Even though my head was telling me to retreat and to go back to my room, something dragged me over the carpet and the bundled-up blanket and into the bathroom.
The door creaked as I pushed it open, and when I saw the orange pill bottle turned on its side on the porcelain vanity top, it felt like I was plunged into ice-cold water.
There, on his side, was my brother, unconscious.
A blood-curdling scream left my mouth, and suddenly, everything went dark.
Chapter Forty-Six
Ollie
“What is taking her so long?” I asked, pacing Piper’s bedroom floor. There was a shift in the air the second her bedroom door closed.
I felt cagey and anxious. A lot like I used to feel before I’d race. Something ominous was in the air, and it was eating at me.
“Bro, relax.”
“Yeah, Ollie,” Hayley said, scooting down to the edge of the bed with her feet dangling. “It’s probably nothing.”
“I guess,” I said, about to sit down, but then my head snapped when I heard the most piercing, terrifying scream I had ever heard in my life.
My shoulders snapped straight, and when I locked onto Christian, we both flew into action.
I ripped Piper’s bedroom door open, and I swore I was to her within a second. Somehow, my feet knew where to carry me. I jumped over a mess of blankets on the floor, and when I walked into the scene, all the oxygen in the room ceased to exist. I couldn’t breathe. I was stuck, staring at the girl who literally made my heart skip a beat, huddled on the floor, lifting her brother’s lifeless head off the ground. There was a mess of yellow vomit around her knees. The putrid smell slapped me into action as Hayley came barreling through.
“Get her out of here!” Hayley screamed as she ran by Piper’s side and shoved her out of the way. Piper yelled out, reaching for her brother, tears flowing quickly down her face. Oh, fuck. Just the thought of Piper hurt made me want to kill someone, but seeing the look of pu
re fear on her face felt like every bone in my fucking body was being broken at the same time.
My hands wrapped around her tiny arms as she clawed and reached for Jason, yelling. I swooped her up.
“No! No! Let me go!” She smacked my chest and pushed at my shoulders. I caught the eye of Christian as he already had his phone pulled out, calling 911. Hayley had Jason’s head lifted, and she was shoving her fingers down his throat, saying, “Come on, come on. Puke it up. No, no, no, no.”
As soon as I pulled Piper out of the bathroom, her parents came through the bedroom door. Her father looked ready to kill me until they saw that Piper was now clinging onto me for dear life. Her mom took one look at us and ran past, screaming when she saw the scene.
Christian was talking quickly into the phone to the dispatcher, but I continued to drag Piper away. I could feel the grief radiating off her body. She was shaking in my arms, and in that moment, I actually turned to God. I’d only ever prayed once in my life, and it was the day Christian and I had found my mother dead in her bedroom. It was pointless then. Our mother was dead and had been for hours. But right now, I didn’t care. I prayed that he would take her pain and give it to me. I’d gladly carry it for her, because seeing her like this was one of the worst things I’d ever felt.
“Shh, shh, shh,” I hushed her as I pulled her back into her room, shutting the door softly behind us, shoving all the chaos in her brother’s room out. Piper’s cries racked her body so hard that I had to cradle her head into my chest.
“No, no. He can’t—where—no.”
Agony wrapped itself around my windpipe. “Just breathe.”
She gasped so many times that I wanted to breathe for her. My own lungs constricted. My arms ached as they wrapped around her. The pain. I felt her pain.
God, don’t let him die. I knew what it felt like to watch someone die from a silent disease. I knew what it felt like to have someone pick a vice over you. A user took your love and they threw it away. They didn’t even mean to, and that was probably the hardest thing to accept. It was something I’d learned years ago, when I finally processed what had happened to my mother.
“Just breathe, Pipe.” Piper was still gasping for air, but it wasn’t as bad as before. My arms tightened around her as I finally lowered us to the ground in her bedroom.
“Ollie,” her voice cracked, and I swore I did, too.
“I know, Piper. I know. Just breathe. I’m here.” I kissed her head again as she buried it even harder into my chest. Her small, shaking hand clenched my shirt, and I had to smash my lips to keep myself together for her.
I knew, sitting there in her room as shit unfolded in the worst of ways in the next room, that nothing else mattered but this moment right here. No matter what happened in the next few days, or months, or even years, I would forever be linked to Piper. I would fight like hell to keep her safe and happy. Because the alternative was literal hell in my world.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Piper