Page 79 of Paint the Town, Dove
“Ryden… baby,” she rushed to him, crouching by his side, grabbing his face in her hands. “Baby, oh my sweet baby boy.”
Oh, so now you do something. NOW?!
“Talk to me, baby, please…” But he swatted her hand away.
“You…” he rasped, “you let him.”
“I didn’t! I didn’t, he just came home and ran up the stairs, baby he was… he was so angry, I don’t know why –”
Ryden’s voice was barely audible when he moaned, “Does he ever need a reason?”
Then his eyes shut, body swaying lightly.
“Oh my God, baby, wake up!” His mother was frantic, grabbing his face, hitting his arm.
Not a twitch.
Emory behind me had already pulled out her phone, dialing the ambulance.
I couldn’t…
I couldn’t move.
I just looked at Ryden, my whole world on the ground in a heap of pounded flesh, thinking of his smile not even ten minutes ago.
The man in front of him, unconscious on the ground, had a cleat mark dentedto his skull.
That could have been Ryden.
Sirens were heard in the distance – luckily the emergency services were close by. Our part of town was no Beverly Hills, they knew that.
His mom ran out to the front lawn, I saw her waving them down. Emory knelt down beside Corban, checking for a pulse. She said it was there.
I didn’t care.
I knelt beside Ryden, my Eagle and anchor, shaking him gently. He made a sound, a gruff or a pant, but he was here –
He was alive.
And while the paramedics crossed the front lawn, I curled into Ryden’s lap, cradling his blood soaked tee, holding his neck, feeling his heartbeat against my own.
My hands found his fingers, wrapping tightly.
And before he got taken away, I felt his fingers latch onto mine too.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Ryden
“It’s the sun, right? It’s the sun and its skin – wait, the sun and its skin? It’s the beast in the Bronco –”
Arc & Sheild Records:‘Beach Days in the Bronco’
Composition By:Ryden Spectre
Three… four… shut the door…
The door –the door that won’t shut the fuck up.
