Vertical Lines (The Vert Series Book 1) (26 page)

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The monitor attached to Ashton is making a slow and steady beeping sound. There are tubes and wires, IVs and god knows what else hooked up to her. She’s in ICU, recovering from a heart attack. Her pulse is weak; so is her breathing.

Right now, she’s hanging on through science. They all keep saying that the longer she survives, the better her chances, but I don’t feel like it’s the truth.

Ashton had bacterial pneumonia, which probably started as a normal cold and escalated from there. It’s common in people with weak immune systems. Either she knew and lied to my mother, she never went to the doctor like she said—or this is recent as of a day ago. No one knows. However it happened, she allowed the infection to grow and nothing inside of her had the wherewithal to keep going.

Especially her heart.

The doctors have been in and out since she came back from surgery. There was infection in her lungs from the pneumonia, and her heart stopped at one point. The official statement is heart attack upon arrival—the truth is years of abuse and neglect caught up with my sister, and now no one truly knows if she can be saved.

My mother is sitting next to her bed, silently staring at her. I’m by the wall, staring at them. I don’t know how to feel, how to think, how to react. I want to rage like I did when I walked into the ER and saw Mason standing to the side, fidgety and destroyed. I want to punch something like I imagined punching him when I wrapped my hand around his throat and slammed him against the wall. I want to roar like I did when he opened his mouth and cried, explaining exactly how Ashton arrived at the hospital.

I want to break, but I can’t. Who will pick up whatever pieces are left if I give in and shatter?

Jordan’s face comes fast and hard to the front of my mind. I was wrong when I thought we were using each other at the beginning—wrong to assume she needed me to save her. She just needed someone to believe in her. It was me who needed saving.

Visiting hours end. I take my mother’s hand and lead her to the ICU waiting room, setting her in a chair like a little girl instead of a grown woman. Nala and Hunter are there, just where I left them.

Neither makes a move to come my way, understanding that I can’t talk and deal with my mother at the same time. When Chaz arrives a few minutes later, she breaks down for good, plastering herself to him. He pats her back a few times, soothing her in a way that tells me he has no idea what to do now that she isn’t the one taking care of him.

I stay where I am, eyes boring into the two of them. When he looks at me, his glance skitters away quickly, judging my mood. After several minutes of work disentangling himself from Cheri, Chaz sets her in a chair again and goes to flex his muscles with the nursing staff, throwing his name and title around as if that will somehow change where we are.

My mother’s sobs only grow louder with each word he speaks. Unable to take it, I walk out, ignoring my name when it sobs out of my mother’s mouth. She only needs me when she can’t cope, but right now, I need out. Clutching my keys, I walk through the maze of hospital wings and out the door. I know Hunter and Nala are behind me, but I don’t stop until I’m outside in the dusk. Leaning against the wall, I close my eyes.

“What’s going on, Brooks?”

I don’t open my eyes when I answer Nala. “She’s out of surgery—it was risky, because she’s sick and the risk of failure on the table…the high risk of infection, it’s all tripled right now. But their only other option was to let her die. They had to bring her back,” I say, going cold. “Her heart gave up at one point, and they jolted her back. They say the next twenty-four hours are imperative. If she can make it, they may have a chance at getting her temp down and her body strong enough to really go in and do the implant they needed. But, even if she makes it…” My eyes flick open and I stare at my friends, both already knowing the answer. I make myself say it anyway. “Even if she makes it, her heart is destroyed.”

They don’t replace hearts for drug abusers and anorexics, which is what my sister has been reduced to.

She is her medical chart now, and even with the support of a doctor—a plastic surgeon, but still a doctor—no insurance company would sign off on a new heart for a girl who has been in and out of the hospital for the entire second half of her life.

The sun is almost completely gone now. I never even saw it rise.

I need air. Even outside, I can’t breathe right now. I need to get away from the people and the sounds and try and think. But I can’t think, because each time I let my brain loose, it goes to that dark place that tells me I didn’t do my job. I didn’t save her.

“I need to go—will you guys stay here, with Ash?”

They both nod. Hunter puts his arm around Nala and brings her to his side, steady and strong. I’m grateful, because I feel neither of those things now.

“She’s in our room,” Nala says when I turn. I stop, turning to look at her. “Jordan. She came home after you got the call this morning. I bet she’s still in our room.” She hands me her dorm key and I take it without saying a word.

I walk on autopilot to the lot where I parked my truck. Clicking open the locks, I stop thinking, and I point my truck toward the one person who can make it all better, even when I know I shouldn’t.

Chapter 41

Jordan

It’s been over fifteen hours since Brooks sped away to the hospital. Though I wanted to stay at his house and wait for him, the unknown had me heading back to my dorm instead.

Nala stirred awake when I walked in.

“Jordan? What time is it? Why aren’t you with Brooks?”

“He got a phone call thirty minutes ago—from the hospital.”

One look and she knew. Like Brooklyn, her response was fear and pain, quickly covered as she scrambled from bed to throw on clothes. Soon after, she grabbed her keys and left. The only difference was the way she grabbed my hand and squeezed when I offered to drive her, shaking her head before shutting the door.

Helpless, I texted Hunter. An hour later he responded.

She’s safe. I’m with her.

That was the last time my phone made any noise. I thought about texting Mal, who’s touring and doing his thing in the skateboard world, and then I realized Hunter would take care of it because that’s what they do. Brooks, Nala, Hunter, Mal—they’re family. Someone will let Malcolm know what has happened.

Which means it’s just me left here in the dark. I’m not family—I’m barely a friend. I’m just Brooklyn’s… something. Maybe nothing. God, why doesn’t he call?

As if conjured, a hand slaps against my door, jarring me from my thoughts and vibrating the wood against the jamb.

Brooklyn.

My heart is banging against my ribs and the heartache I felt earlier has doubled, along with a speedy combination of exhilaration and fear. I want to open it almost as much as I want to ignore it, knowing somehow that I’m not ready to face what he needs.

But I want to try.

With shaking legs, I cross the small space between my desk and the door. The knob slips out of my hand twice before I get a firm grasp and turn it successfully. Brooklyn fills the doorway, hands resting on the side of the doorframe, head hanging so his chin almost touches his chest.

Maybe it’s his posture, or his eyes when they meet mine, but somehow I know this is it.

“Ashton.” My voice comes out as a near-whisper, strained after hours of silence. I want him to deny it, to shake his head and tell me she’s recovering. Instead, those black eyes flash with anger—the only drop of light before they go dark again, all of the thoughts and emotions and visions I can usually see in them gone, replaced with only the heavy black sadness. His shoulders tense, and his hands clench and unclench, but they remain on the wood, neither reaching for nor pushing me away.

Like the night I went to him because
I needed him
; he’s at a loss for words, but he came
to me
. He needs
me
. Now, it’s my turn to give instead of take.

Reaching out, I run my fingers across his jaw, down his neck and over his shoulders. His eyes don’t leave mine as he lets me touch him. My hand wants to shake when I stroke down his arm and cover his. He’s unreadable watching me; I’m afraid he’s going to push away any minute and shut me out, reject me, because I’m unable to make him feel loved, cared for, taken care of.

I want to be for him what he always is for me, which means I have to be bold, strong, un-afraid of upsetting him. I can’t think of what could go wrong—I can only think of what he needs, of what I can do for him, even while knowing it won’t be enough.

One hand still covering his on the jamb, the other reaching out for the material of his T-shirt, tugging while I take a step backward, I’m grateful when he drops his arms and steps forward. One more back, one more forward. We’re far enough inside he reaches out and closes the door to the hallway.

We stand there in the silence, my fingers wrapped in the front of his T-shirt, his hands hanging at his sides. Less than a foot apart, we say nothing, because there are no words, no feelings—just needs.

“Jordan.” My name breaks through his lips, a plea that sparks me to move into him, releasing his shirt to wrap my arms all the way around his waist and hold him.

He shudders once and then reciprocates, his hold tight, one hand around my waist, another lost in my hair, gripping the strands so tightly I fear they may come out. He buries his face in the top of my head and breathes me in, the opening of his chest and the rumble from within telling me he’s trying to fill the void inside of him.

Ashton is gone; the girl he would have given his own life for, the one he’s been protecting since she became his, freed her brother and broke his heart.

“I’m sorry,” I say. It’s useless, but I can’t stop myself from repeating the words, wrapping my arms tighter in an attempt to transfer my love to him this way. “I’m so sorry, Brooklyn.”

He shakes his head
no
; I feel it against my head, and then my neck.
No
. He won’t talk about it, and he doesn’t want me to ask. I move my hands under his shirt, skin to skin, and rub his back, accepting his decision. We stand like that for minutes, arms around one another, eyes closed, my hands drawing circles on his back while he moves his head lower until he can rest his forehead against mine, our lips inches apart, breath mingling between them.

Fear and sadness has made my lips dry. When I dart my tongue out to slick it across them, I notice his body tense. Suddenly, there’s something else between us, an energy, a need, palpable and floating like dust motes in the air.

Hands tightening in my hair, he pulls until my neck is arched back and my eyes are forced to meet his.

“Jordana.”

He says my full name this time, the words reaching out to stroke against my skin. There is a slight tremble in his body—needs or pain, maybe both. I reach out, my hand pressing against his chest where I can feel his heart speeding. The words I have are too weak. Even if I was good at comfort, no phrase or condolence is going to settle Brooklyn now.

The longer we hold onto one another, staring, the faster his heart pounds. The darker his face gets. His eyes are fierce, his voice near-savage when he speaks.

“Just once.” He pulls me closer, one hand tightening in my hair, the other lowering to my hip, gripping so hard I know my fair skin will bare marks soon.

Heaven help me, I don’t care.

“Let me have you like this—just once.”

His lips are on mine before I can tell him he already has me. Anytime. Anywhere. Anything. “I’d do anything for you.”

Whether I say it aloud or in my head, I don’t know. Brooklyn’s tongue pushes past my lips, harsh and demanding. I rush to keep up, to give him whatever he needs. A tear sounds; I feel his hands on my waist, my breasts. The cups to my bra are shoved out of the way, replaced with his rough palms. He cups them, thumbs scraping at my nipples before his mouth descends.

“I need you.”

Like last night, the words are heavy, torn from him like my buttons from their fabric—punctuated with the rough suction of his lips over the tip of my breast, the tight band of his arms around me.

I can’t keep up. My hands are anchored in his hair. My neck and back arch as he assaults me, no piece of my body left untouched.

“Please.” I don’t know if I’m pleading for him to stop or continue. I’m burning up from the inside, my body aching, my heart full and heavy when he takes over.

His hand snakes inside of my silk sleep shorts, deftly, swiftly pushing my panties out of the way before plunging inside of me. My body freezes—shock, pleasure, pain—and then his thumb is massaging, rubbing, his fingers moving, his mouth on mine.

I start to shake, feeling pulled in a thousand directions, my toes tingling, my skin humming. My core gets tight and then there’s an explosion—violent, brutal, consuming. Before I can catch my breath he’s turning me, pulling my shorts and panties down, pressing my palms against the door.

Mouth at my neck, hands at my hips, he hesitates. Brief, but I can sense it, the uncertainty, the fear that this is going to change us, that it’s too much. Arching my back, I press against him. I want to talk to him—to tell him to take what he wants, to use me, to love me, to have me. But my tongue won’t form the words. Before I can think of what to say, he’s reading my signal and plunging inside.

It’s fast and hard, his lips at my neck the whole time. He moves behind me, manipulating my hips, my movements, me, until I’m working with the punishing rhythm he has set. When the tingling starts again, one of his hands leaves my hip to push between the door and my body, pressing against me and sending me shattering over the cliff, wave after wave of sensation crashing against me until he follows.

Chapter 42

Brooks

I’m plastered against Jordan, my front to her back, one hand around her waist, anchoring her to me, one hand pressed against the door in a lame attempt to keep from smashing her.

Her body spasms around me and I groan. Belatedly, I think of consequences of what we just did. Of what
I
just did. I took Jordana Richards—raw and angry and hard—against her dorm room door, never once waiting for her to catch up and say
yes
.