Page 138 of Fighting For Light
I spin around, reaching for Cordelia’s hand, and pull her down the stairs.
“Kai, we can’t get Theo,” she says, squeezing my hand and looking up at me with tears in her eyes. “We can’t get him, we… it would…”
“But.”
She shakes her head. “No, if they are watching us, we could lead them right to him. They will use Theo against you. Dad took off. We—“ her voice breaks, and she takes a deep breath. “We don’t know what this is or who was meant to die today. We have to trust my dad to get him far away from here. We can’t give them a reason to look for him, Kai, wecan’t.”
I nod and squeeze her hand back. “I know,” I say. My words feel like they are slicing my throat as they come out all bloody and sharp. “I know, baby.”
I hurry us to the Bentley we set up for Cordi and me to drive off in after the ceremony, only now we’re going to the hospital.
Cordi doesn’t say anything as we drive there as fast as physically possible. She just places her hand on my thigh while I force my mind to focus on the road ahead, not the thousand other potential outcomes of today. I will make him pay.Wewill make him pay.
***
After parking the car, we ran into the hospital, the same one Theodore was born in, towards the emergency room. Liam is sitting in the waiting room, entirely checked out, while Emerson is pacing back and forth like a caged lion. They both have blood all over them but don’t seem to notice or care.
Cordi sits beside Liam, gently resting her hand on his shoulder. He looks up at her with vacant eyes. I recognize that look. I’ve seen it when Dad would make us stand there and take his fists, and I see it when we’re in the basement. He’s preparing himself to do whatever he needs to do to find the one who did this. I step towards Emerson and grab his elbow. He wrenches himself out of my grasp and continues pacing, relaxing, and fisting his hands repeatedly.
“One, I need you to breathe,” I tell him carefully and sternly. He grunts like an angry bull and rubs his hand over his buzz cut. “Do we need to go outside?” I ask him, knowing he wants to punch something or someone right now.
“I should have seen it coming. I should have known the bastard would pull something so…obvious. Mom even said she knew he wanted us back. I should have demanded that she tell me what he texted her. She knew he wanted to use us for something. Because that’s what he does; uses people until he’s done with them and then tosses them away like trash. We didn’t see it, and now—“ his voice catches, and he looks at me, allowing that one blink of fear for what could happen to our mother, our failure, to pierce my heart. Then it’s gone.
“We have to wait and see. We don’t do anything until we know she’s okay. And she will be okay. Got it, brother? It’s going to be alright.”
He winces and looks up from his feet again with a skeptical look on his face.I barely believe my own words, but we have to hope right now.
I look over at Cordi, and she’s rubbing Liam’s back as his blank stare looks out into the void. My heart twists and pulls with yet more tragedy. I have so many questions, but now is not the time to ask them, and ears are everywhere.
Emerson continues pacing back and forth while I sit down next to my wife. She smiles sadly at me and takes my hand. I stare at her beautiful dress that’s ripped in one place and has dots of red on one side. My eyes trail up her figure, and I lick my thumb, wiping off a couple of drops on her collarbone.
We remain silent as the rest of the hospital moves as if the world hasn’t completely come to a halt for us. Doctors, nurses, and patients pass us by to the point that I start to drown them out.
“Is this the Coldwell family?” A doctor asks.
Liam and I immediately get to our feet, and Emerson stands next to us. I feel Cordi’s hand on my back as we all wait for him to tell us what state our mother is in.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” he says. “Esmarie Coldwell came in with a gunshot wound on her right side and lodged into her rib. The shrapnel from the bone did puncture her lung, but we were able to stem the bleeding. She will be okay, but she needs to stay here for observation to see how the lung is healing. We can go from there with a treatment plan. She’s coming out of surgery. You’ll be able to see her in a couple of hours.”
My throat loosens, and I hold out my hand. “Thank you, doctor.”
He shakes it and leaves the room.
A collective sigh of relief fills the space, but then the questions I was trying not to think about come flooding back into my mind. Emerson grabs Liam’s shoulder and nods to the doors for us to step.
He leads us to a grassy garden area with a few benches, with no one else around to listen to us. “We need to know who that bullet was meant for,” he grunts out.
I nod in agreement while Cordi slides her fingers between mine.
“Is Theo okay?” Liam asks.
“Yeah, he’s with Reece.”
“I looked all over in the direction of the shot. I didn’t see any signs of a sniper, and no one in the crowd stuck out to me,” Emerson says.
“There were the two Kai picked out,” Liam offers.
“Yeah, but they went with Dad. I don’t think it was them, and I think that would be too obvious. Reporters would have caught that.”
