Chapter 7

Serena’s POV

The bed was empty.

The monitors had gone quiet, stripped of their steady rhythm like something essential had been erased from the room itself. A nurse stood by the window with her back to me, motionless. When she finally turned, her face told me everything before she even spoke.

“I’m so sorry, Miss Reed,” she said softly.

My body went cold.

“No,” I whispered. It wasn’t a word so much as breath leaving my lungs. “No… no, no—”

The nurse stepped closer, careful, like I might break apart if she moved too fast.

“Your father passed away early this morning,” she said. “A sudden brain hemorrhage.”

The room tilted slightly. I reached for the doorframe without thinking, my fingers locking around it just to stay upright.

“Wh-when?” I forced out.

She hesitated. “Around six a.m. He was… looking at his phone when it happened.”

Something inside me cracked—not loudly, not all at once, but in slow, splitting fractures.

My knees nearly gave out.

Looking at his phone.

There were no clear thoughts after that, only flashes. Headlines. Images. My name attached to things I couldn’t undo. His hands. His heart. A moment I would never see but suddenly couldn’t stop imagining.

It was because of me… wasn’t it?

The thought didn’t feel like truth. It felt like drowning.

My breath broke.

I sank to the floor before I realized I was falling, palms hitting cold linoleum. A sound came out of me—raw, unrecognizable—like something human trying and failing to stay intact.

The nurse said something. Her hand touched my shoulder.

I couldn’t hear her.

There was only the noise in my head.

My hands were shaking so violently I could barely unlock my phone, but somehow I managed to pull up Jax's number. The call connected after two rings, and his voice came through smooth and unbothered, as if he hadn't just destroyed my entire world.

"Serena," he drawled, and I could hear the smirk in his tone. "Finally decided to call me back? I was starting to think you didn't appreciate my gift."

"You killed him." My voice was a rasp, barely audible even to myself. "You killed my father."

"Oh, did I?" He laughed, the sound light and careless. "That's a bit dramatic, don't you think? I just shared some photos. Not my fault the old man couldn't handle a little scandal."

Rage flooded through me, hot and blinding, burning away the grief until all that remained was a single, crystalline purpose. "Where are you?"

"Funny you should ask." I could practically hear him grinning. "Anna and I are at the cliffs—you know, that spot on PCH where the view's supposed to be so romantic. We figured you'd want to come say goodbye properly. Or maybe thank us for finally setting you free from all that pressure to be perfect."

The line went dead.

I was on my feet before I consciously decided to move, stumbling out of the hospital and back to my car. My vision swam with black spots, remnants of whatever Jax had made me drink something that was still clouding my system, but I forced myself to focus. The engine roared to life and I peeled out of the parking lot, tires squealing against asphalt as I merged onto PCH with reckless speed.

My phone vibrated.

Once.

Twice.

Then again.

I didn’t even look at it at first. I just knew the world outside this car was still moving, still talking, still judging.

When I finally unlocked it, I didn’t have to read every message to understand.

Calls. Names I didn’t recognize. Voices that wanted answers, or something like punishment.

I hung up on the first reporter who got through.

“I can’t comment,” I said, but it came out hollow, like it belonged to someone else.

Another call came immediately.

A man’s voice. Angry. Familiar in its ugliness.

“You people are unbelievable,” he snapped. “I paid for—”

I ended it.

My hands were shaking now, not from grief alone, but from the sheer pressure of everything trying to reach me at once. The world had turned into noise.

Then Louis’s name appeared.

For a second, I just stared at it.

Something in me hesitated—not hope exactly, but recognition. Something real in a place that had gone unreal.

I answered.

“Serena?” His voice was tight. Immediate. “Where are you? I’ve been trying to—”

“I thought you were one of them,” I said flatly. My eyes stayed on the road ahead, even though I wasn’t fully present in it. “Everyone sounds the same now.”

A pause.

“I’m handling it,” he said quickly. “My team is working on pulling everything down. Legal action, suppression—just stay where you are, okay?”

A strange laugh slipped out of me.

“I can’t stay anywhere.”

“Serena—”

“My father’s dead.”

Silence.

Not the kind that ends conversations. The kind that swallows them.

When he spoke again, his voice had changed.

“I’m so sorry. When did it happen?”

“This morning,” I said. My voice didn’t sound like mine anymore. “He was looking at his phone.”

Another pause. He understood enough not to interrupt.

But I couldn’t stop the thought from forming anyway.

He saw it.

Whatever it was. Whatever they made him see.

And something in him gave out.

Not because I chose it. Not because I wanted it.

But because I exist in the middle of it.

“Serena,” Louis said carefully, “this is not your fault. You’re not thinking clearly right now. Jax did this. Not you.”

At the sound of his name, something inside me sharpened.

“I know where he is,” I said.

There was movement on his end. Voices. Control slipping.

“Don’t go anywhere,” Louis said, voice tightening. “Listen to me. You were drugged. You’re grieving. You’re not safe to make this decision alone.”

“I don’t feel safe anywhere,” I said.

The words were simple. Too simple.

Ahead of me, the coastline opened up—gray water under a sky that looked bruised.

And somewhere in that distance, I could see them.

Small figures near the edge of the cliffs.

Waiting.

Louis’s voice broke through again, sharper now.

“Serena, stop the car. Talk to me. Just—tell me where you are.”

But my grip tightened on the wheel instead.

“I didn’t ask for any of this,” I said quietly.

Not to him.

Not really to anyone.

The phone trembled slightly in my hand.

“I don’t know what happens when I get there,” I continued, softer now. Honest in a way that felt more frightening than anger. “I just know I can’t turn around.”

“Serena—don’t—”

“I have to go,” I said.

A beat.

Then, almost like something breaking on the other end:

“I’m coming to you,” Louis said. “Just stay on the line.”

But I was already lowering the phone.

Not because I didn’t hear him.

Because for the first time all morning, I couldn’t afford to.

And the cliffs kept getting closer.