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“Noa!”
I kept running. Running so fast. There were so many people around, and I kept pushing through them, stumbling.
I tripped.
I fell.
My sleeve caught on something, and it ripped.
There was so much blood.
I didn’t see it long before someone pushed me into a wall. I hit my head.
The world went black.
Chapter Nineteen
Sloane
I was pacing the hospital when Ares Mallick waltzed into the ER, and I twitched.
What the fuck?
The past few hours had been a complete mess, and I was still trying to figure them out. It’d started when I’d been ripped from my sleep by my brother. I’d been having another weird nightmare about my mother when I heard him vomiting.
He hadn’t stopped.
I’d run into his room to find his head in a trash can, body halfway off the bed. Immediately, I raced out of my room. He’d been sick, but he hadn’t been vomiting. I started to call 911, but he stopped, and after, somehow convinced me to let him go back to bed. I had for a time, coming back to my room myself, but I’d ended up texting Ares.
Honestly, I didn’t know why.
I supposed I’d been panicking, and with everything going on with Legacy, he should have been the last person I texted. Technically, he’d been the second person I’d attempted to contact, the first being Callum. He hadn’t picked up since it’d been so late, and I guess I thought Ares might be a good alternative to help try to convince my brother to go to the hospital with me. Being Bru’s friend from the football team, I figured he may have some pull with him where I didn’t. My brother was freaking stubborn as hell.
Within moments of the text, Ares had gotten back to me. He’d texted right away I should call 911 after I’d explained what happened, and I felt like an idiot for hesitating in the first place. I’d started to call, but then I’d heard a thud. I’d returned to my brother’s bedroom to find him collapsed on the floor, unresponsive and barely breathing.
Yeah, I hadn’t fucked around after that.
I’d called an ambulance right away, and though the whole event in question happened hours ago, it seemed like it just happened. It kept replaying in my head. The paramedics rushing in, my brother on the floor. My brother not moving.
I felt like I’d died inside, every moment pulling me closer and closer to that point of insanity I’d teetered on since I’d gotten to this town. If I lost Bruno, I didn’t know what I’d do.
He was all I had.
They had been able to get my brother stable in the end, get him responsive. He’d woken up, but he was barely lucid, and I’d ridden with him and the paramedics over to the hospital. I’d tried calling Callum on the way, but again, hadn’t been able to reach him. I’d tried calling Dr. Richardson too, my brother’s doctor, but it just must have been too late. He hadn’t answered either, and he’d just seen my brother this morning. What was crazy was he’d said he was doing better.
This wasn’t better. This wasn’t better at all, and here I was with no answers. When Bru and I had arrived at the hospital, the staff wouldn’t let me in the back. Some kind of accident had happened on the highway, I guess, and they weren’t allowing a lot of foot traffic back there. Hospital reception told me a doctor would come out, see me and give me an update on my brother, but they never had.
This had left me basically walking a hole through the fucking floor, and though not many things could shock me further tonight, Ares Mallick showing up did. For starters, he’d told me he was out of town when I’d initially texted. I hadn’t asked him. He’d just told me.
Spotting me now, he sprinted over, actually here in the fucking ER.
“Hey,” he said, casual like this was normal. He tugged the hood of his football hoodie down, pushing rain from the front of his curls. The guy was basically soaked, and it had been raining pretty much all night. He gazed around. “Where’s Bru?”
I blinked, still shocked he was here. “I… I… I don’t know. I…”
You need to breathe. Breathe.
I tried to, but fear from the situation still lassoed me like a wild stallion. I felt on the cusp of breaking from it. In my silence, Ares cut around me like he’d actually spot my brother just casually waiting in the ER, and maybe he thought he could. For all he knew, my brother’s condition wasn’t as serious as I’d made it sound.
