Chapter 3

The torrential downpour battered the city all night.

Early the next morning, as Cole was grabbing his keys to head out the door, my phone buzzed with a call from the nursing home.

The nurse’s voice was fast and urgent, telling me my grandmother had gone into severe heart failure. She needed to be transferred to the hospital for emergency surgery immediately, and a family member had to arrive within the hour to sign the consent forms.

All rideshare apps were down due to flooding, and the transit lines were on the verge of shutting down.

I grabbed Cole by the cuff of his sleeve.

"Please, drive me to the care facility," I begged, "I’m begging you."

His expression softened slightly.

"Get in the car."

For the first time in two days, he hadn't mentioned Zoey.

As the SUV merged onto the highway, rain slammed against the windshield in relentless sheets. Even with the wipers blaring at full speed, the road ahead was barely a blur.

I clutched my phone in my hand, my knuckles white.

Cole glanced over at me and flipped on the heater.

"Don't worry," he said softly, "We'll make it in time."

Those few simple words almost broke me.

Seven years ago, when my grandmother was hospitalized for the first time, he was the one sitting beside me outside the ICU all night. Back then, he was just a broke college kid who couldn't afford a plane ticket, so he rode a seventeen-hour train with me, sitting on a hard bench the entire way.

I had sobbed against his shoulder.

Back then, he held me tight and whispered, "From now on, whatever happens to your family happens to me."

Suddenly, his ringtone shattered the temporary quiet in the car.

Zoey’s voice came through the speakers, broken by desperate gasps.

"Cole, the power blew out at my apartment! A transformer exploded outside, and the whole building went pitch black. I’m completely alone... I can barely breathe..."

Cole’s grip tightened around the steering wheel.

The exit ramp was coming up right ahead. He began to slow down.

"Don't take the exit," I said, putting my hand over his arm, "The nursing home gave me one hour."

"I'll just grab her real quick and then drop you off."

"Detouring to her place will take at least forty minutes!"

Cole’s jaw clenched tight. "Zoey gets severe claustrophobia. Leaving her trapped in the dark like that could trigger a panic attack."

"My grandmother is in critical condition!"

"She’s at a facility with doctors," he said coldly as he swung the SUV onto the right-hand exit ramp.

As the vents blew warm air into the cabin, a sharp, overpowering scent suddenly filled my nose—an aloe vera car freshener. Zoey must have left it in his car yesterday.

It contained high concentrations of concentrated aloe extract, something I was severely allergic to. Two years ago, I ended up in the emergency room because of it, and Zoey had been standing right there when the doctors warned us.

My throat constricted almost instantly.

I reached out to shut off the air vent, but my fingers went limp. My chest heaved, completely locked up.

"Pull... Pull over," I wheezed, the broken rasp barely escaping my throat.

Cole turned his head to look at me.

I was curled into a ball on the passenger seat, clutching the seatbelt as every breath came out like a high-pitched, agonizing whistle.

"Where's your inhaler?"

"In my... Bag..."

He frantically rummaged through my bag twice, but couldn't find it.

Zoey’s call came through again, her sobbing escalating into full-blown hysterics on speakerphone.

Cole slammed on the brakes, pulling the vehicle hard into the emergency shoulder under an overpass.

He unbuckled, hurried around to the passenger side, and threw the door open.

Freezing rain blasted into the car. I thought he was going to carry me to the back seat to search through my bag for my inhaler.

Instead, he grabbed my arms and dragged me straight out of the car.

My knees slammed onto the flooded asphalt, sending a blinding wave of pain through my body.

"Kelsey, are you seriously faking an asthma attack just to compete with Zoey?" His angry voice cut through the sound of the storm.

"Your grandmother has actual doctors watching over her, she's not going to die!" he shouted, "Zoey is trapped in the dark alone. How am I supposed to just ignore that?"

I reached up, weakly clawing at the bottom of the car door. "My... Inhaler..."

"Call an Uber to the hospital yourself. Once I get Zoey settled, I'll come back for you."

The heavy car door slammed shut right in front of my face.

A second later, his taillights vanished into the blinding wall of rain.

I lay in the puddle, struggling through several agonizing attempts before I managed to push myself up.

My phone was waterlogged and completely dead.

Floodwater swirled past my calves, and the highway was entirely deserted.

I dragged myself along the metal guardrail, stopping every few feet to gasp for air, each ragged breath feeling like a thousand red-hot needles puncturing my lungs. I bit down hard on my lower lip, using the sharp metallic taste of blood to force myself to stay conscious.

My grandmother was still waiting for me to sign those papers.

Two hours later, the emergency room entrance finally came into view.

I had lost one of my shoes miles back, and my jeans were caked in mud and grime.

The bright overhead fluorescent lights blinded me as I leaned heavily against the hallway wall, shuffling toward the trauma bay.

A doctor burst through the double doors, holding a clipboard.

"Family of the patient in room four? I'm so sorry, we did everything we could, but resuscitative efforts failed—"

The rest of his sentence faded into a dull buzz.

A sudden, metallic warmth surged up my throat, and blood spilled past my lips.

Before everything went black, I watched the unsigned consent form slip from the doctor's fingers, fluttering down to hit the cold, tile floor.

The sharp whine of emergency alarms echoed through the hall.