“Idiots!Fuckingidiots!” I didn’t wait for their replies as I stormed toward the back where his bike had been parked. If he’d left, I’d kill them all. If he’d managed to slip away, I would never forgive myself or them for leaving it unattended.
Turning around the corner of the building, I spotted Thorne’s bike. He straddled it, fumbling with his keys as if they were some complex puzzle. With shaking legs, he swayed to the side slightly, barely able to keep himself upright let alone on a fucking motorcycle.
God, what had that man given him?
I stepped up to the bike, wasting no time as I snatched the keys from him. He had no strength to fight me; the drugs and liquor coursing through his system removing it all.
“G-Give… Them back,” he groaned, flattening his palm as if I’d merely pass them off. “Keys. Give them.”
Shoving them into my pocket, I folded my arms over my chest. “No.”
Somehow coherent enough to place his kickstand, he got off his bike, his height devouring me. “I told you... to stay. Stay away.”
“And you’ve told me I’m a stubborn asshole, that I’mmaddening. We can argue later, but we need to get you home.”
“Home?” he laughed, the question slurred. “Home is wherever you don’t… wherever you aren’t.”
I swallowed the retort I wanted to say, because it wouldn’t make a difference. He was hurting, alone, and swallowed by the poisons in his body. “Then let’s get you somewhere safe,” I said, reaching to grab his hand.
He side-stepped me, his feet tangling together as he shook his head. “There is no safe. You—Youtook it away. So get the fuck away. I don’t want… I don’tneedyou anymore. I’m perfectly…” Shifting, he stumbled slightly, the abrupt movement far too much for his polluted mind to handle.
I tried to steady him, pressing my palms against his chest to keep him from tipping over, but his body weight was growing as he succumbed to the ailments of the evening. “I-I know. I know you don’t need me anymore, or want me, but I need to make sure you’re safe. I want… I want to make sure you get somewhere safe, even if it’s away from me.” The words stung, but Ineededhim to understand I was only here to help him.
“You’ve never… never cared,” he mumbled, the words weaving together as his body sank deeper into me. “That’s why… that’s why?—”
A grunt left me at the increasing weight, my arms attempting to hold him upright. “Thorne? Hey… Hey, you need to try to stand. I can’t…” God, was I so fucking weak I couldn’t even keep him up?
I waited for pushback, for rebuttal, but that wasn’t what left him. No. It was an influx of panic, of realization, something I wasn’t ready for. “I-I can’t… I can’t feel… I can’t… No. No. No… N-Not again…”
“Hey, Thorne… Thorne, what’s wrong? Baby, what’s wrong?” The agony of his cries, the shift in his expression, and the realization in his honeyed eyes increased the pace of my words.
“Fuck, there you both are,” Matt said, his timing perfect as he slid an arm around Thorne’s back. The weight pressing against me instantly lifted as he shouldered him with ease. With one quick glance, his expression changed. “Thorne, hey… You’re not in that place.”
“P-Please, I can’t… I-I…” Thorne’s lids fluttered with an unseen onslaught; his breathing was the furthest thing from relaxed.
He was panicking.
“Fuck.” Matt lifted Thorne completely, tilting his head toward me. “We need to go, but Oren, you keep talking him out of the depths.”
“Out of the depths?”
“I’ll explain in detail later, but this isn’t the first encounter he’s had with being drugged. Your father used it often as a manipulation tactic.”
My father… drugged him?
The confession made me want him dead even more. This mission… It had to run perfectly to take him down, tofinallyeradicate the stain of his life on ours.
As Matt walked around the building, I kept a slow jog next to them, my eyes fixated on Thorne’s, that panic encroaching faster. “You’re okay, baby. You’re okay. You’re not going to be hurt, and you’re not going to him. We’re going somewhere safe.” I wasn’t sure if my words were helping, but I wouldn’t let him feel alone. Not anymore, and especially not in a state as vulnerable as this.
“I-I can’t feel my…” A broken whimper tumbled from him as he battled his own consciousness. “M-My body… My—My—My…”
“You’re okay,” I whispered, my gaze locked to him. It would stay that way until he passed out. “I know it’s scary, but I’ll be right here. Right here through it all,” I said, hoping my reassurance reached him.
“B-But you…” His focus left me, only to briefly return. “You… B-Betrayed me… You chose your f-father…” Each word weakened between fractured breaths, his lids slowly closing as his forehead lulled to rest against Matt’s chest.
“Go grab Simon and Liam while I get him situated in the car.”
I stared at Thorne, torn between the command and remaining beside him in such a withered state.
