It shatters in a burst of cold air and pain, and I stumble out through the opening, hitting the ground hard. Yanking the shirt from my face, I suck in a lungful of air. It burns going down, and my chest convulses, coughing until I taste blood.
People are shouting. Running toward me.
“Sir! Oxygen, now!” a medic says, grabbing hold of me and pressing a mask against my face.
I snarl, pushing him away. “Don’t fucking touch me.”
The world is spinning. I manage to crawl forward a little more, slumping back against the side of an ambulance, chest burning as I cough. Every breath hurts.
“I’ve got him,” a familiar voice says. Calm. He’s always so fucking calm, on the outside, when we’re not in the lab. “Viper? You with me, brother?”
I blink through the haze, willing my eyes to focus. “Hey, Doc.”
Then another coughing fit takes me, and I sink back into my dark place, closing my eyes and letting the world fade around me as the bookstore burns.
53
SYDNEY
I hate hospitals.The last time I was here at Fortune City Emergency and Critical Care, it was to watch my grandmother die. The time before that? My parents.
Every time I’m here, someone dies.
The waiting room chair digs into my back, no matter how I sit. It’s hopeless. It’s like these seats were designed to be deliberately uncomfortable. I slump forward instead, elbows on my knees.
Across the room, Alec and Seb are arguing, their voices pitched low. I can only catch fragments of their conversation:not safe anymore… the compound… our only choice…
I barely listen. Barely care, even though I know they’re talking about me.
The doctors are with Viper now, examining him. They said the main concern is smoke inhalation and some second-degree burns to his hands and arms, but I don’t trust it. Something is wrong, I can feel it. I just know it.
I’ve called Jade at least forty times in the few minutes it took to follow the ambulance over here, but she hasn’t answered. And Justin’s phone is going straight to voicemail.
I stare down at my phone, feeling broken, empty. Gone. Everything I’ve built, everything I sacrificed for. It’s all gone, burned down to ash.
How could this happen?
“She was probably gone for the day, right? It was already late,” Ash says from the seat next to mine, trying to sound reassuring. His hand settles on my back, his touch soothing and sweet.
“Maybe.” My voice sounds weak, disconnected from my body. “But I… I left her there with so much work. What if she was still in there?” I can’t shake the feeling that something is wrong. Jade never ignores my calls. Never.
Alec and Seb finally stop arguing and come join us. Neither one of them looks happy.
“Viper is positive there was no one inside the café,” Sebastian says, watching me a little too closely. “He swears she wasn’t there.”
But he had blood on his hands, I almost say.
And none of the doctors know why. Or where it came from.
“What if she’s hurt?” I ask, for what feels like the thousandth time.
“She could have been taken to another hospital,” Alec reasons, pulling out his phone. “I’ll have my assistant call around, check every medical center and urgent care in the city. If she was hurt, we’ll find her.”
I don’t answer. I dial her number again without offering a response.
It rings.
And rings.
