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“Get in that Tonka toy? No, thank you. I’ll walk.”
“Back to Indiana? You have nail holes in your fucking feet. Get. In. The. Truck.”
“Where’s Seph, Triss?” I tried again.
“Alright, old man,” the punk still under my arm said. “Sorry to be this way about it, but we’ve got to go.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
trista
The absolute panic that coursed through me at the sight of Utah bending at the knees to just fucking pick Jersey right up off the ground and drape him over his shoulders was overwhelming. The movement put Jersey in so much pain that he didn’t struggle. He didn’t even say anything. The grimace that took over his entire face while Utah laid him across the backseat of the truck made my heart hurt for him. I sprinted around to the other side to get in the back with him. I lifted his head with the same care that I’d use to pick up an actual bomb to slide under him, so he was laying in my lap. Utah had us flying down the road in no time at all, but my focus was on the man sprawled across this seat. He didn’t look anything like my Jersey right now. If he hadn’t freaked out about the absence of his car while we were running for our lives, I would’ve been terrified that he might not actually be my Jersey under the surface anymore either. He tried to open the eye that wasn’t swollen shut when I put my hand on the side of his face, but it was beyond obvious that whatever he was seeing, it wasn’t me. My heart about stopped when I watched that eye roll back into his head.
“Utah?” I didn’t even recognize my own voice. I didn’t talk like that. I didn’t sound like a terrified mouse who’d been granted the ability to speak. He glanced back at me for just a second before his eyes roamed up and down Jersey’s body. He had Indy on the phone a second later.
“We need a doctor, Indy. A good one.”
I didn’t bother to listen to the rest of the conversation he had with Indy. I went back to staring at the motionless man in my lap.
“Keep your hand somewhere that you can feel his pulse, Trista,” Utah said. “Tell me if it stops. We might still have to drive a while.”
“If it stops?” I asked. “You’re talking about his heart. If his heart stops.”
He didn’t bother to respond while I started to sob. I moved a very shaky hand down to Jersey’s neck to find his heartbeat. I couldn’t remember the last time that I actually prayed, but I was suddenly sitting here begging Persephone to be real because she would be the most likely creature to spare his life with the way that he worshipped her name.
“You can’t die now, J. Even though it does kind of sound like something you’d do just because you’re an asshole. Wait until I come save you so we can actually be together, die twelve seconds later so you don’t have to live with me holding it over your head that I did save you.”
“This has to be the weirdest fucking relationship I’ve ever witnessed,” Utah chuckled from the front seat.
We spent what felt like an eternity driving. I was so terrified that I’d been placed in charge of being aware of Jersey’s pulse that at some point, I started counting each heartbeat that I felt. Every time I even imagined there were too many moments in between beats, I started to panic. It was fucking awful. I couldn’t begin to guess how long I actually spent in that vortex of terror before Utah stopped the truck. I still didn’t dare to move my hand from Jersey’s neck when Utah opened my door.
“You okay?” He asked, like this was the most normal thing we could be doing right now.
“No?” I snapped at him. “Are you?”
I could’ve scratched his eyeballs out with my fingernails when he smirked at that.
“Come on,” he said and held his hand out toward me. “Hop down. I’ll get him.”
I stared back down at Jersey’s face and couldn’t even fucking convince myself to take my hand off his neck. Utah sighed and disappeared. He opened the door on the other side and moved the front passenger seat as far forward as it would go before he climbed right into the back with us.
“He’s okay, Trista. He’ll be fine,” Utah said. He reached out to grab my hand and removed it from Jersey’s neck for me, because I still couldn’t do it myself. “Follow me, okay?”
He was talking to me like I was a child who wasn’t paying attention, because I was functioning like a child who wasn’t capable of paying attention. I jumped down out of the truck and ran around it to close all the doors before I followed Utah.
“What is this, Utah?” I whispered after I’d had the chance to look around. It looked like an abandoned mobile home community.
“This is the address that Indy gave me,” he said and grunted while he carried that massive man across a sidewalk that was overgrown by bushes.
“I don’t think there’s anybody here,” I whispered again.
“Then why are you whispering?” He asked and laughed.
“It’s creepy here, you dick.”
Headlights from behind us lit up the front of the mobile home that we were approaching.
“Get over here,” Utah said. “Behind me.”
