No.

It was all I could think in that moment. The word kept repeating over and over. Just no.

There was no way. I knew my dad wouldn’t mess with me like that, but there had to have been a mistake. Maybe the wording was wrong. There was no way what my father had just told me was true.

How could it, when I'd been home just hours ago and everything was just fine? Beyond fine, I was happy because it felt like everything was falling into place in my life. I had Ronan, and I was thinking of moving out of my place, maybe finding a job or picking up where I left off in my education.

How could everything go to hell so suddenly?

My body was quaking, hard, and it took me a moment to realize it was because Ronan was shaking me by the arms. I blinked and looked up, tried to meet his eyes. When he noticed I was looking at him, paying attention to him, he stopped shaking me. He was scowling at me, looking worried.

I just felt numb.

"What happened?"

I blinked for a moment, not understanding the question. What had happened? The call…

He gave me another shake, but not as hard as before. "Teagan!"

"Uh, that was my dad." My voice came out rough and shaky, and I felt Ronan squeeze my arms lightly. I wanted to pull his arms away and throw myself at him, but my body wouldn’t move.

"I already know that Teagan, but what did he say?"

I glanced away, my eyesight going blurry, only for him to give me another shake.

"Oh, no. Look right at me. You're spacing out and it's worrying me because it's unlike you. What did your father say to you?"

"He said… he said that someone killed my mom last night."

I watched Ronan go still, expression bewildered. It was pretty much what I felt. I'd seen my mother just yesterday and she was fine. I saw her before leaving the party, yet that phone call… there should have been a mistake, but my father wasn’t the kind of man that made mistakes. He also wouldn’t joke, not about something like this.

"We… need to go to the hospital. I need to be with my mom and dad."

The words poured out of my mouth without me really thinking about them. My thoughts were too jumbled to make sense of, but I knew my dad would need me. And I… wanted to be there to say goodbye to my mother.

I looked down at what I was wearing, realizing I'd have to change. Did I even have clothes at Ronan's place? I'd never spent longer than a night so I didn't carry a change of clothes, we never planned me staying over. There was one time I went shopping and stopped by his place to try out some of the clothes. I might have left something. I wasn’t going back in the dress from last night, it was uncomfortable and it would look ridiculous going to the hospital.

"Do they know who did it?"

I frowned at the strange question. I'd barely heard what my dad was saying, my mind fighting away the words because I didn’t want to understand. I hadn't caught it when he said my mom had been killed at first, it was so unexpected. My mind latched onto it and most of what followed was filtered out.

I thought back to the words, forced my mind to move past the protective haze that was stopping me from breaking down.

"He said… it was someone at the party, one of the guests. They're looking for him now, he was an old friend of my dad's. Someone he used to work with. His name is Andy or something like that."

"Seamus," he muttered.

I blinked. "Yeah, that's it, that’s his name. Why do you know him?"

Ronan didn’t answer. I felt a moment of curiosity, but he was looking away, distracted. I wanted to ask him how he knew if he'd met him there. I couldn’t even remember the man's face, the face of the man that killed my mother. I had been around him plenty of times before, I'd met all my dad's closest friends. But I just couldn’t remember him, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to.

But maybe it was nothing. It could have been a lucky guess. There was no way Ronan, of all people, would know anyone with any association with my dad.

My mind broke off on another thought, remembering who I'd talked to last night. Had any of them seen it? I wanted to know who saw my mother last, it upset me that someone else got that chance because I left early.

Did she suffer?

I had too much to think about, a lot that I really shouldn’t and didn’t want to think about. I was distracted, thinking about the fact that my mother had been killed while trying not to think about it, still in a state of shock. My head couldn’t pick one thing to focus on, and it was making me dizzy. I tried to get ahold of myself and pick one thing so I could function. I had plenty of time to break down later. Right then, my father needed me, and I had to go to him, give him whatever help he needed.

We had to go to the hospital. I caught the thought and latched on. Dad had been telling me to go to the hospital and I'd find him there. But which one? The hospital he preferred was a bit of a distance away, a private hospital, but she could have been transported to the nearest hospital.

I realized I'd have to call my dad back and ask. I pulled away from Ronan and picked up my phone from where I'd let it drop on the floor. I noticed I had a text and I opened it to find the information I wanted to ask my dad for. It was a name and address that I partially recognized.

Right. Hospital. I glanced down. Clothes.

I walked to Ronan's room to look for something to put on. I would have stopped over at home for clothes, but then it would take longer to get to the hospital. I paused looking for something to wear to bring up my phone. I copy-pasted the address my dad sent me into my phone's map and checked how far away it was.

Not too far. Maybe fifteen minutes by car.

Good thing I had my car with me. I went back to looking for clothes when I caught the dress out the corner of my eye, and I froze. It had been a new dress, one that my mother bought for me and insisted I wear for the party. She'd been so ecstatic when I didn’t fight her on it, and she forced me into the dress before I could eat and I feared taking it off in case it upset her.

Dad had used her plenty of times to get me to do what he wanted. I agreed to his college plan and living at home because he insisted it made her happy. Even for all that, I didn’t get to see her much as I saw my dad, as much as I would have liked.

I literally saw her just a few hours ago. And now, she was just gone.