48. Cole
COLE
Iwake up fighting. At least, I think I do. My body feels like it’s trapped under a layer of concrete, every movement sluggish and wrong. Something tugs at my hand. Something beeps steadily nearby. For a few seconds, I don’t know where I am.
Forcing my eyes open, I blink hard. The ceiling is white. Too white. The lights are dim, yet still too bright. The air smells clean and chemical, sterile, and that’s when the realization crashes into me.
Hospital.
My stomach twists and I jerk upright too fast, immediately regretting it. Pain ignites through my skull and the world around me swims before finally settling into focus, hazy and pixelated.
“Cole.”
A hand grabs my shoulder, soft and gentle, tentative.
“Clara?” I croak out, my voice hoarse and almost lost.
I blink again, disappointment unfurling in my gut when I realize the hand doesn’t belong to Clara. Bailey stands beside the bed looking both exhausted and worried. Too worried.
“What… what happened?” My throat is like gravel.
She doesn’t answer. And I know this woman. I’ve known her almost my whole damn life, and I know that when Bailey Lester ain’t talkin’, somethin’ is wrong.
“You got… bucked off,” she finally says, carefully.
“No shit,” I deadpan.
She lets out a trembling breath. “Concussion. A… bad one.”
I close my eyes. Of course. Another one. The headache alone could’ve told me that.
Thinking back as far as my foggy mind will allow, I remember the ride.
I remember the gate snapping open. I remember Rough Rider immediately showing me who’s boss.
I remember thinking about Clara instead of anticipating the bull’s movements, before suddenly the dirt was rushing toward me. Then I remember nothing.
Fuck. Clara. “Where is she?”
The silence that follows is instant and deafening. My heartbeat pounds against my ears.
“Bailey, where’s Clara?” I grit out.
Bailey looks down, avoiding my eyes and my question, and something settles heavy in my stomach like a brick.
“Cole, you need to take it easy,” she says, tears shimmering in her eyes.
Her words hit me like gasoline on a fire. “Don’t fuckin’ tell me to take it easy, Bailey.”
“Cole—”
“Where is she?” I slam a hand onto the mattress.
“I tried calling her but she didn’t—” Bailey looks down again and suddenly every worst-case scenario I can imagine comes crashing over me. “She’s not here, Cole. Mama Joy went by the cabin and… it looks like she… she left.”
I nod slowly. She decided she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t support me killin’ myself. She walked away. I knew it. Deep down, I knew she would.
Anger surges through me hot and sharp, and protective because anger hurts less than whatever’s hiding underneath it.
“She’s gone,” I say more to myself.
“Maybe she—”
My chest tightens. “She’s gone,” I say again, firmer.
The monitor besides the bed beeps faster. Bailey notices and I see a flash of concern flicker across her face. The kind of concern people possess when they know something, when they know the truth.
The doctor said something. Told her. Warned her. The concussion. The confusion. The anger. I know exactly what’s happening and I fuckin’ hate it.
“I’ll… I’ll get the doctor,” Bailey says.
“I don’t need the fuckin’ doctor. I just… I need my girl.” I throw my head back, squeezing my eyes closed.
“Cole, you can’t let yourself get worked up like this.” Bailey touches my hand.
The panic that blooms in my chest is almost too much. Something is wrong. Clara wouldn’t just leave. Not without talking to me. She wouldn’t—
“I’m getting the doctor.”
“Bailey, no. I swear to fuckin’ God—”
“I’ll be right back.” She ignores me and hurries out of the room, leaving me.
“Fuck,” I mutter, pushing my hair back from my face.
But then the second she’s gone, I swing my legs over the side of the bed. The room spins violently, and I grip the mattress until it settles enough for me to see straight. My head feels like it’s splitting apart but I don’t care.
The wires attached to me pull tight and I look down.
Heart monitor, pulse ox, IV line. For a second, common sense warns me to stay put, to wait for answers, to listen to the fuckin’ doctors because as much as I hate whatever it is they’re bound to tell me, they do know best. But then every instinct inside of me screams the same thing.
Find her. Before it’s too late. Before she’s gone for good.
I rip the leads off me. The adhesive tape tears at the hairs on my skin. Pain shoots through my hand when I rip the IV out, an alarm shrieking from somewhere nearby. Good. Let it.
I stumble toward the chair in the corner where my clothes are folded. Jeans, boots, shirt, hat. Getting dressed feels like playing Twister drunk. My limbs barely work and my balance is shot to hell. I nearly fall twice but eventually I’m fully clothed.
The alarm outside is louder now and I hear the sound of voices approaching, feet hitting the linoleum.
I pull open the door, relieved to find the hallway beyond is empty, for the moment at least. I slip out and the movement again sends another wave of dizziness through me.
I steady myself against the wall, taking a breath.
Everything fuckin’ hurts. My head, my neck, my ribs, everything.
But none of it matters. Because with every step, one thought keeps repeating itself in my head.
Where are you, Clara?
The hospital stretches endlessly ahead. Nurses’ stations, waiting rooms, elevators, people moving through the halls.
But nobody stops me. Not yet. And as I stagger toward the door to the stairwell, heart hammering, dread growing heavier with every step, I know one thing with absolute certainty: I don’t care if it fuckin’ kills me, I will find my girl.
My phone is going off from the passenger seat, Siri’s robotic voice coming through every few minutes, interrupting the music playing through the speakers to alert me of a new phone call.
Bailey Bay calling.
You have new voice messages.
Wyatt calling.
You have sixteen new text messages.
Brady calling.
Austin calling.
I ignore every fucking one of them as I drive the road from Sunshine to Summer, but then Siri comes through and I almost veer right off the road.
Clara calling.
“Clara?” I almost scream the second I press the answer call icon on my steering wheel. “Baby, where you at?”
Rustling comes through the speakers, static and crackly, and the tires skid as I pull off to the shoulder, gravel and dirt clouding up all around me. Grabbing my phone, I switch to the device. “Clara?”
My heart hammers in the back of my throat as I listen. A whisper. A distant shout. A faraway scream. More rustling. What the fuck is going on?
“Billie?” I try, keeping my voice soft, tentative, holding my goddamn breath.
“Daddy’s here,” is all I receive in response, Billie’s voice trembling and barely a whisper.
All the blood drains from my face as I stare out at the dark stretch of highway in front of me.
“Where are you, baby?”
A squeaky sob follows my question. “Your house.”
I shift the truck into gear and slam my foot down on the gas, the tires spinning in the rocks before lurching forward.
“I’m ten minutes away,” I tell her. “Where’s your mama?”
Billie cries. “I don’t know.”
Fuck. “Where’s your brother?”
“He’s hurt. He… he won’t wake up.”
I scrub a hand down my face, glancing at the speedometer. I’m pushing eighty and still willing this goddamn truck to go faster.
“I need you to hide, baby,” I tell Billie. “Can you do that for me?”
“I’m in the bushes.”
“That’s a good girl.” I clear the emotion from my throat. “I promise you I’m on my way. I’ll be there so soon, but I want you to get off the phone and stay super quiet, okay? Can you do that for me, sweetie?”
“Yes,” Billie squeaks, her word shuddering with obvious fear.
My heart fucking cracks. “I love you, baby girl.”
“Love you.”
I hate that the first time I’m telling her that I love her is now. In this situation. But I do love Billie. And Tommy. Like they’re my own. And fucked if I’m about to have ’em taken from me.