23. Leni
23
LENI
This has to be a nightmare. But I don’t think I’ve ever had a nightmare this vivid. One second, we were rolling down the street like normal, and the next, we were careening down the hill before Colt steered us into a tree. For a second, before the impact, when it was clear we were going to crash, I thought it was the end.
Then the airbag hit me, or I hit it. We hit each other.
I can’t keep up with what’s happening. Clawing the airbag away from my face, the first thing I see is crumpled metal and broken glass. Colt’s airbag deployed, too, and I’m surprised not to hear him cursing and groaning.
In fact, I don’t hear anything from him.
“Colt!” I turn to him, then gasp when I see him slumped over the wheel with the deflated airbag around him. “Oh, my god! Colt? Colt! Wake up!” I want to touch him, but I’m afraid to. What if he hurt his neck? Somewhere in the back of my mind, I remember hearing you’re not supposed to move someone with a neck injury.
“Oh, fuck.” Nix groans behind me, his voice deep and raspy, sort of thick, like he’s a little dazed. “Is he okay? Are you?”
Looking back at him, I gasp again at the blood running down the side of his face that isn’t scarred. “You’re cut!”
“I’ll live.” He leans over the seat to look at Colt, nudging him, but it’s no use. He touches his fingers to the side of Colt’s neck, and I hold my breath, frozen in fear.
“He should be fine,” Nix announces. “Just out cold. Probably hit his head. He might have a concussion.”
“Oh my god, he has to go to a hospital. We have to get to a hospital!” I’m panicking. I know I am. Some part of me that’s still capable of thinking knows that. Like I’m standing outside myself, witnessing all of this from a distance.
“And I need to get out of here,” Nix says, already opening his door.
“What? No! You need help, too!”
“I can’t go to the hospital for help. Remember?” Right. I’m not thinking clearly. He’s not even supposed to be alive.
“But what if you’re hurt worse than you know?”
“I’m not. I have a cut on the side of my head. I’m fine. I’m going back to my apartment to get cleaned up.”
We both go silent and still when a car pulls up on the other side of the road and comes to a stop. “Shit. I have to go, now,” he whispers. Before I know it, he’s out of the car and is making his way through the woods further ahead from where we crashed, out of sight by the time the driver of the other car reaches us.
“I called for an ambulance,” the guy says. “They’re on the way. We should get you out of the car—a fire could start.”
What if Colt can’t be moved, though? “My boyfriend. He’s unconscious. He might be hurt badly.”
“No, I don’t think so.”
A broken sob bursts out of me when I hear Colt’s voice.
“Oh my god,” I whimper, running a hand over the side of his face as he lifts his head from the steering wheel. “I was so scared. Be careful, Colt,” I tell him as he starts unbuckling his seatbelt. There’s smoke coming from under the hood, and the sight chills my blood.
“Nix?” Colt tries to turn his head to look into the back seat.
“Come on, pal. We’ve got to get you out of there.” The Good Samaritan opens the driver’s side door while I open mine and step out on legs that feel like they’re made of rubber. Where did Nix go? Peering into the dark woods, I can’t see him—he’s good at hiding, too.
Colt groans as he climbs out of the car. I force myself to stop looking for Nix in the shadows and round the car to wrap an arm around his waist, wedging my shoulder under his armpit. Can I bear his weight? Probably not, but I need to feel like I’m helping him somehow.
“He went to his apartment on foot,” I whisper, knowing Colt has to be worried. “He had a cut, but otherwise he seemed fine. He couldn’t come with us.”
Sirens wail in the distance, approaching fast. It’s unnerving knowing they’re for us.
“What about you?”
We stop on the other side of the street from where we crashed, and I have to bite back a whimper when I see the damage from this angle. The whole front is caved in—I’m surprised I could open my door so easily.
“What about me? I’ll probably be pretty sore later,” I admit, “but right now, I’m all right. I’ll probably feel better once you’re checked out, though.”
We sit together on the curb to wait for the ambulance, his head in my lap, and I stare at the wreck as the sirens get louder. “What happened?” I whisper, still shocked.
“The brakes went out. It was either hit that tree or end up in the lake.” He covers my hand with his, stopping me from stroking his hair. Increasing the pressure, he says, “Don’t say anything about the message you got today.”
At first, I don’t understand why he would say that. But then my brain catches up, and I get it. I hadn’t even thought about the message until just now, and my body goes cold. “Do you think…”
“Just don’t say anything about it,” he tells me again as the lights from the ambulance and police car paint his face red and blue.
Because if I mention it, they’ll want to know more, and it will lead them straight to Dennis and Deborah.
“They said I’m fine.” No matter how many times I remind Colt that I’m only a little banged up, he won’t stop worrying about me. “You’re the one who needs to take it easy.”
He’s about as far from taking it easy as can be, sitting up in bed with a tube in his arm, feeding him saline. “Why do they always do this?” he mutters, flicking the tube with one finger. “I don’t need to be hydrated. I just need to go home.”
“They think it’s better for you to stay here for the night, to keep an eye on you. You hit your head hard enough to knock you out.” And there’s a bruise on his forehead as a result. It’s starting to swell, too. “You got lucky.”
“Oh, yeah,” he mutters. “I feel very lucky. Trapped in bed.”
“It will make me feel better to know you’re all right. Unless you would rather me sit up all night watching you sleep at home.”
Some of the frustration etched across his face softens, and he sighs. “Like you won’t sit up here, anyway. Though I wish you wouldn’t.”
“Yeah, too bad.” I try to laugh, I do, but I know it comes out sounding weird and hollow. When he gives me a concerned look, I try to shrug it off. “I guess I’m kind of shaken up still.”
That’s only a tiny part of the story. It’s been hours since the crash. Where is Nix? What happened to him?
It’s like I’m being pulled in half. One part of me wants to stay with Colt to make sure he’s okay and support him through this. The other half wants to get out of here so I can look for Nix. What if he was actually hurt out there? He could’ve had injuries he didn’t feel yet—adrenaline will do that. I didn’t feel anything at first, but now that time has passed, my neck is a little sore, and my shoulders ache. Nothing serious, nothing that would land me in a bed like Colt, but enough to make me wonder how much worse it could have been for Nix.
“He can take care of himself.” Colt’s voice is a whisper, barely audible as he voices the concern I couldn’t say. He settles back against a pillow with a sigh that tells me he might not be feeling as well as he wants me to believe. “He made it after the fire, right? He’ll be okay now, too.”
“But what if he isn’t?” I perch on the side of the bed, keeping my voice low like he does. We don’t need anybody accidentally overhearing us. “He could be wandering around with a head wound that’s getting worse without him knowing about it.”
“That sounds pretty dramatic.”
“I’m not kidding.” I know why he’s trying to make a joke about it. He wants to make me feel better. It’s not that he doesn’t care.
A funny look comes over his face as his eyes search mine. “You’re really worried about him, aren’t you?”
“Why shouldn’t I be?”
There’s a knock at the door before a cheerful young nurse walks in. “Just coming to check on vitals. How are you feeling, Mr. Alistair?”
“You can call me Colt,” he murmurs. “And I guess I’m all right.”
“You got lucky, from what I’ve heard.”
“I don’t feel so lucky right now. Are you sure I need to stay?”
“I don’t make the rules, but I’m pretty sure it’s for the best that you do.” He grumbles quietly while she takes his blood pressure, and I go to the window to look out into the darkness. Well, we were on our way to the hospital, weren’t we? We ended up here eventually.
Where are you? I hate the idea of Nix being alone out there somewhere. Sure, he took care of himself all these months on his own, hiding, but that doesn’t mean I want him to have to do it again. I don’t want him to be alone.
Is there something wrong with me? Why should I care the way I do? He killed Mom. He hurt me. I should hate him.
But what I really want to do now that I know Colt will be okay is leave this hospital and find his brother. It’s torture, not knowing, having to imagine. He did seem strong, though, didn’t he? He wasn’t dazed or anything. He knew exactly what he was doing. I need to cling to the hope that he didn’t somehow deteriorate once the adrenaline wore off.
“Okay, you’re all set.” I turn when the nurse finishes her work. She gives me an appraising look. “Are you planning on staying the night?” she asks with sympathy in her voice.
“Can I? I didn’t know if that was possible. I would like to.”
“You don’t have to do that,” Colt tells me, but the nurse just smiles and shakes her head a little.
“Men are so stubborn, aren’t they?” she asks me, and we share a soft laugh. Pointing to a vinyl-covered sofa under the window, she explains, “That opens into a bed, and there are sheets and pillows in the closet. Just in case you want to get comfortable.”
“Thank you so much.” It’s good to know I have the option. Right now, I can’t imagine going home alone, where I can sit and worry for Nix, for Colt, for me. Why did the brakes fail? Who did this? Deborah and Dennis are dead.
Now that we’re alone again, I sit down with Colt and take his hand. “I was so scared when you were just sitting there, unconscious,” I whisper. The memory is an icy fist that closes around my heart and squeezes tight enough to take my breath away.
“That’s all over now. I’m okay. A concussion. It’s nothing.”
Funny, but it doesn’t make me feel any better. “It could’ve been a lot worse.”
“Don’t start spiraling. It’s not going to make you feel any better.”
Too late. “Come on. Like I’m supposed to think this is all a big coincidence? We both know it’s not. Since when do brakes fail out of nowhere?”
His nostrils flare when he takes a deep breath, which he releases slowly. It is killing me to see him like this—there’s plenty of strength in his voice and anger in his eyes, but he’s lying in bed wearing a hospital gown. That sort of takes the edge off. Not that I would ever call him weak, but he’s about as close to it as I’ve ever seen him. “We will get to the bottom of it one way or another. If somebody is responsible for this, they’re going to pay.”
The machine next to him that’s been monitoring his heart rate starts beeping faster. “Okay, let’s not talk about it right now,” I decide, glancing up at the display. “All we need is somebody running in here thinking you’re having a cardiac incident, or whatever it’s called.”
“Then you definitely shouldn’t kiss me, because that will make my heart race too fast.”
“I don’t know. Maybe we could take our chances.” With a careful lean over in his direction, our mouths touch, and I know it’s exactly what I needed. I was terrified back there for that one horrifying moment when I didn’t know if he was dead or alive. This feels like a gift.
It’s such a shame there’s still something inside me holding me back from being fully present. And he knows it. There’s disappointment in his eyes when I pull back. “You’re still thinking about him,” he says in a soft voice.
For one second, I consider pretending I don’t know who he’s talking about. That would get me nowhere. So instead, I lift a shoulder, fighting for the right thing to say. “I mean, it would be nice if he would reach out to let us know he’s all right. I’d feel a lot better if he did that.”
But when will he? Maybe he never will. It’s a good thing there aren’t any sensors on my chest, because they’d be going crazy by now. I feel like my heart is going to burst.
“You better be careful,” he says, his eyes narrowing as they search my face. “I might wonder whether you love him.”
It’s like I just dropped over the edge of the first hill on a roller coaster, and my stomach plummeted along with me. “No. I don’t. Is that what you think?”
“Relax. I’m not accusing you of anything.”
No, but it’s pretty obvious the comment didn’t come out of nowhere. “Is this something you’ve been thinking about? Have I done something to make you doubt me?”
“You’re getting me all wrong. I’m not accusing you of anything. It’s all right if you love him. I would understand.”
“But I don’t!” And I don’t like the direction this conversation has gone. It makes me feel antsy and uncomfortable, like I can’t sit still. “I’m concerned. He’s your brother. Of course, I care.”
He only snorts softly, then lets out a deep sigh. “Fine, have it your way. I’m exhausted. We can argue about this later.”
I don’t want to argue. I want him to believe me, dammit. It’s obvious he doesn’t—and it’s obvious I’m all messed up about it. Where is this coming from?
While Colt closes his eyes, I return to the window like staring into a dark night will help anything. Maybe I’ll make up the couch later. Right now, I want to sit up and keep an eye on him. Besides, I doubt I’d get a minute of sleep with a war going on in my head. Do I love Nix? I mean, I guess there wouldn’t be anything wrong with that.
But am I in love with him? Big difference. I can’t be—not only because I’m already in love with Colt. I can’t be in love with both of them at the same time. It’s like when they’re together, they unlock something inside each other that always exists, but they somehow manage to suppress on their own—at least most of the time.
When they’re together, there’s no hope of fighting what’s inside them. And they always end up taking it out on me. That is the last thing I should want to be around, right? I should protect myself from them.
So why do I still want to see Nix walk through that door right this very minute? Why am I a little twisted up inside, imagining him in pain, maybe even in danger?
Instead of setting up the pull-out like the nurse suggested, I pull a blanket from the closet and curl up in the chair next to the bed. I would rather keep watch over Colt, anyway.
And it’s not like I have any chance of falling asleep with Nix out there somewhere, all alone.