Page 84 of Cole: Bloodlines
Abel broke down and hugged his little sister tightly. “Thank you. God,” he sobbed softly. “Thank you… thank you…”
As Angel looked at the blessing before him, his heart weeping with gratitude, he knew the nightmares would still come when he closed his eyes—the trauma of the park embedded deep in his soul. But the living nightmare was over... and here and now, that was enough.
Morethan enough.
CHAPTER 38: DEVASTATION
Cole perched on the edgeof the ER bed, his body quaking with each breath as Devlin's fingers worked methodically around his ribcage, securing the bandages. Tears leaked from vacant eyes that stared at nothing.
“They’re not broken,” Devlin whispered, his touch feather-light against the purpling skin. “But some are cracked. So, you need to take it easy for a while. You and Gabe both.” His palm cradled the back of Cole's head, lips pressing briefly against his hairline. “Understand?”
The words floated past Cole, meaningless sounds in a vacuum. The antiseptic smell, the fluorescent lights, Devlin's presence—all of it existed somewhere far away. All he could see was Ezra's emaciated form curled in that splintered crate, skin mapped with wounds that told stories too horrific to comprehend.
All these years… he had him all these years… hurting him… breaking him…
The shakes consumed Cole like a seizure. Devlin wrapped a blanket around his shoulders, the weight both comforting and suffocating. He stroked Cole's face with a tenderness that threatened to shatter what little composure Cole had left. “It’s going to be okay,” Devlin murmured, voice thick with emotion. “I’m so sorry for Ezra. But we’re going to get the best care for him, I promise.” His eyes glistened with unshed tears as he pulled Cole against his chest, cradling him like something precious and broken. “He’s safe now, and no one will ever hurt him again. We won’t let that happen, not ever again.”
Cole's throat constricted around the question, “Where... is he?” The sound barely escaped his lips, a ghost of his voice.
“The doctors are with him,” Devlin murmured into his hair.
“I want...” Cole's chin quivered, the muscles spasming beyond his control as a sob built in his chest like a gathering storm. “I want... to see him.”
“When they’re finished,” Devlin promised, his fingers threading through Cole's hair with such gentleness it burned. “They’re taking real good care of him.” He eased Cole's arms through the sleeves of a hospital gown. “Let me take you to Gabe. I had the nurse make up a bed for you in his room.”
Cole sagged against the bed, his body a hollow shell, each breath a knife between his ribs. Tears carved hot trails down his face, pooling at his chin before falling to darken his hospital gown. “Does… Does Gabe know…”
“About Ezra?” Devlin's voice was gentle, a lifeline Cole couldn't quite grasp.
Cole nodded, the simple movement sending a wave of dizziness through him.
“Yeah,” Devlin whispered, his voice a gentle anchor in Cole's drowning world. “He's waiting for you. He's worried about you.” He took Cole's arm with a tenderness that threatened to unravel what little composure Cole had left. “Come on, babe. I promise, I'll let you know as soon as you can see Ezra.”
Devlin called for a wheelchair. The squeak of its wheels against linoleum felt obscenely ordinary in a world that had shattered beyond repair. Cole's legs trembled as Devlin helped him sit; the journey to the elevator passed in a fog of numbness, punctuated by stabs of memory. Each floor number lit up like accusations as they ascended. Minutes later, as they approached Gabe's room, Cole's heart hammered against his damaged ribs. Dane sat on the bench outside the room, his face a canvas of concern that deepened when he caught sight of Cole's hollow eyes.
“Hey,” Dane murmured, squeezing Cole's forearm where the blood-stained bracelet wrapped his wrist—the crimson flakes astark reminder of everything that had been lost and found in one devastating day. When Devlin tried to put it in the bag with the rest of his personal items, Cole's fingers had curled around it with the desperate strength of a drowning man clutching a lifeline. Dane sank next to the wheelchair, his eyes swimming with a mixture of heartbreak and fierce protectiveness. “How you doing, babe?” He ran his fingers through Cole's hair, each gentle stroke carrying the weight of unspoken grief. “Things are going to get better for Ezra now,” he said, his words heavy with a promise that felt both impossible and essential. “And we'reallgoing to be there for him.”
Cole turned slow eyes to Dane, tears sliding down his hollow cheeks like silent prayers, his gaze haunted by ghosts only he could see.
“He's a part of you… He's a part of us,” Dane whispered, his voice thick with devotion. “You know that's how it works in this family. Don't think it will be any different this time.”
“Thank you,” Cole whispered, the words barely audible, as if gratitude was all he could salvage from the wreckage of his heart.
“No need to thank me, love,” Dane murmured, pressing his forehead against Cole's, sharing breath and sorrow. “Family is everything.” He kissed Cole lightly on the lips, a seal of his vow, then stood with reluctance etched in every line of his body.
Cole raised his watery eyes, the weight of them almost too much to bear. “Angel...?” The name trembled on his lips.
“He's better. He'll be okay. Abel, too,” Dane added, glancing at Devlin, a flicker of relief passing between them like a fragile thread of hope. “Everyone is home. We can start to heal.” He bent down and kissed Cole on the head, his lips lingering against Cole's fevered skin as if trying to transfer strength through the contact. “Including Ezra.”
Cole nodded slowly, each small movement sending ripples of pain through his chest that had nothing to do with his crackedribs. The emptiness inside him yawned wider, a cavernous void. His heart felt both leaden and paper-thin, ready to collapse under the weight of what he now knew. Byrne's words slithered through his mind, venomous and inescapable, each repetition cutting deeper than the last:For years, I raped him and tortured him… until he finally went insane.
Gabe scooted up in bed when the door opened, and Devlin wheeled Cole into the room. The vacant devastation etched across Cole's face made Gabe's chest constrict until he could barely breathe. Tears clung to Cole's lashes, his eyes unfocused—looking through the world rather than at it. A tremor of grief rippled through Gabe, a sympathetic agony that threatened to drown him. Finding Ezra that way... the horror Cole must have felt discovering someone he loved reduced to such a broken state was beyond comprehension, a pain so vast it seemed to have hollowed him from the inside out.
“Cole?” Gabe's voice cracked with tenderness, each syllable weighted with a desperate need to reach through the fog of devastation surrounding the man he loved. “Babe?”
Cole raised bloodshot eyes, heavily rimmed in red, his gaze hollow and distant—a window into a soul drowning in grief too vast to comprehend. His silence spoke volumes of a pain beyond words.
“Put him to bed,” Gabe quietly told Devlin, his own heart splintering at the sight of Cole's brokenness. “I’ll take it from here.”
