Chapter 51
FIFTY-ONE
CALLUM
- Present Day -
T he apartment is dark, the air stale when I step inside. My footsteps are quiet as I walk further into the room, but he must hear me anyway.
“Dammit! Cal – I need you!”
There’s a desperate note in his voice that immediately has me on edge.
Without a second thought, I sprint to the other side of the space to the open doorway and my heart stutters as I freeze in place.
Jonah’s holding onto Sutton, cradling her in his lap but her eyes are closed, face pale and clammy.
His hand is running over her hair as he whispers desperate words that I can’t hear, before looking up at me, that same desperate plea in his eyes.
“Something’s wrong. She’s sick. I’ve never seen her like this.
” The words come out in a jumbled rush, and I can barely decipher what he’s saying as I take in the scene before me.
Her faint, wheezing breaths, chest barely moving, skin clammy and pale, and an old memory, long-buried, hits me like a bolt of lightning.
With quick strides, I cross the room to the nightstand where the bottle sits innocuously on her bedside table, the label clearly visible in its lethal simplicity.
Heart dropping, I spare one last glance in her direction. How long has it been since she took the medicine? Was it just one dose? Oh god. I swallow before choking out “Call 911.”
To his credit, Jonah doesn’t ask questions, doesn’t hesitate even as I feel his gaze burning into my back.
Ripping open the top drawer, I shove aside the contents, barely registering the toys as I search desperately for the life saving medication that is clearly not there. “Where do you keep your medicine?”
He pauses mid-sentence, trying to explain her symptoms to the operator just long enough to tell me, “Bathroom cabinet, why?”
“Tell them she’s having an anaphylactic reaction to medication. She has a penicillin allergy.”
The words are thrown over my shoulder as I run into her bathroom in search of that golden lifeline.