Quiet Not Innocent | ✔︎

Chapter 22:

I'd deduced last night that she had put herself in some sort of mess and was now being blackmailed with it with some sort of photos of hers, but there were so many 'what' and 'who's in this situation that I struggled to even come up with a theory.

And with how things were going right now, I could tell that I wasn't going to make much progress with that theory. So I had to give it up, for now.

Blowing out a frustrated breath, I go back to April and grab her by the shoulders, forcing her to stand up. Her body shakes as I seat her down on the couch.

She was wheezing as she took big breaths and was panicking, her breathing spiraling out of control. She was having some sort of attack.

I grab her hands and squeeze, attracting her gaze to lock with mine. "Okay, fine, I'm not going to ask anymore. Try to breathe. Count as you breathe."

I wince as she digs her fingernails into my skin, not realizing she's hurting me as she tries to regain control of her breathing. She keeps heaving in huge breaths of air, her chest rising up and down until her breathing pattern isn't so uneven anymore.

She lets go of my hand and seeing the scratch marks, her eyes widen. "I—I'm sorry...I didn't mean to—"

"It's whatever." It stings a bit but nothing that would kill me. "Are you okay?"

She nods, putting a hand on her temple as she winces. "We missed school. Mom is going to be so angry. What do I do?"

I roll my eyes. "I'll deal with that. But you should go back to sleep and get some rest. You look like a dehydrated dishcloth right now and it's starting to hurt my eyes."

She laughs a little but slowly stands up. She stands there instead of leaving, causing me to raise an eyebrow. Did she need something?

"I wanted to—uh, thank you. For...you know. Yeah. Thank you." She shifts on her other leg, a habit of hers whenever she was nervous. "And...can I talk to you later? About Dad?"

My nose wrinkles. "I'll only talk about Levi if we're talking shit. I don't have anything good to say about that man."

"Not him." She goes back to messing with her fingers, her eyes on her feet.

Ohhh, Dad.

I shrug my shoulders. "That's okay with me. What about him though?"

"It's just, um, no one told me—" She cuts herself off, smiling an obvious fake smile. "Never mind. I'll just say it later. I'm going to go sleep now. Bye!"

I blink, watching as she quickly hurries away from me and back up the stairs. That was weird. I was curious about what she had to say though, so that's something to look forward to later.

Turning my head back to the TV, I start watching Spongebob again, my attention half on the cartoon and half on the whole deal with April.

Someone was threatening her. Blackmailing her. With some sort of pictures. Last night, she had said they were going to use them against her if she told me. Told me what? What was the problem?

It had to be something serious enough for her to be this worked up over. And when she was mumbling stuff about her dignity last night, I had to assume whatever kind of photos they have, it's bad.