Cruel Infatuation (Underground Kings 3)

“What is it?”

“What’s wrong?”

“What going on?”

“Dillon!” Finley drops the milk and cookies she has in her hands, and they crash on the floor. Milk goes everywhere, and the cookies fly across the floor.

Jaxon, Heaven, Owen, Maggie, Zeke, everyone is crowding the door.

“Oh, no,” Maggie gasps.

“I’ve called 911 already. They are on their way,” Heaven says.

I start to dress Dillon, so he isn’t fucking naked when the paramedics come to get him. I’m shaking. I can’t get the buttons of his shirt to snap. “Dillon, wake up. Come on, buddy. You’re scaring the hell out of me.” I don’t know if he slipped and knocked himself out, or if it’s his cancer. I have too many thoughts going on in my head right now to think straight. He’s fine. He’s fighting. It isn’t his cancer. He’s going to be okay.

“What happened?” Finley and Maggie asks at the same time, flanking either side of me.

“I don’t know. He wasn’t answering me when I went to check on him in the bathroom, and I found him like this. His head was bleeding. Maggie, do you think it’s his cancer?”

“I can’t lie to you. It could be. It’s normal for patients to weaken over time.”

“He isn’t dying!” I shout at her, and Maggie jumps back.

“We don’t know anything.” Finley presses her hand to my chest, and it sends a reminder to my brain to breathe. “He’s going to be okay.”

“What if he isn’t?” I look toward my friends, and Quinn is cupping her belly, crying. Her babies are safe.

What about mine? He isn’t a baby, but he’s still a little boy. My baby boy. “What if he isn’t okay?”

The sirens outside have Jaxon running down the hall to let the paramedics in, and I pick Dillon up in my arms. He’s limp. I’m fucking terrified. I don’t care that everyone sees me panicking and freaking out. I don’t know how to have a clear and calm mind right now. I can’t stop the fucking tears. This isn’t how tonight was supposed to be. We were supposed to paint and decorate his room. He was going to be happy. He was going to love his room.

I hurry down the hall. Thinking about what-ifs can’t help him. Only the doctors can. When I get to the living room, the paramedics roll in with a gurney. “He has Leukemia. I think he slipped and fell in the shower. He has a head wound. I’m… I’m his dad. What’s wrong with him?” I ask, as if they know. They’re just the people who keep him alive long enough to get him to the doctor.

“You can ride with us. Anyone else will have to follow,” the paramedic with red hair and freckles says. He doesn’t seem to be a day over eighteen. As long as he knows how to do his job, we won’t have any problems.

“We will all follow. Go,” Jaxon says. “We’ll see you at the hospital.”

“Finley.” I reach for her, and she immediately lays her hand in mine. I can’t do this without her. She’s become my rock in a very short amount of time. I had no idea how I was aimlessly floating in the sea before, but I’ve wrecked, and Finley is the reason.

She’s wrecked me into pieces only to put me back together again, situating the fragments of who I am in the correct place.

“Only family, sir,” the paramedic says, his eyes drifting toward Finley. I don’t like how he looks at her. He likes what he sees.

“Yeah? She’s my fucking wife,” I push his chest. “Keep your eyes to your fucking self and take my son to the damn doctor.”

His large Adam’s apple bobs, and him and his partner hurry out the door with Dillon. I wrap my arm around Finley as I follow them to the ambulance. The rig’s lights are still swirling red, and there is a light mist of rain in the air with a hint of sea salt. The waves crash against the cliffside. The rolling water sounds like static, a broken signal, and that’s exactly how I feel right now. I’m not able to portray how I feel; I’m too lost in the white noise.

We climb in the ambulance, and I settle Finley next to me, holding her close as I watch the paramedics hook Dillon up to a bunch of machines.

“He has a blown left pupil. Call it in, Bridges,” the redheaded paramedic barks.

“What’s that mean? What’s that fucking mean?”

“It means he has swelling in his brain. I can’t do anything about that. We have to wait until we get to the hospital and wait for Neurosurgery.”

“Oh my god,” Finley gasps.

I tuck her head under my chin and hold onto her tight. She has no idea how much I need her right now. At first, I called her my wife so she could be with me. The thought of being alone in this ambulance was terrifying, but I like the idea of her being tied to me. I know it’s too soon, but she’s my safe place in this fucking nightmare I’m living. How do I let something like that go?