Chapter 2
NOAH
Water surrounded me, crushing me, suffocating me. There was no way out. No matter how hard I swam for the surface, there was nothing but darkness and water, my lungs burning with the desperate need for air and then—-
I inhaled. Water rushed into my lungs, and all I knew was agony.
Whoever said drowning was a peaceful way to die had clearly never tried it. Drowning fucking hurt, but it was almost worse to be resuscitated.
And yet somehow…somehow…I was still alive?
Confused and foggy, I drew a slow breath and recognized that I could actually breathe.
My lungs were working, drawing in air, not water, and the pain was blissfully gone.
Dimly I acknowledged the slightly numb sensation of medication, meaning my pain was merely masked, but it didn’t change the fact that I was alive.
Cracking my eyelids, I let the light slowly filter in and waited for my vision to focus. I was in a hospital bed. This was familiar, but how I got here was a mystery.
Movement beside my bed alerted me to the fact I wasn’t alone in the room, and I carefully turned my face to see who it was. Jared or Miles were my best guesses, maybe even Mom if she’d been called. But I was wrong.
“Tor?” I mumbled with confusion, making his head snap up from the sketch pad in his lap like he’d been electrocuted.
“Noah! You’re awake!” He hastily tossed his sketchbook and pencil onto my bed and reached for the nurse call button, pressing it hard before I could get any words out—-not that I could have managed much more than that little croak while my throat burned.
“Hang on. Don’t talk. The nurse will be here in a minute. Just rest, okay?”
What the fuck happened to me?
My eyelids were heavy and my head fuzzy with confusion, so I didn’t protest, instead letting my eyes close again as Torin took my hand in his and rubbed my knuckles with his thumbs.
“Stay with me, Short Stack. You’re going to be okay,” he murmured with an edge of fear in his voice. Why was he so worried? Had I nearly died again? I was in a hospital. Nearly dying was becoming a habit I needed to break sooner rather than later.
As promised, a nurse arrived just a minute later, and Torin hurriedly told her I’d woken up. I cracked my eyelids open again to support his story.
The woman gave me a warm smile as she moved closer, shooing Torin out of the way so she could check all my vitals.
“Hi there, sleepyhead,” she said gently as she pressed some buttons on the monitor beside my bed. “You gave everyone quite the scare. Your throat might be a little sore from intubation, but can you tell me your name?”
“Noah,” I whispered, my voice rough.
The nurse nodded, smiling encouragingly before turning to Torin. “Can you fetch Noah some ice chips, hon? And you should probably let her manager know that she’s awake, if you could make that call?”
Torin gave me a torn look, then jerked a nod. “Okay, yeah. I’ll be right back, Noah.”
The nurse didn’t wait for him to leave as she started running through the standardized cognitive questions with me, which I was already familiar with since my last drowning.
I remained patient and tried to whisper my answers to the best of my ability, but some things were hazy.
Like what day it was or how I’d ended up in hospital.
It was all a blur but I knew it involved Ace.
“Okay, that’s enough,” the nurse, Alice, said with a comforting squeeze of my forearm.
“It’s really positive that you’re awake, Noah, but you also need to rest more.
I’m going to let your friends know that you need some quiet, if that’s okay?
And if you’re comfortable with me communicating your progress to Jared? ”
“Yes, of course,” I agreed in a husky whisper, nodding. My manager was listed as my emergency contact on just about everything, for a whole host of reasons, and it was comforting to know he must have taken charge of my medical decisions while I was unconscious.
Alice dimmed my lights and drew the blinds to darken my room, then left with the promise of food soon. Which, now that she mentioned it, I was starving for.
In the silence of the room, I let my eyes drift shut once more. I was tired but apparently almost dying really took its toll on the body. Alice had told me enough to understand I’d drowned. Again.
Fuck. The crazy Ace--obsessed fan! That was how I ended up in hospital! That psychotic fuck nearly killed Ace, and me…and all because…because…
“Shit!” I gasped out loud, my eyes snapping open once more. Something shifted on the edge of my bed, and I glanced down to find Torin’s sketchbook still lying there forgotten. Wetting my lips, I picked it up and turned it over to see what he’d been working on.
Me.
He’d been drawing me. But not me as he knew me. Sure, the sleeping person on his sketch page had my features but with some deliberate differences. Her hair cascaded over the pillow and down to her elbows, and my brain clicked with the realization of what Alice had said to him.
Let her manager know that she’s awake. And Tor hadn’t flinched at that pronoun usage in the slightest because it wasn’t news for him.
So that was it, then. My secret was out.
Of course it was. That asshole had been live streaming to my entire platform. How much had been streamed before the platform shut it down for inappropriate content?
Christ. Fuck, where was Ace? Was he dead? No, surely he was okay. I’d cut his zip ties before panicking fully and inhaling the pool water, so he would have been okay, right? I needed to know.
The door closed with a harsh thunk, making me flinch as I met Torin’s warm gaze. He wasn’t wearing colored contacts today, and the depth of his natural eye color was alarming even across the room.
“Ace,” I croaked with tears burning at the backs of my eyeballs. “Where’s Ace?”
“He’s fine,” Torin answered quickly, crossing to the side of my bed once more and sinking into the chair there. “He got discharged two days ago. Concussion and a couple dozen stitches, but otherwise he’s fine.”
The relief hit me so hard I started crying. Then Torin leaned in and hugged me tight, holding me close in his warm, earthy embrace, and I cried even harder. Ace was alive and that was great, but the wider implications of everything that’d happened on that ClikByte live stream hurt my soul.
“Hey, Short Stack, why are we crying?” he asked in a slightly panicked voice. “I thought you’d be relieved by that news. You basically killed yourself to save him, after all. Wouldn’t it be a terrible disappointment if he’d died after all that effort?”
That made me laugh through my tears because he had a valid point. “I nearly died again?”
He loosened his hold enough to cup my face in his hand and meet my watery gaze. “Yeah. We nearly lost you, Noah. You’ve been unconscious more than a week.”
“Well, shit. That can’t be good for my brain.”
Torin snorted a laugh, shaking his head. “Probably not. So why are we crying?”
I sniffled, more tears leaking from my eyes. There were so many reasons for me to be crying, but right now I was most upset about one thing. “I’m going to miss you guys,” I admitted in a small voice, ducking away from his far too intuitive gaze.
Torin still had my face in his big palm, and his thumb tilted it up until I met his eyes once more. “I don’t understand. Where are you going?”
I shrugged awkwardly. “Home, I guess? It’s over, isn’t it? Everyone knows, and I’ve probably become the most hated profile on ClikByte by now. Somehow I don’t see Ace letting me stay, all things considered.”
“Ah, I see.” Torin released my face and shifted to sit more comfortably on the edge of my bed, giving me some space to breathe. “Well, you’re wrong about that. No one knows, Noah. Your secret is still safe for now.”
I blinked at him, confused as hell. Then I reached down and picked up his sketchbook to demonstrate what I was talking about, and he winced.
“Okay, yes…I know. But I only know because I was literally giving you CPR while Skye info--dumped all your details to the paramedics.” His brow dipped with seriousness, and I rubbed at the ache in my chest with the heel of my hand.
“But that guy was live streaming, wasn’t he? He was using my profile to get maximum views and—-”
“And there was no sound.” Torin cut me off with a lopsided smile. “When Seventeen Daggers started playing, the audio was removed for copyright violation.”
My jaw dropped in shock, my brain trying to cycle through the dark memories of the whole ordeal.
Then I started laughing when I realized what Torin was talking about.
Z’s dad was fanatic about suing for copyright violation and had had multiple legal fights with ClikByte in the past for using his band’s music.
No doubt they had automated systems in place to detect the music and remove audio to avoid lawsuits.
That song had started playing right before our attacker outed me as me.
“Holy shit,” I spluttered on a laugh, “saved by Zeth Senior. But Ace…”
Torin grimaced. “If he knows anything, he’s not talking about it. He had a pretty severe concussion when they brought him in, so maybe you’re in the clear?”
Shock held me silent as I tried to run that scenario through my mind. Ace had been conscious when I confessed; I’d seen the hurt and bewilderment in his expression. I could never forget that stricken look of pure betrayal in his ice--blue eyes before I’d chickened out and dipped my gaze away.
I swallowed hard, not wanting to get my hopes up. Even if Ace didn’t remember, I would have to tell him, because despite everything that’d happened with our attacker, I couldn’t ignore the sharp relief I’d felt in confessing the truth to him.
This secret was eating away at me, and it would only get worse if it continued.
“How did that guy even get into the house? Where was the security?” It shouldn’t have been possible. I think that was why Ace and I had been caught unaware, because we thought we were safe within Mount Olympus.