I finally step onto the road and sway on the spot. What do I do now? My phone is in the footwell of the car.
The same damn car Rachel took to the hospital.
My weak laughter rattles my diaphragm. I stumble, barely managing to right myself in time.
I tip my head back and lose myself in the rain against my lashes and cheeks. Maybe I’ll die here today, but at least I can feel the rain on my face one final time.
A wave of nausea comes over me, and I topple back. In the distance, sirens draw nearer.
Maybe it’s my imagination.
Maybe I’m already dead.
Cole’s smiling face is the last thing I see before the world turns black.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
Continuously, the beeping fills my ears like a haunting melody. It’s constant—the reminder that I’m not dead. Unless I am, and I’m stuck listening to this fucking sound for the rest of my dead life.
Or when people said you see the bright light, they lied, and you actually hear the incessant beeping right before you take your last breath.
Unless I am dead already and this is Hell, because the high-pitched noise is getting annoying the more awake I am. The bright light nearly blinds me as I open one of my eyes. Wincing, I close them again and try to lift my hand to my face, but it’s then I become aware of someone holding my hand.
“He’s waking up,” I hear a voice. A soft voice I know belongs to Allie.
“Go get the nurse,” my mom says to my left. It’s her that’s holding my hand. Her thumb is stroking the top of it, squeezing every few minutes while I fight to stay awake.
Is she okay? Did Dad let her take me to a hospital? Is he standing in the corner of the room, gun drawn, waiting for meto get treated so he can take us away? Did my mom scream for help?
I flinch as I try to move. Everywhere hurts – my side and back, my head, my chest. It’s like I was hit by a?—
My eyes open. The last thing I remember is a car ramming into us.
The beeping intensifies, and a hand rests on my chest. “You’re okay, Cole,” my mom says, trying to soothe me. “Please relax. Please. You’re still very fragile.”
“The nurse is coming,” Allie says, and I turn my head to look at her. She has no makeup on, her eyes red, and she’s wearing sweats and a hoodie I’m certain belong to Jackson.
She hugs herself. “Hi,” she says, her voice low, like an echo. “How do you feel?”
I grit my teeth and turn to my mom. “What happened?” I ask, my voice all croaky and dry. It takes me everything to try to swallow, like I’m gulping down nails against sandpaper.
“Blaise found us,” she says, and my heart thuds even harder, the machines alerting us that my heart rate is picking up. “He told me to take you to hospital.”
“Dad?”
She chews on her lip. “He’s dead. Blaise put up a good fight against him.”
“Bl—” I stop, my eyes instantly stinging. My face snaps to Allie, then back to my mom. “What…?”
My mind is about to explode, because I’m not following. I think the drugs pumping into me are making me lightheaded, or it’s my erratic breathing.
I look down at my arms, their voices falling in and out of focus, even as the nurse comes in and checks me over. She tells me I was lucky to be brought in when I was. The bullet was removed, and it’s been two days since surgery. I have fluids and antibiotics pumping through my body to fight the infection,stickers on my chest from them trying to trace my heart, and my side is bandaged.
My temperature is still high, but not dangerous, and the wound still has some pus, but not as bad as it was when I was brought in.
I was lucky, she keeps saying.
Over and over and over again. Lucky. Lucky. Lucky.
