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Wow, those pills are amazing.
“Go on. You can do it, little bro.” I can hear my brother’s chant behind me.
* * *
“Help us. Someone,please!”
A shrill cry pierces through the dream that feels more like a long-buried memory, and I jolt upright in bed, my heart hammering out of my chest when I recognise the owner.
Summer!
Without a second thought, I race down the stairs, through the kitchen and towards the sound around the back of the house. My heart seizes in my chest when my eyes lock on a blonde head down by the pool Layla forced me into installing.
If it had been up to me, I’d never have had any large body of water near this fucking house.
I descend on the motionless figure, only to realise there are two.
Despite every inch of my body crying out to run to them, I stop and sprint back to the house, raising the alarm before racing back towards that damn pool.
My knees buckle as I reach Bella and Summer, curled up together as though sleeping, both soaked to the bone.
A sob escapes my windpipe, sounding like the keening cry of a lone wolf, and Summer’s eyes open wearily. Hers hold mine, the moment sending a jolt down to my very marrow.
“It’s okay, Cade. I got to her in time.”
I hear a commotion at my back as the help I’d called for begins to arrive, yet all I can do is lay down on the tiles slick from the sprinklers to gather these two girls close to my chest.
Resting my forehead against Summer’s, we both look down on Bug’s wet blonde head as I inhale her exhalations. While she inhales mine.
As we both take a moment to be grateful for our present—yet again reminding me that the past means shit. Living in thenowis what matters.
And I’ll be fucked if I ever take another single day for granted ever again.
CHAPTER7
CADEN
“Your little girlshould be just fine, Mr North.”
Dr Kline gestures behind him to where Bella is sitting in front of her Batcave play set, playing happily. There’s not a single sign that she almost drowned only an hour ago.
“I understand you’d like to stay home rather than come in for observation, yes?”
Clearly, Noah has been in touch with the doctor because I never said any such thing—but Noah and his aversion to any scandal, big or small, is most assuredly the reason Dr Kline is making this suggestion.
“I don’t mind, either way, doctor. I only want what’s best for my daughter.”
Dr Kline nods slowly. “Well, I’ll leave a list of signs to look out for in case of post-immersion syndrome—”
I scrunch up my forehead, holding up my palm to stop him from continuing. “Post-what?”
He smiles kindly. “When someone has had a water incident such as this, there may be after-effects that can cause complications. I’ll leave my understudy, Dr Carver—”
He gestures to the woman checking Summer’s vitals over by the window.
“And she’ll monitor Bella for the next eight hours, after which time she’ll touch base with me. Then I can decide whether we need to complete some further monitoring in a hospital setting or if Bella is out of the woods. Okay?”
As he finishes speaking, Dr Carver concludes her observation of Summer, and the two women walk closer to us.
