He hadn’t stopped.
I’d run into his room to find his head in a trash can, body halfway off the bed. Immediately, I raced out of my room. He’d been sick, but he hadn’t been vomiting. I started to call 911, but he stopped, and after, somehow convinced me to let him go back to bed. I had for a time, coming back to my room myself, but I’d ended up texting Ares.
Honestly, I didn’t know why.
I supposed I’d been panicking, and with everything going on with Legacy, he should have been the last person I texted. Technically, he’d been the second person I’d attempted to contact, the first being Callum. He hadn’t picked up since it’d been so late, and I guess I thought Ares might be a good alternative to help try to convince my brother to go to the hospital with me. Being Bru’s friend from the football team, I figured he may have some pull with him where I didn’t. My brother was freaking stubborn as hell.
Within moments of the text, Ares had gotten back to me. He’d texted right away I should call 911 after I’d explained what happened, and I felt like an idiot for hesitating in the first place. I’d started to call, but then I’d heard a thud. I’d returned to my brother’s bedroom to find him collapsed on the floor, unresponsive and barely breathing.
Yeah, I hadn’t fucked around after that.
I’d called an ambulance right away, and though the whole event in question happened hours ago, it seemed like it just happened. It kept replaying in my head. The paramedics rushing in, my brother on the floor. My brother not moving.
I felt like I’d died inside, every moment pulling me closer and closer to that point of insanity I’d teetered on since I’d gotten to this town. If I lost Bruno, I didn’t know what I’d do.
He was all I had.
They had been able to get my brother stable in the end, get him responsive. He’d woken up, but he was barely lucid, and I’d ridden with him and the paramedics over to the hospital. I’d tried calling Callum on the way, but again, hadn’t been able to reach him. I’d tried calling Dr. Richardson too, my brother’s doctor, but it just must have been too late. He hadn’t answered either, and he’d just seen my brother t
his morning. What was crazy was he’d said he was doing better.
This wasn’t better. This wasn’t better at all, and here I was with no answers. When Bru and I had arrived at the hospital, the staff wouldn’t let me in the back. Some kind of accident had happened on the highway, I guess, and they weren’t allowing a lot of foot traffic back there. Hospital reception told me a doctor would come out, see me and give me an update on my brother, but they never had.
This had left me basically walking a hole through the fucking floor, and though not many things could shock me further tonight, Ares Mallick showing up did. For starters, he’d told me he was out of town when I’d initially texted. I hadn’t asked him. He’d just told me.
Spotting me now, he sprinted over, actually here in the fucking ER.
“Hey,” he said, casual like this was normal. He tugged the hood of his football hoodie down, pushing rain from the front of his curls. The guy was basically soaked, and it had been raining pretty much all night. He gazed around. “Where’s Bru?”
I blinked, still shocked he was here. “I… I… I don’t know. I…”
You need to breathe. Breathe.
I tried to, but fear from the situation still lassoed me like a wild stallion. I felt on the cusp of breaking from it. In my silence, Ares cut around me like he’d actually spot my brother just casually waiting in the ER, and maybe he thought he could. For all he knew, my brother’s condition wasn’t as serious as I’d made it sound.
I followed after him, my high-tops squeaking in the puddles his sneakers left. “What are you doing here?”
His big legs swiveled around, his keys in hand. His chest heaved with heavy breath, and the way he breathed, it appeared like he’d sprinted all the way over here. “Well, you texted me, right? To help?”
I had, but I didn’t ask him to come. I approached. “Weren’t you like somewhere else? Out of town or something…”
“Obviously, not now, little,” he snipped. His hand pushed over his hair. “What’s going on with Bru? It sounded serious.”
Reality set in again, that we were here and I was dealing with this current state of events. Air flow thinned, and next thing I knew, I was bending to catch my breath.
Ares’s eyes flashed. “Little, hey.”
I gasped, and Ares waved someone over.
“A little help, please,” he said, but I shrugged it off. I just needed to calm down. I needed…
Ares held the person coming over from reception off, looking at me. “What do you need? You need to sit?”
It was like he read my mind, or we were strangely in sync or something. I nodded, and he joined me over in the waiting area.
“One second. Just stay here,” he said. He sprinted over to the water machine, bought a bottle, then brought it back to me. “This will help.”
It actually did and gave me something to focus on.