Page 33 of Cole: Bloodlines
He slammed into Cole, nearly knocking the man off his feet, his hands gripping Cole’s arms like a drowning man grasping a lifeline. Dane was openly, gut-wrenchingly sobbing now, his face a mask of utter despair and a strange, terrifying relief. “It isn’t them, Cole!” he choked out, the words thick with phlegm and tears. “It isn’t them!”
Cole’s eyes, wide and uncomprehending, trembled with a dawning horror. “What…?” he whispered, then, as the words registered, a jolt went through him. He ripped himself from Dane’s grasp and sprinted toward the bodies, his own legs a blur on the treacherous ground.
“Dane?” Devlin’s voice was a strained whisper, cautious, as if afraid to break the fragile tension in the air. He approached slowly, his face etched with a profound, weary trauma. The man was already teetering on the precipice, his eyes haunted, hisshoulders slumped under an invisible burden. One more blow, and he would shatter. “What is it?”
Dane buried his face in his hands, his raw sobs tearing through the night, before he lunged forward, pulling the doctor into a crushing, desperate embrace. His body shook violently, racked by a tremor that seemed to originate from the very core of his being. He buried his face in Devlin’s hair, breathing in the familiar scent of antiseptic and something uniquely Devlin. “It isn’t them, Devlin,” he choked out, the words muffled against the doctor’s shoulder, a desperate, broken cry. “It isn’t Savannah and Maddy.”
Devlin froze in his arms, every muscle locked, his breath catching in his throat, a silent, agonizing gasp. He slowly, stiffly, pulled back, his eyes dark with unshed tears and profound exhaustion, looking at the two boys teetering on the edge of utter collapse. “What… are you…” His voice was a strangled rasp, his throat closing, the words dying before they could fully form. “Are you…sure?” The question was a desperate, fragile hope, a plea against the impossible.
“I am,” Dane cried, the confirmation a fresh wave of agony and perverse relief. “I am. It’s not them. It’s not…”
As if compelled by an unseen force, needing to witness this new, terrifying reality for himself, Devlin tore his gaze from Dane and stumbled toward the bodies. Cole was already there, fallen to his knees, a silent, statuesque figure of despair, simply staring, unmoving, at the dead children. Dane followed, his legs still unsteady, drawn by the same morbid fascination, the same desperate need to confirm the nightmare within the nightmare. Devlin dropped beside Cole, his face a mask of utter disbelief, his eyes wide and hollow.
“It isn’t them,” Devlin whispered, the words a shaky, disembodied sound, as if he were speaking from a vast, echoing void, his mind struggling, failing, to process this new, horrifyingtwist of fate. The initial grief had been a crushing weight; this new reality was a sickening, dizzying plunge into an unknown abyss of morbid relief.
Cole didn’t say anything; he just stared with a blank expression in his eyes.
After a moment, Devlin crawled to his feet and glanced at Dane. No words were necessary. The two men hastily returned to the cars.
“Angel? Baby?” Dane knelt before his young husband, taking his hands and pressing them to his lips. “Baby, look at me. Listen to me.” The boy stared through him, distant, as if he had gone somewhere where the nightmare couldn’t reach him. Dane cupped his face. “Angel,” he choked. “It isn’t them. The bodies… it isn’t Maddy and Savannah.” He pulled Angel into his arms and pressed his lips to his ear. “Maddy isn’t… gone, baby… that isn’t his body.”
At the other car, Devlin desperately tried to reach Abel as both boys remained disconnected, their faces etched with fear and confusion, their breaths shallow and trembling. The weight of trauma bore down on them, leaving them paralyzed by memories of pain and loss too overwhelming to confront.
CHAPTER 14: A FLEETING REPRIEVE
The darkness coiled around him,squeezing, forcing the air from his lungs… yet he continued to breathe… each breath a molten blade piercing his chest. Still, he breathed—each inhale an agonizing reminder that he couldn’t go back there, to that nightmare where Maddy was gone, ripped from the world with a violence Angel had tried so hard to protect him from. But he hadn’t been strong enough to save him, not this time.
Angel succumbed to the darkness, feeling a kind of relief in letting it take him. Somewhere outside the dark void, he could still hear voices, but no longer make out the words. He felt hands touching him, but couldn’t respond if he’d wanted to.
Dane held him; he sensed it from across the vast void separating them. His heart cried for his husband, for his comfort, his love—for his pain—but he couldn’t go back to him, couldn’t return to that place of horror.
I’m sorry, Dane… I’m so sorry…
He felt Dane’s arms around him again, holding tighter this time, his breath warm on his ear as he spoke to him in muffled, broken words, indecipherable from Angel’s side of the void.
Maddy.The name floated across the expanse, barely audible, and Angel recoiled, drawing further away as if the name itself carried with it a destructive force, a deadly explosive that, upon contact, would detonate and blow Angel to smithereens.
Maddy.
Angel curled into himself, the anguish gripping his body, mind, and soul—pulling him apart, fiber by fiber.Please stop,his tortured soul wailed into the abyss.Please stop saying his name… please… it hurts too much… please…
For a fleeting moment, there was silence, as if his husband had heard his anguished plea and granted him mercy. Then…
Maddy…
Angel cried and tried to close his ears.
…isn’t gone.
His soul stilled… then shuddered.
That isn’t his body.
Angel trembled.
The bodies… it isn’t Maddy and Savannah.
It was an evil hoax, the sadistic nightmare forging a cruel joke, menacingly luring him back. Angel resisted the pull, fighting the unmerciful lie, until he was crying out loud, physically struggling against hands grabbing at him.
