I smooth my hand up and down her back. "You are, but I won't let go of you until the drugs are out of your system."
"What if… What if they take you away from me, though?" she whispers through a breathy sigh.
"I won't let them," I promise.
And I mean my words. I'll fight them off if I have to. I'll do everything I can to not let them touch her.
Silence settles in again, and I assume she's fallen asleep as her breath fans against the side of my neck.
"Finn," she says, startling me badly.
"Yeah, sweetheart," I reply, and I know she's in bad shape when she doesn't reprimand me for calling hersweetheart.
"Is my watch still on?" Her voice is so fragile it's starting to worry me.
I run my fingers down her arm until they land on her bare wrist. Then I check the other arm and feel a band on her wrist. "Yeah, why?"
"Because… River tracks me with it, so… we'll be found." She nuzzles closer to me.
"He tracks you?" I question. "And you're okay with that?"
"Well, I wasn't… At first… But then it saved me… so, it’s not so bad… River isn’t bad either…” Her voice fades away for a beat. “Either are you.”
I latch onto that as she falls asleep in my arms, hoping to god she’s right about the watch. If not, though, I’m ready to protect her no matter what I have to do.
CHAPTER 7
RIVER
I’m pacingthe hospital room, waiting to hear an update on Lily. After the car crashed, Noah and I carefully got her out of the flipped-over car as we waited for an ambulance to arrive. She had been passed out but had woken up, complaining of pain in her stomach.
I have only a few scrapes and bruises, and Noah had to get stitches on his cheek and arm from glass cutting him up. Other than that, though, the two of us are okay. But I have no fucking clue where Maddy and Finn are, and I’m about to lose my shit.
Noah had been awake when they were taken, but trapped. He said he saw a group of men drag Finn and Maddy into a van. He couldn’t tell if Will and his friends were behind their kidnapping, but my bet is they are.
I reported this to the officer on scene, and after we answered several questions, they left to start a search party. I informed the lead officer that I could track Maddy’s location on her watch. They had me hand over the information to them and my login info to the app that tracks her. When I tried to track her, she was on the move, probably because she was still in the van.
Noah and I followed the ambulance to the Royal City Hospital, which has heated lounge chairs in the waiting room,a massive flat-screen television, and a café that serves decent food. I’m guessing that if Maddy saw this, she’d comment on the difference between the Royal City Hospital and Northside’s Hospital. I’ve actually been to the one on northside, and it’s dingy, gross, and the waiting time is exhaustingly long.
“River Averson,” a doctor says as a woman steps out through a set of double doors.
She’s around forty or so with brown hair pulled back into a bun. She’s wearing a white coat over scrubs and is carrying a handheld.
I get up and walk over to her. Noah is still in a room getting stitched up, so it’s just me. I called my father, but his phone went straight to voicemail, and my mother is missing, so…
“Where are your parents?” the doctor asks, peering around the brightly lit waiting room.
“I can’t get a hold of them,” I tell her. “What’s my sister’s condition?”
She glances at the screen. “Your sister had to have an emergency appendectomy. We’re not sure if this problem occurred because of the accident or if we were able to find it because of that, but she is out of surgery, and everything went great. You should be able to see her in a few hours. Hopefully, your parents will be here by then because your father is the main policyholder on your insurance, so he needs to sign some papers.”
“He will be.” I hate that I’m not so certain that’s the truth.
I hate that I have to sit down and try to call him again.
I hate that I have to talk to him at all.
I hate him, and I hate that I do.
