I watch the leaves fluttering in the breeze, listen to the creak of Este’s steps on the porch, the slam of the cabin door. Was the grass always so comfortable? The burning pain fades into a thumping ache, and the ground feels pillowy.Please stay awake.It would be so nice to drift off, but I’m predisposed to do whatever Este asks me to do. I’m so tired, though. So fucking tired. And my eyelids are so heavy.
“Nico.”
I jolt, my eyes flying open. Shit. Este’s face is hovering right above mine, and relief floods it.
“Oh, thank god. Okay, we need to get you sitting up, and it’s going to suck. I’m sorry. I need to put this on the axe to keep it where it is…”
She rhymes off instructions, and I do as I’m told, unable to hold back my cries of pain. Her face is ghostly white, but I stare at her lips, not really processing the things she’s asking me to do. Soon, I’m sitting up, and she’s standing. She turns away, then back to me, holding her hands out for mine, with something dangling between her teeth.
I squint, my foggy brain taking a second to recognize the black and silver object. My Jeep keys.
“No.” I shake my head, and Este grabs my good arm just in time to stop me from keeling over.
“No?”
“No car.”
Disbelief and panic flare in her eyes. “Nico. That’s not an option.”
“No.” It’s less of a word than a sob.
She falls to her knees in front of me and clasps my face, tears filling her eyes. “I know you haven’t let anyone drive you since the accident, but I have to. You’re losing too much blood. I’m pretty sure the axe is at least a little bit in an artery, and, if I don’t get you to a hospital, you’re going to die.” Her voice breaks, and tears spill down her cheek.
I should be able to brush them away. I should be able to do this for her. “No car. ’M sorry,” I mumble, and Este’s body crumples forward, her shoulders shaking as she cries. I try to reach for her, but I can’t seem to figure out how to move my working arm. The best I can do is a whimper of something that sounds kind of like her name.
She looks up at me, and the pain in my arm is nothing compared to the anguish on her face. “Think about the boys, Nico. They won’t understand where you’ve gone. And my dad never got to see you again. Think about Shay. You can’t… You can’t leave her an only child. You two have only just started fixing things.” Shit. What is Shay feeling right now? Does she know I’m hurt? Will she feel it when?—
“Nico, please,” Este begs. She presses her forehead to mine, and all I want to do is wrap her up in my arms and liewith her. “Please don’t make me watch you die. I can’t do this. I won’t survive it. Please.”
She sounds completely and utterly broken. It’s familiar, like I felt stuck, face down in the ravine, listening to Shay scream, knowing there was nothing I could do to help her. Knowing there was nothing I could do to bring Georgie back.
That was the hardest part. Remembering how powerless I was.
Este only has to feel that way if I’m too much of a fucking coward to get in the car.
I draw in a breath that does nothing to fill my lungs.
“I’ll try.”
25
ESTE
Islam the brakes as I pull up outside Wintermore Community Hospital, my heart sinking at how small it is. But I don’t have any time to second-guess my decision to turn toward Wintermore when we made it down the mountain, instead of toward the highway. Nico is barely conscious.
Someone must have seen me pull up, because the second I open my door and jump down from the Jeep, several people rush out of the small building.
“Ma’am, are you?—”
“In the back seat. Please help.”
I step back as they jump into action, like they do this every day. Even though, I assume, in a town this small, they don’t. Someone takes the Jeep keys from me, and they get Nico on a stretcher in what feels like seconds. The lack of color in his face makes me want to throw up. At least the belt and scarf I used as a makeshift tourniquet and stabilizer survived the treacherous drive down the mountain.
How I got him to the car, let alone up into the Jeep, I have no idea. It’s all a blur.
I follow behind the stretcher as they rush him into the hospital. The reception area is smaller than Nico’s living room, with no other patients waiting.
“Quinn, can you get a history?” one of the doctors pushing the stretcher calls to a man standing by the reception desk, and then they disappear behind a set of double doors.
