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“Yes, he did. He said his sister’s name.”
“What could he mean?” she asked, her own eyes suddenly filled with life again as curiousity sparked her back to reality.
“I don’t know,” I replied before moving back and helping Alexander and Rome bring Luke down the stairs. “But we have to find out.”
I owed it to him to find out about Marianne. I owed it to him to make up for this, for today and the world. For him being a Lower and me being an Upper and for the memories I had of our impossible life together.
I owed it to him because I loved him, and somewhere, someplace, we’d built a life together.
And somewhere, deep in my soul, I wanted it back.
CHAPTER9
“Is he still breathing?”Alexander asked from the front seat. Desperation edged his voice, and I could tell he was as concerned about Luke as I was. In the short time since I’d been here, I mean after the accident, we’d turned into somewhat of a family. A twisted little group of people who loved each other and respected the hell out of everything we stood for.
I didn’t know how I’d pulled it off, but I’d managed to make Alexander Remington, Upper king, lord of darkness, and lord of the assholes, care about a Lower like Luke.
And that in itself was magic.
“He is,” I said and leaned over him, pressing my ear near his mouth. I could hear his breath, weak and unsteady, but he wasn’t dead.
Yet.
We were caught in an updraft of complete chaos. As soon as we’d gotten him down the stairs, we’d gone into overload and started working double time to get him settled in the back of the SUV.
He had his head on my lap and his legs up on Rome’s lap, with Harlow in the front hanging on as Alexander careened through the streets like a crazy man. Every corner had the vehicle up on two wheels, and I heard the screech of rubber on pavement a few times as he spun out to gain traction.
“We have to get him to the hospital,” Rome said, rubbing Luke’s legs.
“They won’t take a Lower,” Alexander said, his voice strained with frustration. “It doesn’t matter how much money I have. I can’t force them to treat him.”
“Your kind would rather let him die,” Harlow spat with disgust. “I know a Lower medic who can help us get him sorted.”
She started to launch into directions, and the moment she began, Alexander seemed to gain focus on getting us there in one piece. He needed the direction, so the fear in his head didn’t consume him and send him spinning out of control.
“Finally, turn left up here at the alley,” Harlow said, pointing down the street we were on. “There will be no lights, and it will be completely dark. You have to cut the headlights and move through to the end in complete silence.”
“That doesn’t make sense!” Alexander argued. “This is an emergency.”
“I get that, but think of it as the equivalent of a secret handshake,” Harlow replied. “You have to follow the rules, or the door won’t open up.”
“Where’s the door?”I asked.
My anxiety was reaching a fever pitch, and I realized I hadn’t taken my evening medication, the pills I’d promised Doctor Norris and Nurse Flora that I would take on time, every day, no matter what. I didn’t like the way I felt without them now. I’d grown dependant upon the drugs that Doctor Norris had concocted just for me. They didn’t matter then. The only thing that mattered was getting Luke to the medic. The Lower medic was the only one who would take time out of their lives to help him. A bitter acid rose in the back of my throat as my resentment grew.
I stroked his face and whispered to him, “Hang in there, Luke, don’t leave me.”
“Yeah, hang in there,” Rome said, his voice tinged with concern. His face was drawn, and he had the look of a man who had never been put in such a risky, uncertain situation. Uppers had it so easy in this world that the idea of death or pain was a distant concept for the likes of him.
It wasn’t like that in the dream world I had where he was my love. Alexander never factored in those dreams, but Rome was the one who shone bright like the short, illuminating flare of a shooting star. I had the gut punch realization when I looked at him that I’d once held him like this and begged him not to die.
But he had. Somewhere in my strange, coma-addled head, there was an alternate reality where Rome had been knifed in a school fight and had bled out on the cold concrete of the basketball court before anybody had even thought to call for help.
But he was here with me now, and he was the one holding Luke with me, adding his own voice to the whispered prayers I was sending skyward to keep Luke tethered to the surface of the planet.
I couldn’t lose him.
“Okay, this is insane, but I trust you, Lower,” Alexander exhaled in a puff of frustration.
