AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I squeeze his shoulder again. “I know that.”
His face is solemn, and his voice is raspy as he continues, “They wouldn’t stop. There were a lot of cars on the interstate, and we wound up being boxed-in. Their car was on my left, and they wouldn’t let us over. I should have pulled over, let them go on and hopefully forget about it. But I thought they’d get the hint.”
“Axel...” I say quietly because I can hear his guilt, but I don’t have anything to add.
“I don’t know if they even saw it coming. I knowwedidn’t. But there was road construction, and we couldn’t get over in time. They were blocking the goddamned way, and we slammed into a cement barrier.”
“Fuck.”
He sniffs, and I know he’s holding back tears. “Sebastian... fuck. He didn’t move. When I realized what happened, I looked over at him and saw he was bleeding but not moving. I...” He chokes on a sob. “Finally, I checked his pulse and could feel it, but he wouldn’t open his eyes.”
“He’s going to be okay,” I say firmly, though I have no idea if that’s true.
I feel Soren’s hand in mine, giving it a squeeze, and it adds a little comfort. “He has to be,” Axel barely manages to whisper.
“He will,” I say firmly again, and Jenny joins us, shocking the hell out of Axel and me and probably everyone else when she wraps her small arms around his neck.
“He. Will,” she says, and it’s far more convincing than when I said it.
Everyone falls in after that, trying to give Axel encouragement. Giving him hugs and pats on the back, but the truth is none of us know what to do. We’re all so damn helpless right now as we sit in the waiting room.
Just hoping for an update on our friend.
Maverick is a complete wreck, and I’m not surprised when Cooper shows up, trying to offer some sunshine to all our cloudy-ass moods. He seems to be the only one with hope around here. But he doesn’t seem to mind. Sitting next to Maverick, he even manages to make the surly bastard smile once.
Sebastian will be grateful for that, I’m sure. Maverick and he—well, their relationship is pretty much exactly what Axel’s and mine is.
There’s one brief update, but all they tell us is they have him stabilized, but he’s still in surgery.
I can’t take it anymore and decide to duck outside, hopefully unnoticed, to get my bearings. I hate hospitals. Even the adult side. I used to hate all the foo-foo crap they put in my room and the hallways of the children’s hospitals—balloons, teddy bears, and colorful holiday decor, depending on what month it was—trying to distract the kids from their reality.
But this place is worse. It’s sterile. It’s empty. It’s terrifying.
I make it through some sliding automatic doors and find a bench facing an empty field behind the hospital. It’s cold, and I don’t have a coat on, but I welcome the cold.
I welcome the feeling that reminds me I’m alive. Which makes me feel like an absolute bastard since Sebastian’s inside fighting for his life.
I hear the automatic doors open, but I don’t register anything until I feel Soren sitting down next to me on the bench and wrapping his arms around me, tucking himself into my side.
“He’s going to be okay.”
“Was there an update?” I ask, letting him hold onto me.
“No. But I know he will be. Axel, Sebastian, Maverick, you... you’re all strong as hell. Untouchable.”
But we aren’t. And he knows that as well as I do. “Axel was a foster kid too,” I say quietly, my breath visible in the cold night air. “I met him at this camp for sad kids.” I chuckle to myself. “That’s what we called it, not what it was actually called.”
I feel Soren’s cold nose on my neck as he nuzzles into me.
“He was so angry. So fucking mad.”
“Can’t say I blame him. I don’t know his story, but I’d be angry if I were any of you. Parents are supposed to take care of their children.”
I wrap my arm around him as he holds onto my waist. “I recognized that anger. I understood it. And for whatever reason, I wanted to try to make it be better for him. I wanted to show him we didn’t have to always be angry. That I’d found something...”—I smile sadly as I remember those days—“fun.”
“Racing,” Soren guesses.
I nod. “Yeah. We learned together. When we aged out of foster care and graduated from high school, we moved in together, and it was just us against the world. We never thought we’d get here.”
