“Who?” I asked.

“Preppy!” Ray shouted, pushing passed me and ran through the empty house, darting from room to room. She ran out just as quick as she’d run in and shook her head at King who clenched his fists and pounded them against the roof of the truck. His head dropped.

Ray ran to the truck and King got in the driver’s seat.

“Wait! What’s wrong?” I asked, running after them, feeling a sense of dread building inside of me.

They ignored me. King threw the truck in reverse. They’d gotten about three feet down the driveway when I jumped behind the truck and held up my hands. King slammed on the brakes to avoid hitting me. “What the fuck. Get out of the fucking way!” King said, sticking his head out the window.

To say that King was frightening was the understatement of the century. The man was downright terrifying, but there was no way in hell I was letting them leave. “I’ll move when you tell me what the fuck is going on and why you’re searching my house and asking me if he’s here.”

King threw the truck in park and got out. He slammed the door and stormed up to me in a few long strides. He glared down at me and I could feel the anger in his gaze. “You need to get out of the fucking way,” he seethed.

I shook my head and although my hands were shaking there was no way I was moving. “No. You’ll have to run me over first. Tell me what the fuck is going on,” I said, standing my ground.

King opened his mouth to speak but Ray appeared next to him, took his hand in hers and beat him to it. “Preppy freaked out and bolted. Can’t find him anywhere. Thought he might have come here.” Ray paused and looked to the floor. “He’s not in a great place right now, and we’re worried that he might have done something...stupid.”

King let go of her hand and they both got back in the truck. I stepped out of the way with a sinking heart, watching them roll away when suddenly it hit me. I bolted to the passenger side and threw open the door of the truck. Again, King was forced to slam on the brakes. “What the hell are you doing?” Ray squealed as I jumped inside, forcing her to slide to the middle.

I closed the door and turned to a very confused and worry looking King and Ray. “I know where he is.”

King called Bear on the way and told him where to meet us. After only a few minutes Bear appeared behind us on his bike, the roar of the engine rattling the rearview mirror as he followed us down the road.

It wasn’t until we’d cleared the fence and the tall pine trees that we realized the moon wasn’t the only thing lighting up the water tower.

Parked in the field below was an array of flashing red and blue from a fire truck, several police cars...and an ambulance.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

DRE

The hospital was a damn madhouse. Doctors and nurses pushed by, flying down the hallway at inhuman speeds like white-coated superheroes, shouting out complicated series of orders to one another that sounded nothing like words I’d ever heard in the English language before.

Everything in the place blinked and beeped and when the occasional alarm would sound more white coats would stampede toward the ER doors, their stethoscopes swinging from their necks like elephant trunks.

The waiting room was jam packed, every seat was taken as the nurses at the desk called out numbers like the deli counter at the grocery store. The hallways were lined with people, all in varying states of worry, who all tried to become a part of the walls to make room for the medical teams when they rolled another patient through. The smell of the place was sickening, like open sores and antiseptic. My stomach rolled.

“We need to see Samuel Clearwater, he’s back there. What room is he in? How is he doing?” King demanded. The front desk nurse, looked as if she was about to argue until she glanced up from her computer between King and Bear. She looked back down to the screen. “He doesn’t have a room yet. He’s in an evaluation curtain.”

“Where is the evaluation area?” Bear asked.

She shook her head. “Nuh, uh, you can’t go back there unless you’re immediate family.”

“We’re the closest thing to family he’s got,” Ray argued.

“Unfortunately, in this hospital that’s not close enough. I’ll send a doctor out with an update as soon as we have one. I suggest you take a seat until then. If and when he gets a room you can go back one at a time, but for now you have to wait like everyone else.”

“Fuck this,” King roared, heading toward the double doors marked DO NOT ENTER in large determined strides.

“Sir!” The nurse exclaimed throwing her tiny body in front of King before he reached his destination. She flipped her braids over her shoulders again and that’s when I got a clear view of her name tag. IVY. And Nurse Ivy apparently had a huge set of balls on her to stand up against the likes of King. “Don’t you make me call security up in here and have you thrown out. Because then you’ll have to call for an update from your jail cell instead of sitting patiently in the waiting room like I so nicely asked you to do.”

“Listen, Darlin’,” Bear said, smiling down at Ivy who looked even less impressed with his attempt at a softer approach, although the lines in her forehead did decrease just a fraction. She was a female after all and Bear’s slow southern drawl sounded like a deep purr. The kind that vibrated all the way through you to the ground. “Our friend in there. He hates hospitals more than anything. All I’m asking that you let one of us to go in there and check on him, really quick, just to make sure he’s alright, and then we’ll get out of your fucking hair.” Nurse Ivy folded her arms over her chest, her determination to keep them out unwavering.

Two uniformed guards approached King and Bear. “Ma’am, please,” Bear pled, as the guards stepped between them and Ivy. “He needs someone back there with him and he doesn’t have any immediate family here.”

“Yes, he does!” I shouted a bit too loudly. Not only did King, Bear, and Ray turn to face me, but so did the nurse, the guards, and most of the waiting room. “I can go back there with him. I’m his immediate family.”

“Sure you are, Miss,” the nurse said with a roll of her eyes. “And who exactly are you? His sister? No wait, his mama?”

I had about all I could take of the bitch. I stepped between King and Bear. “No, I’m his WIFE,” I growled.