Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 73043 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 365(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73043 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 365(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
I liked pickles. Sue me.
“Janie,” Kayla whispered. “I think you need to get down to the command center…something’s happened.”
I got up, taking my pickle with me, and headed for the front door, not bothering to change.
“What’s going on?” I asked as I reached for the doorknob.
“There’s something going on with Rafe.”
And that was the last coherent thought I had for the next eight hours.
***
I rubbed my fingers along the space between my eyebrows and tried not to throw up.
“Daddy,” I pleaded. “His phone is about six miles downstream. I swear to God, he’s there.”
My father looked at me with pity-filled eyes.
“They’ve already swept that area, Janie. He’s not there.”
“He has to be there,” I replied stubbornly. “His phone would be in the water. It’s not in the water. It’s on the bank!”
“They’ve already done all the searching they’re going to do tonight,” he whispered so that only I could hear. “Baby, you need to calm down.”
No one, in the history of the world, has ever calmed down by being told to calm down.
Just sayin’.
“Fine,” I said through gritted teeth. “I’ll do it myself.”
I turned to leave, and my father caught my arm before I could so much as take a step away from him.
Then he went and did what fathers do and pulled me to the stairwell moments later, which worked for me because that’s where I wanted to go.
I didn’t, however, want to stop just outside the door.
“What the fuck?” he asked. “What’s your damn deal?”
“What’s my deal?” I semi-shrieked. “Rafe is missing, and none of you are doing a damn thing about it!”
“None of us…Janie, what the hell do you think you’re going to accomplish by going at night?” he said, his voice getting softer.
I hated it when his voice got softer. It made me realize that he actually cared. That maybe, just maybe, he was right.
I swallowed tears.
“I have to look for him. I have to find him,” I replied, my voice breaking. “I have—"
A commotion had my dad looking over his shoulder, and then he moved to pull the door of the stairwell open.
“Get a nurse!” a man bellowed. “Rafe! Rafe, look at me buddy.”
I started running before I’d consciously told my feet to start moving.
Then, I was skidding on my knees beside Rafe who was laying on the floor, looking deathly pale.
He was wet. His head was still bleeding, and when I pressed my hand to his face, I could feel his fever raging.
“Rafe,” I breathed, leaning forward.
His eyes opened a fraction of an inch, and I swallowed at the dark eyes that met my own.
“Rafe,” I repeated.
He blinked.
Then he smiled.
After that, his entire form went limp.
***
Nine and a half hours later
Rafe was better.
He wasn’t awake, but he was stable.
His fever was down, the swelling on the side of his face was decreasing, and his color was starting to return to normal.
I swallowed the bile that rose in my throat, again, as the doctor shook his head.
“Is he okay?” I asked the doctor.
“His pupils are reacting, which means that he’s responding. He’s likely not awake yet due to the trauma that he received from the concussion grenade,” the doctor explained. “Sometimes all the body needs is time to recover. Maybe he just needs the sleep.”
I kept my mouth shut, and only nodded my head. Afraid if I spoke that the wounded cry that I’d been keeping bottled the entire time I’d been here would fall from my lips.
“If he wakes, come find us.” Then he was gone just as fast as he’d arrived.
I looked from the door where the doctor had just disappeared to the man lying so still in the bed.
He looked wrong.
I’d never seen him so still.
It was disconcerting.
Normally Rafe was so full of life—his aura almost chokingly powerful.
Now…now he just felt so…gone.
I closed my eyes and dropped my head into my hands, blowing out a breath.
“Hurry up and wake up,” I breathed. “You’re scaring me.”
Just as I’d finished that sentence, the door to the hospital room opened, and a woman blew in.
She was tall, willowy, and beautiful. She had long brown hair, bright blue eyes, and an obvious way about her that practically screamed ‘I’ve got money!’
I, on the other hand, was on the shorter side of average. I had long blonde hair that rarely ever found its way out of a ponytail, hazel eyes that kind of looked like pond water, and a face that wasn’t much to look at.
This woman was everything I wasn’t.
Everything that I thought Rafe would go for.
And I’d seen her before.
This was pecan pie chick.
“Oh, Rafe!” she breathed as she caught sight of the man in the bed. “You poor thing! Daddy told me that you were in here, and I didn’t believe him. I just had to see for myself. Oh, gosh. Are you even awake?”