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“Come on, we have less than 5 minutes to get back to the van,” Travis hisses as he takes off toward the staircase.
Following behind him closely, I move as fast as I can, carrying Cole in my arms, with Riot right on my heels. Keeping my head down, I focus solely on getting out of that house. I can barely see anything, but I can see Travis’ form in front of me, so I just keep following closely.
I hear a high pitched zip, a grunt, and a body hit the floor, and it dawns on me that they are still coming for us as we make our way out of the house. My arms ache and my legs are weary but the adrenaline coursing through my veins keeps me moving; and as Travis flings a set of doors open, I follow behind him out into the cold winter night.
Cole’s body trembles in my arms as we run through the snow, and somehow I manage to keep myself upright as I tilt my face into him, whispering in his ear. I promise him he’s going to be ok. I promise him that I’ve got him. I promise him we’re going home.
We only run for a matter of minutes, but it feels like hours and I can hardly feel my toes by the time we reach the trio of vans parked just beyond the tree line.
“Oh thank god!” Hannah’s voice catches my attention as she and two large men in masks, who I assume are the brothers, run up to the vans from the opposite direction. “In, get the fuck inside,” she commands, yanking the sliding door of the first van open.
Clambering inside quickly, I curl up against the far wall in the back, holding Cole in my arms as Riot climbs into the driver’s seat and starts up the engine. As happy as I am to see him, I can’t find it in myself to feel anything other than terrified in this moment.
“Cole, he’s not okay. He… he’s not ok. I think he has a bad infection. He’s so fucking hot right now, Riot. We need a hospital,” my eyes flick up to meet Riot’s in the rearview mirror, swirled in dull shades of gray.
“Shit,” he mutters, as he pulls his phone from his pocket. “Han, something is wrong with Cole. Does Amelia have… Okay… Yeah. Got it.”
Shoving his phone back into his pocket, he looks back up into the rearview mirror. “There’s a doctor where we are going. We’re not far, just hang in there.”
“Do you hear that Cole?” I whisper, running my hands through his sandy blonde hair. “We’re getting you to a doctor. Just hang in there. Please hang in there. I can’t lose you, it’ll kill me.” Tears fall from my eyes as I press my lips to the top of his head.
I hope he heard me, because I meant what I said. Every word.
“It’s a good thing you got him here when you did, another hour or two… Well, it’s good you got him here,” the doctor mutters as he finishes setting up the IV drip. “His wounds are severely infected, and he’s gone into septic shock.”
The doctor mumbles off some more mumbo jumbo about needing IV antibiotics for a few days before they can even let him go home with pills, and honestly, I hope that Riot is listening, because I don’t have it in me to take any of this in. Sitting beside the makeshift hospital bed, in this unfamiliar mansion, all I can do is hold his hand. Interlocking our fingers together with one hand, I trail the fingers of my opposite hand up and down Cole’s arm, wondering if he knows I’m here.
Cole’s usually this beaming ball of light, and happiness. But in that cell, in this bed, he’s a shell. He’s not conscious. An oxygen mask covers his mouth and nose because his oxygen levels are too low. His blood pressure is too low. Everything is too fucking low, except his body temperature, of course that’s sky high, nearing brain damaging levels or something. Again, I’m barely listening to this asshole, because I’m afraid if I stop listening to Cole breathing, he might stop.
“Son, I need to debride the wounds and get him bandaged up.”
“Zeke, come on, let the doctor work. We um, we need to talk anyway.”
Chewing on my bottom lip, I look up at the doctor, then over to Riot, and flick my eyes back at the doctor. I press my lips to the back of Cole’s hand and push up to my feet, “J-just make sure he’s breathing. Make sure he doesn’t stop.”
“He’s in good hands,” the doctor nods, as I turn and follow Riot out of the room.
Closing the door behind us, I reluctantly follow Riot across the hall into another room, where he shuts the door behind us. For a moment, I think we are alone, but Hannah enters from an adjoining room just as I take a seat on the small couch. The two of them eye each other cautiously before Riot walks in front of me, dropping to his knees between my thighs.
“There are some things I need to tell you, Zeke. I - I need you to hear me before you react.”
“Riot are you s-”
“Hannah,” Riot starts, “I told you that you could be here for this, but you’re not going to stop me from telling him. I’m eternally grateful to you for helping me get them back. But… he has a right to know.”
Shifting uncomfortably, I look between the two of them, waiting for someone to start talking. Hannah puts her hands in the air, conceding with Riot’s request and he turns back to face me. Grasping both of my hands in his own, he looks up at me, and I can tell he’s warring with himself on some level. Like he’s about to do something he isn’t quite sure of.
“Zeke… the people who took you… the Syndicate. They… they wanted something from you.”
“I know,” I mutter beneath my breath. “They wanted me to work for them. Something about their hacker being sick.”
“Right,” Riot pauses, clearing his throat. “Their hacker, that’s who helped us tonight. He helped us shut the whole place down and get in unseen.”
“Great,” I mumble, not too sure what the point in all of this is, so their hacker decided to do one good deed. Big whoop.
“There’s more… Zeke. Their hacker, he… well… I don’t know how else to say this. He’s your father.”
My head snaps up, eyes burning into Riot’s, confusion riddling my entire expression because there’s no way I heard what I think I just heard. No goddamn way. I was taken by social services, I thought my parents were just addicts. This doesn’t make sense.
