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When I’d been given the exact location and hung up the phone, I wasted no time in flagging down a black cab. Fuck waiting for an Uber; I needed to get to Huxley right now.
My hands were fucking shaking the whole way there, my heart beating out of my chest. The same question ran through my mind over and over as the cab rumbled through the quiet streets.
Why had Huxley asked them to call me?
Flashing lights cut through the darkness, and my whole body tensed, my gaze scanning the road up ahead. Blue flashes lit up the night sky in front of me, throwing the buildings on either side of the road into sharp relief.
“This is as far as I can go. Police cordon.” The driver thumbed at the distinctive tape stretching across the road, flapping in the night breeze.
“That’s fine. Thank you.” Slipping out of the cab, I ducked under the tape and stopped dead, taking in the scene in front of me.
Two cars. One flipped on its side, the underside of the car facing me. The other… My breath caught in my throat, my hand flying to my mouth as I took in the wreck that had once been Huxley’s black Audi S5 Coupe. From the back, before I’d crossed the cordon, it had looked okay, but as I forced my feet to move, I saw that the front was now a heap of twisted metal. The car’s hazards were flashing, combining with the blue lights of the police car parked at an angle across the end of the road, and reflecting off the shattered glass littering the tarmac.
“Sir! Excuse me! You need to stay behind the cordon!”
I was spun around by a hand to my shoulder. A policewoman was there, shaking her head at me.
“I—they—someone called me. Huxley. My, uh, brother. Th-that’s his car. The A-Audi.” I was stumbling over the words, my voice shaking like fucking crazy. As much as Huxley and I detested each other, I wouldn’t wish this on him. Fuck. He wasn’tdead, was he?
Through the glassy haze that had suddenly obscured my vision, I registered the policewoman’s face turn from stern to sympathetic, and the hand on my shoulder squeezed gently before she removed it. “Come with me.”
After saying something into the little radio she had clipped to her chest, she led me over to an ambulance a little way from the scene of the wreckage. The back of the ambulance was open, and a paramedic was there waiting for me. He gave me a smile, all friendly professionalism, and my pounding heart rate slowed just a little because surely he wouldn’t smile if Huxley was in a bad state?
“Mr. Clarke. Is it okay if I call you Cole?” he addressed me gently, and I nodded, swiping the back of my hand across my face to clear my vision. “Good. Your brother was in an accident tonight. He’s going to be okay—it’s a miracle, to tell the truth, that he’s only escaped with some minor cuts from the glass and bruising from the airbags. Someone up above must have been watching out for him.”
“What happened?” I scanned the paramedic’s face, relief coursing through my body at the knowledge he was okay.
The paramedic glanced over at the policewoman, who coughed discreetly. “Drunk driver on a joyride hit his car.”
“Shit. Okay. So he’s okay?” I asked, just to make sure.
“He will be. He’s been thoroughly checked out in the ambulance. He’s very shaken up, and he needs someone to be with him to make sure that he gets some rest and takes the pain relievers he’s been prescribed. If the safety features in his car hadn’t been so good, and if he hadn’t had luck on his side…we might be looking at a completely different story.”
“Okay,” I said again. Fuck. My brain didn’t seem to be working properly.
“Would you like to see him? He’s been cleared to go home.” Leaning closer, the paramedic murmured, “Between you and me, I’d prefer to take him into the hospital and keep him overnight for observation, but with the cuts they’ve made recently…unless we have a strong case for taking him in, he has to go home.”
“No, it’s okay. I’ll, uh, sit with him. Make sure he’s okay.”
The paramedic smiled. “If only more of our patients had siblings as caring as you.”If only he knew the truth. “If you’re concerned at all, call NHS Direct, and if his condition worsens, dial 999.”
“Uh…”
“He’s going to be okay. It won’t come to that, I’m sure of it.” With those words, he directed me to climb inside the ambulance, where I got my first look at Huxley.
He was sitting up on the metal bed, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders, sipping from a bottle of water through a straw. His face was drained of colour, with a grey pallor, and there were several small cuts on his face. The skin around his eyes was a little swollen and red, and I knew that it would darken to a purple by tomorrow.
I stood there for a moment, not knowing what to say or how to approach him. Eventually, I went for the simplest option. “Hi.”
His eyes finally met mine, and I was taken aback by the hostility in them, far stronger than the relief that had flickered in his gaze for the tiniest moment. I shouldn’t have been because that was standard from him, but I thought that maybe the accident would have made him a little less… He’d chosen to call me, hadn’t he? Instead of one of his friends?
“You came?” he said, and there was a definite question in his words.
Had he thought I wouldn’t? Okay, we couldn’t stand each other, but there hadn’t ever been a question in my mind. The second I’d picked up the phone and heard what had happened, all I could think about was getting to him as fast as I could. “Yeah.”
“Just to make it clear,” he rasped, “you’re the last fucking person I wanted to call.” Dragging his hand across his face, he visibly winced, gritting his teeth as his palm skimmed over the cuts and bruises. He let out a frustrated huff of breath. “I didn’t have any other option. It was you or no one.”
I stored that information for later, when I could interrogate him about it when he wasn’t looking like he was about to pass out any minute. “Are you ready to go? I’ll get us a taxi.”
