Freed (Steel Brothers Saga 18)

“Talon!” Mom rushes into the office.

“What is it, blue eyes? Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. Yes. But it’s Ashley’s new stepfather. He… I don’t know. He just dropped his drink and—”

I stand and rush out the door. The big party has broken up, obviously. Ashley. Where is Ashley?

“She left,” Brendan says, Ava next to him. “They took your mom’s car and headed to Grand Junction. We figured it would take an ambulance too long to get here.”

“They’re… Wait…what?”

Brendan continues, but his voice is low and distorted, as if everything is in slow motion. “They’re rushing Dennis to the hospital in Grand Junction. It’s the closest. Dee went with them because she knows the shortcuts to get off Steel property.”

“Stop, stop, stop!” I shake my head, trying to put two and two together in a seemingly impossible equation.

People are murmuring among themselves, a white-noise buzz that I can’t decipher.

Brianna runs to me. “Dale, thank God. Where were you?”

“In the office with Dad. What’s going on?”

“Dennis dropped his drink and started slurring his words. Aunt Mel says—”

Then Aunt Mel is there, beside Bree. “It looks like a stroke, Dale,” she says. “But I could be wrong. He’s so young.”

Aunt Mel is a doctor. She’s not wrong.

“I need to go. Which hospital did they go to? Never mind, I’ll call Dee on the way.”

“Call us,” Aunt Mel says. “Please.”

I nod, sprint to my house, and hop into my truck.

I dial Dee quickly.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Ashley

Diana’s phone rings.

“Get that, will you?” she says to me.

I nod. “It’s Dale. Hey,” I say into the phone.

“Baby, are you all right? I’m right behind you. Ask Dee which hospital she’s heading toward.”

“Yeah. I mean, yeah. I’m fine. We’re going to St. Mary’s.”

“How’s Dennis?”

“He’s… I don’t know, Dale. I just don’t know.”

“Okay. I’ll see you at the ER. Tell Dee to drive safely.”

“Quickly but safely,” I say.

“Right. I love you.”

“I love you too.” I set Dee’s phone down on the console.

Mom is crying in the back seat. Dennis is awake but unresponsive, as if he wants to respond but can’t. He’s not paralyzed, so maybe Dale’s aunt is wrong. Maybe it’s not a stroke. But it’s something, and whatever it is isn’t good. He’s clutching at his chest.

“He’s coming,” I tell Dee. “He was in the office talking to your dad.”

She nods. “He’s probably only ten minutes or so behind us. Dale knows these roads better than I do. He’ll get there quickly.”

Thank God. This is crazy. So crazy. The party was great. I was having fun. The band was awesome, and I was getting to know some of the members of my new family better.

Mom was glowing. So happy. She’d finally found her love.

And then…

Dennis dropped his champagne flute.

“Hey, clumsy,” Mom chided him, laughing.

I watched the whole thing from only five feet away.

She bent down and picked up the flute, handing it to him. He reached out, shaking, and took it.

“We’ll just call you butterfingers.” Mom laughed again.

Dennis didn’t crack a smile, and though he tried to hold on to the flute, it fell to the ground once more.

“Dennis?” Mom said.

No smile. No response.

“Dennis, what’s the matter?”

Then, “Oh my God. Someone help me!”

That’s when I approached them, along with several others.

“Get Melanie!” someone shouted.

It’s all a blur after that.

“Come back to me, baby,” my mom croons to Dennis in the back seat. “Please.”

I’m nauseated. Not just in my belly and my throat. My whole body is nauseated. Every nook and cranny feels sick, as if I’m being poisoned.

My mother’s voice is puke brown as she tries to bring her new husband back to her.

Puke brown.

And I know what that means.

It means whatever news we’re going to get at the hospital isn’t going to be good.

This happened to me once before, back on the streets, when one of our tent neighbors died.

The people trying to help him all sounded pukey and brown. To this day, I don’t know what took him. Could have been anything. Maybe pneumonia. Maybe cancer. I was just a kid, and we were homeless. No one knew how or why the man died. No one but us cared.

We finally make it to the ER. Dee hands off the keys to the valet, and I run inside to get a wheelchair. An orderly follows me out, and somehow we manage to get Dennis into the chair.

“What happened here?” someone asks when we get into the ER.

I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. My mom is equally immobilized.

Thank God for Dee. “We think he might be having a stroke. He can move, but he hasn’t spoken since it happened about a half hour ago. Or a heart attack, maybe. His chest seems to be hurting.”

“Why didn’t you call the squad?”

“We live on a ranch. We figured we could get here quicker.”

“Always better to call the squad,” the person says.