’m also Maximoff’s bodyguard.” My jaw hits the floor. “You replaced Declan? Moffy would’ve hated that…” I trail off, not just because Farrow is starting to smile but because I remember my brother married him in the end.

“Memories, don’t fail me,” I whisper to myself. I try so very hard to remember what happened to me. Another flash. Another picture frame. Another glimpse. Anything. But it’s like grabbing air in a darkened room. There’s nothing to hold on to. Nothing to touch. Nothing to see. It’s all just… Gone.

I shut my eyes, pushing back horrific images of Lily on the news. She’d been in so much pain that doctors put her in a medically-induced coma.

my poor sweet angel baby Lily 😭😭😭

“I’m cleaning up a mess I made. Does that seem very heroic to you?” “Their mess isn’t yours.” He points down the hall. “Your family is here. You’ve never been a dumb motherfucker, so I know you get this. Your family is here.”

“Stay,” Lo says, his voice sandpapered but sharp. He wants me to stay? By the time it processes, he’s walking over to me. Everyone is watching, but I can’t tear my gaze off Xander’s dad. What’d I think he’d be? Angry, judgmental, pissed off that I’m the malevolent thing attached to his family, ready to kick my ass to Montana, wishing he’d already done it weeks ago? But he’s none of those things. His reddened eyes are windows into my heartbroken soul, and I blink back the surge of emotion.

“I tried…” I hear my voice shake. Lo puts a hand on my shoulder. And he pulls me into a hug. It almost breaks me. Then he whispers, “I know.” I start to shake my head. “You did enough,” he breathes. My hand flies to my pained face. Been thinking I could never do enough in his eyes, so I can hardly believe it.

I don’t want to survive without her. I’ve never felt this crushing feeling in my life. It’s worse than drowning. Worse than being lit on fire. Worse than Luna’s biggest fear—floating endlessly in space. I’d rather do all of those things than feel this.

“You didn’t put her there. You got her out.” He sounds as choked as I feel. “And I know…” He trails off, his throat thick with emotion. His brows are cinched. He runs his tongue over his molars, collecting himself. “I know what that took.” He’s trying to be grateful, but it’s buried beneath a lot of anguish. “They’ll make it out. Luna. Lily. They look small, but they’re tough.” The shred of hope I’d given him earlier tonight, he’s returning to me. Can’t lie about how much I need it. I’m carrying this hope like a lit match. One wrong breath and it’ll extinguish.

“I was supposed to be in that car, Donnelly. My mom—she asked me to go to the fucking Putt Palace, and I said no.” His voice cracks. “I said no, and I should’ve been there. Then you might’ve been in the car with us. Everything would’ve been different. Better.” “We don’t know that,” I breathe. “Yes, I do,” Xander professes quietly to me. “It’s like my choices in life have these catastrophic repercussions. I made a shitty selfish choice that hurt my sister, my mom, and now they’re both in the ICU. For what? Because I was scared to confront you?”

“I’ve made a bunch of shitty selfish choices in my twenty-nine years, and I can’t say that I regret a single one.” Xander frowns. “How?” “‘Cause it’s okay to put yourself first and chase after the things you want or run away from the things you don’t. Life’s too short to try to be perfect for everyone else.”

“I used to want the Moretti brothers to marry into my family, you know? I thought it’d be cool to always have them around.” I frown. “They did end up doing that.” “Yeah, and it’s not the same as how I thought it’d be…so when you came along, I liked knowing I have all of your attention.” His shaggy hair touches his wet eyelashes. “And I thought you’d stick around forever. Not for her, but for me. And now—now, I’d give anything for my sister to be okay. I’d change places with her in a heartbeat. I’d rather be dead.” It stabs me. “She wouldn’t want that,” I tell him quietly.

His chest caves. He stares at my bloodied fists again. “I’m selfish enough to hate when I am selfish, but not selfish enough to thrive on my own. I’m doomed; Luna’s not. Her future is better.” She might not have one. It all hurts. I say, “I wanna see yours too.” His tears surface as he looks back at me, but I just tell him the truth, “I hope I can be there, whatever happens. I wanna be there.”

“You’re not going anywhere?” he asks. I’m still gripping on to the lit match of hope. It’s burning near my fingers. She’s alive. She’ll wake up. But in a future where she doesn’t—could I even stomach being around her family without h...

Before I can decide where to go, an older woman enters, toting an expensive handbag and clutching pearls at her neck. No one looks thrilled to see Grandmother Calloway, who’s more accurately referred to as the Crow. Mostly by me.

“Mother,” Rose snaps, marching forward. “We told you to wait at home—” “No, Lily called me.”

not on purpose 😩💀

“She called me twice! Right before—right before the accident.” The Crow is spouting crocodile tears, if I do say so. “And I need to see her. She called me.” “This isn’t about you,” Rose sneers.

“Mom.” Daisy tries to corral her out the door. “Visitors’ hours aren’t for another four hours. You don’t want to be here for that long. We’ll call you—” “Will you?” she snaps. “No, we fucking won’t,” Ryke declares.

stamp 💀

Lo comes forward. “Unless your name is Garrison Abbey and you’re bringing breakfast bagels in ten minutes, you’re not allowed in here. I don’t care if you have goddamn proof that Lily called you. I know Lil better than anyone. She won’t want you here, and over my dead body will you be the first face she fucking sees when she wakes up, you understand?”

“I need to speak to two people. Lo and Donnelly.” Me? The Core Six as they’re called in WAC forums—really, the Core Five without Lily—all shift and look back at me. Never in my wildest imagination would I picture this movie moment, and I wanna send the script back to Luna. Ask her for a rewrite. Replace the setting to a tropical beach and turn their frowns upside-down, thank you very much.