Chapter 3

At ten that morning, I went to the private club Cole frequented to pick up my laptop.

I'd left in such a hurry the night before that my laptop was left in his car. Kyle had told me he'd already dropped the laptop off at the club and that I could come get it myself.

When I arrived, Yvonne was sitting cross-legged on the couch, playing cards with Kyle. The moment she saw me, she tossed her hand onto the table.

"Well, look who's back. The Prank Endurance Queen returns. I thought you were actually leaving."

I ignored her.

"I'm here for my laptop."

Kyle pointed at a glass of sparkling water on the table.

"Same rule as always. Drink it first, then you can take it."

I turned around to leave, but Cole came out from the back room.

"Quinn!"

Yvonne immediately started teasing him.

"Seriously, Cole? You still haven't managed to smooth things over?"

She grabbed the glass, took a long drink herself, then filled it again and shoved it toward me.

"See? It's not poisoned. Finish this, and we can all put last night behind us."

I stared at the glass without reaching for it.

"What did you put in it this time?"

Yvonne burst out laughing.

"Well, damn. You finally learned."

Kyle already had his phone out.

Yvonne slapped her thigh excitedly.

"Quick, start the timer! I've got eight minutes before she starts looking for her meds."

The faint smell of seafood hit me, and all the color drained from my face.

"Is there shrimp in this?"

That only made Yvonne laugh harder.

"Just a little shrimp paste around the rim. Didn't you say last time that you could tell even from the smell? I wanted to see if that was actually true.

"Cole's betting you'll last five minutes."

My whole body went cold.

"Yvonne, I have a severe shellfish allergy."

She answered as though that made no difference at all.

"I know. Cole has your emergency injector, doesn't he?

"If you actually start feeling sick, he'll give it to you."

My chest was already beginning to tighten.

I hurriedly searched through my bag, but the backup injector I always carried was gone.

When I looked up again, Cole was holding it between his fingers.

I rushed toward him.

"Give it to me!"

He pushed me back and glanced down at the timer.

"Twenty more seconds."

My breathing was getting faster and shallower.

"Cole, I really can't breathe..."

He was still smiling.

"Didn't the doctor say you'd have some warning before it got really serious?"

I lunged for the injector again just as Yvonne stepped between us.

I shoved her out of the way. She stumbled backward into the edge of the table, knocking a glass to the floor.

It shattered with a sharp crack, and one of the pieces sliced across the back of her hand.

Yvonne's face went white.

"Fuck! My hand!"

The smile vanished from Cole's face instantly.

He shoved me aside without thinking, and my lower back slammed into the coffee table hard enough to make my vision go black for a second.

Yvonne stared down at the blood welling from the cut, sucking in sharp breaths through her teeth.

"No, this is actually deep. Fuck, it hurts."

The room erupted into chaos.

Someone grabbed tissues. Someone else started digging through the first-aid kit, while another person called around to ask which hospital was closest.

I was on my knees only a few feet away, my throat tightening as though an invisible hand had closed around it.

Every breath sent pain through my chest.

All I could do was crawl toward Cole.

My fingers finally caught the hem of his pants, and tears spilled down my face before I could stop them.

"My medicine..."

Cole finally realized something was wrong and immediately crouched beside me.

"It's really this bad?"

By then, I couldn't answer him.

The last thing I felt before everything faded was the emergency injector finally pressing into my thigh.

When I woke again, I was lying in the ER while a nurse changed my IV bag.

"If you'd gotten here much later, this could have been very dangerous," she said. "With an allergy this severe, why would anyone think this was something to joke about?"

I tried to answer, but my throat hurt too much to make a sound.

A moment later, my phone buzzed.

Yvonne had posted an update.

The back of her hand had needed a few stitches, and in the photo, Cole was standing beside her, picking up her medication.

Her caption read:

[What a fucking day.]

The comments underneath were already piling up.

[Quinn did that?]

[Endurance Queen's got quite the temper today.]

[Maybe no more shrimp next time. That one almost went really wrong.]

The words on the screen slowly blurred together as pressure built in my chest again.

I'd nearly died from an allergic reaction right in front of them.

Yvonne had gotten one cut on her hand, and everyone had rushed to her side without a second thought.

Cole included.

So that was how little my life mattered to him.

Apparently, even a cut on Yvonne's hand was worth more.

My tears fell onto the screen one after another.

I lifted a hand to wipe them away, but no matter how many times I tried, I couldn't clear them fast enough.