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The nurse shook her head and grabbed Dre’s wrist to take her pulse. She gently lowered it back onto the bed and sighed. “I’m not sure. I gave her something that should counteract it, but it depends how much she was given and how long ago. If he’s been giving her smaller doses to make it seem less suspicious when her heart stopped then we have a better shot at her recovering, than if he’s just injected her full of this shit.”
“How long will it take to find out?” Bear asked and thank God he did because for the first time in my entire life I couldn’t find the words. Panic. Fear. Physical pain from every nerve in my body. She glanced up at him. “If this works, it should only be a matter of minutes before she wakes up.”
We were all silent for five long minutes. My heart died a little more with each tick of the clock on the wall.
And then we waited ten more minutes.
And then I was screaming in Dre’s face, slapping her cheeks, demanding she wake up. “You can’t fucking die! You can’t!” I screamed, pounding my fist against the mattress beside her head. King rounded the bed and pulled me out of the chair, putting his arm around my shoulder. I lowered my voice. My words came out broken, only every other syllable made a sound. “She can’t fucking die,” I repeated. “There wasn’t enough time. We didn’t have enough time. She promised me she’d never leave me. She fucking promised.”
King and Bear tugged me back while the nurse shot me a look. THE look. She glanced at the clock and my eyes followed.
Twenty fucking minutes.
Dre
“Wake up. Wake up!” The voice is soft and feminine. Reassuring and loving.
“Grandma?” I ask, although I can’t see a thing.
I’m tired. I want to go back to wherever I just was. Dreamless rest. “Wake up! Wake up!” I hear again.
“Grandma it’s too early,” I groan, trying to roll over on my side but I’m stopped by something invisible. Something tethering my arms in place. “Come back later. It’s summer. No school today,” I tell her.
“Wake the fuck up!” The voice is now masculine and desperate. “Please, come back to me. Come back to us! Bo needs you. I fucking need you!” I recognize that voice and I realize that I’m not in my room at Grandma’s. I’m standing alone in complete darkness with no sign of an exit. Preppy needs me. Bo needs me. I need to go to them. I start to panic. My throat grows tight and my heart beats uncontrollably.
“I don’t know where to find you! Where do I go?” I shout back. A light appears as if it’s the answer to my question and it’s the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. One side of the room is blanketed in beautiful brightness and the other side is cloaked in the dark. I reach out for it with my hand. I take a step closer. I’m about to touch it when I come to a halt and shake my head, pulling back my hand. “What am I doing?” I whisper. I slowly take a few steps back before turning around and sprinting away to the opposite side.
The light was beautiful, but I chose instead to run blindly into the dark because I knew, without a doubt, that’s where Preppy would be.
****
“Thank fuck. There you are,” Preppy said softly, looking down at me with concern etched into his forehead and tear stains down his cheeks. He looked tired. One of his suspenders was hanging loose from his shoulder. His bow tie hung open around his collar. His beard, normally well groomed, was unruly and long. He smoothed the hair away from my face. “Took you long enough, Doc.”
“I knew I’d find you here,” I whispered.
“I knew you’d come back to me.”
“What...what...happened?” I asked groggily, my throat sore and dry. The second I asked the question I remembered the answer on my own.
Eric.
I gasped and looked to Preppy who flashed me a small smile. Tears welled up in his eyes. He cleared his throat and leaned in close so that his cheek was touching mine. “Okay, I’ll tell you.” He sighed. “Your injuries are the product of a horrible sex swing accident. The nurse said it was the worst one the hospital has ever seen. Don’t you worry your pretty head though. They’ve successfully retrieved the gerbil. He’s a bit shaken up, but they think he’s going to pull through.”
I laughed, because it was Preppy and impossible not to. However, it didn’t last long because sharp pain sliced through my shoulder. I hissed through my teeth. “Don’t make me laugh,” I choked out.
“That might be impossible. I’m a really, really funny guy,” Preppy said, wagging his eyebrows. He took my hand and pressed it against his face. I reached out two of my fingers and stroked the hair free patch of skin from his eye to where his beard starts.
“I know,” I said. “You’re also really, really mine.”
“Don’t you fucking forget it.” A lone tear spilled from the side of his eye and rolled down his cheek into his beard. He sniffled and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. His other arm in a sling.
“Did you finish it?” I asked. “Is he...”
“Yeah. He’s gone.”
“Good,” I whispered, my eyes growing heavy. “Where’s Bo?”
“He’s fine. He’s playing with Ray and the kids. Didn’t want to bring him here until I knew you were going to be okay.”
“Good,” I said, willing my eyes not to close. I needed to see him more. To know he was okay. To know that the life we were planning together was no longer going to be cut short.
“You can rest now. I’ll be here when you wake up, Doc,” Preppy said.
I nodded, unable to argue or put up much of a fight. My limbs joining my eyes in feeling weighed down and tired. But before I could close my eyes I spotted something in the corner of the room. King and Bear, along with a nurse in dark scrubs. They were lifting a big grey bag onto a gurney. “One more question,” I said, turning back to Preppy who kissed the back of my hand.
“Yeah.”
“Who’s in the bag?” I asked, pointing with my eyes to the scene in the corner.
“Hmmmmm...J. Edgar Hoover?” Preppy answered, a ridiculous fake smile plastered on his face that exposed both his top and bottom teeth.
“Try again.”
He sighed. “How about I promise to tell you all about it later. For now, just know that it’s a really bad guy who did really bad things, who is going to a really, really hot place.”
“Hell?”
“The incinerator at the morgue,” Preppy whispered. He placed his other hand over my cheek gently, stroking my skin with his thumb. “Now rest, Doc.”
“Okay,” I agreed, drifting off. This time my sleep was anything but dreamless. All night I dreamt of home. Bo. Preppy.
My family.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Preppy
It was eight in the morning. Kevin took Bo back home with him under the strict guidelines of keeping an eye on him at all times and instructions to ‘keep him away from the kitchen knives or anything sharp’. At least until I had a chance to have a real talk with him about the pros and cons of becoming a real life axe murderer. King and Bear had a body to dispose of. Ray and Thia were with the kids but they both called to tell me they’d be by later on in the day.
I was sitting out in the hallway so Dre’s dad could visit with her alone. When he came back out he told me she’d finally fallen asleep and plopped down across the hall from me on the only other chair. The fluorescent light buzzed overhead, making the bags under his eyes look just as bad as mine probably did.
“You gonna tell me, son?” Mr. Capulet asked, leaning forward.
“She didn’t tell you what happened?”
“No, I didn’t want to discuss that with her, not now while she’s still in rough shape, but that’s not what I’m asking you either, not now anyway. I don’t want you to tell me about tonight or about the last time.” He lifted his eyes to mine. “I want you to tell me more about YOU. I think that talk is long overdue, don’t you?”
