Part 6-Kaden Blythe

Chapter 54

Why was it that the one girl I had opened my heart to didn't want me? I knew she loved me, so why the hell was she torturing me and torturing herself. I knew that each moment we were separated affected her just as much as it affected me.

When I found out that I hadn't in fact made Gina pregnant, I had been confident that when I told Sage this she'd come back to me; but she didn't. She chose him over me, because he needed her more.

It would have been nice to pretend that her words hadn't hurt me as much as they had, but each heartbeat echoed against my chest, reminding me that my heart had split into a million tiny pieces and would remain like that forever.

"Did Kaden Blythe just have his heart broken?" Aaron nudged me, trying to tease me out of my sullen mood.

"What does it look like?" I enquired, gesturing towards my face. My hair was plastered unattractively to my forehead and my skin felt dry and ashy. My hands kept twitching towards my upper arm, where three parallel scratches ran down my skin and made my skin look like it was welting. They were from our passionate kiss in the forest, when Sage had dug her nails into my skin, like she was marking me, making me hers.

"Do you want to go somewhere?" he enquired, taking a flower out of the vase that sat on the oak dinner table, and scrunching the petals in his palm.

"Like on a date?" His jokey attitude had rubbed off on me and I found that taunting someone else helped me get my mind off a certain red-headed beauty.

"It doesn't have to be," Aaron shrugged, playing along.

I chuckled at his reply, but still decided that stepping out of this house wasn't a good idea. "We can't really go anywhere, it's not safe."

"And by that you mean that it's not safe for you to leave her unattended." I knew immediately who he was taking about and I felt my cheeks warming, because he had seen right through me.

"He wouldn't jump in front of a bullet for her," I said, referring to Ryan.

"And you would?"

"Always," I replied, sincerely.

"Well, if we can't go to a club we can party in here." Aaron's face brightened and he clapped me on the back. I sucked in a breath when his splayed palm came into contact with my stab wound, that hadn't quiet healed yet. "I could have sworn that I saw some alcohol in the basement."

I gave him a double thumbs up as he disappeared out the door.

I was surrounded by silence, apart from the sound of the blaring TV. From the screaming and shouting I assumed Holden and Emma were watching a horror movie. They had probably snatched the TV remote away from Grace. I smiled at the thought of the sweet lady cowering in fear, but unable to tear her eyes away from the screen.

I was glad when Aaron returned with the booze. I needed something to numb my senses, because against my will my thoughts had wandered back to Sage. Her soft lips on mine. Her tiny body wrapped around me, her legs around my waist as I held her up. I shook my head. This girl was messing with me in a such a way that her voice was imprinted in my mind. I could almost hear her soft voice and her contagious laugh.

Aaron threw a bottle at me, and I was happy to see that it was filled to the rim. I needed every last drop I could get.

"Kaden?" I closed my eyes at the sound of my name on her lips. I hadn't even poured alcohol down my throat and I was already hallucinating.

"Kaden?" My eyes shot open, as worry became evident in her voice.

I stood up so quickly that I dropped the liquor. The bottle clattered noisily and rolled until it hit a brick wall. The glass shattered into pieces that might as well have been sand grains, and the brown liquid pooled on the floor.

"Don't." Aaron put his hand on my shoulder, as I tried to brush past him. "She broke your heart, man. She has no right to call you to solve her problems. Let her new boyfriend deal with her."

Aaron, who was usually so fond of her, spoke with such scorn in his voice. I dishearteningly considered his words, but only for a couple of seconds. Even if she had hurt me, I would still run to her when she called. I loved her and I always would.

"Kaden, I need you," she sobbed, just as I entered the living room. Funny that she would choose those exact words, since not too long ago she had told me that I didn't need her.

Sage's hair was an indication of the stress of the situation. Half of it was still in a braid, but the rest rested on her shoulders. It had started unravelling and she hadn't bothered undoing completely, nor did she braid it again. She neglected it and instead was leaning over a fallen body. Emma was next to her and was rubbing Holden's lifeless hands. Holden lay on the ground unmoving and supposedly unbreathing. Both girls looked like they were holding back tears. Grace wasn't even bothering with holding back, she was crying fully, tears streaming down her face.

Flynn was talking hurriedly on a phone. And amidst all this activity the TV was still blaring. It created background music to the scene that progressed around me. No, it was too loud to be background music. The sound of the horror film was an accompaniment to the chaos that surrounded me, and I wondered if the spooky music was affecting anyone else in the same way it was affecting me.

***

It didn't take long for the ambulance to reach us.

"Holden fainted," were the only two words Sage told the medics. There was a silent again tagged on to the end of that sentence, but it seemed nobody else noticed this. She didn't give them any further information when they started asking other questions, which was probably the smart thing to do. They would either prod her with needles to test her claim about her toxic blood, or they would send her to a mental asylum for believing something so ludicrous. To be honest I wasn't entirely sure which one was better. There was no such thing as poisonous blood, yet Holden had never fallen ill until he had cut the tracker out of her. My mind was spinning. How was this possible?

"Only one of you can travel with him in the ambulance," the ambulance driver told us. She was a stern looking woman with her mouth pulled into a perfectly straight line. She showed no empathy for our situation, probably because she had seen too many trauma cases.

"I'll go," Emma stammered, lifting her hand up to make it clear that she was the one who had spoken.

"No," Flynn argued. "It's probably best if an adult goes with him."

"But he's my boyfriend." She was hyperventilating, and if she kept up this level of breathing she would soon pass out as well.

"Go with Grace," Flynn said gently, but his eyes were fixed on the stretcher that was being loaded into the back of the ambulance. Holden's hand hung over the edge and his head lolled to the side, like he was dead.

Grace took Emma's hand in hers and led her towards her small Toyota. The rest of us piled in after them. Emma reserved the front seat for herself and kept her eyes on the red and white stripes of the ambulance as we trailed after it. She was constantly gnawing on her bottom lip; and at some point, she must have cut into the flesh, because a small bead of blood travelled down her chin.

Aaron, Ryan, Sage and I were crammed into the backseat. I tried to ignore the fact that Sage's body was pressed into mine. The feel of her skin made my body tense and I stopped breathing completely, trying to still the desire to touch her some more.

Grace didn't drive fast. She stuck to the speed limit and I kept grinding my teeth, mouthing a silent plea that she would step on it. Unfortunately, she didn't receive my telepathic message and kept driving at a steady pace.

"I wish I was driving," I mumbled under my breath.

"It wouldn't really help Holden if we met with a car accident," Sage said in a low voice. I was surprised that she had actually heard me.

I growled in response, not bothering to tell her that her close proximity was bothering me more than Holden's condition.

I immediately felt bad for my selfish thoughts and occupied myself by picturing Holden's face in my mind. Holden was one person who could never be accused of being selfish; he always stood up for his loved ones. Hell, he had even helped me look for Sage straight after he'd almost died. I pushed Sage to the back of my mind and instead prayed for Holden. I didn't really believe in God, but there was not much else I could do for Holden. He had recovered from the fainting spell like this previously, but how much could his body take? I couldn't lose him as well.

***

The hospital was... white, there was no other word to describe it. There were the usual nurses and doctors scurrying from room to room, and they all wore white. Never before had I thought that there were different shades of white. I had thought there was white and anything that varied from that definite colour was grey; but the wall was a different colour to the patients' gowns, yet they were still both white.

The only spot of colour in this God awful place was Sage's fiery hair. All the crying had made her eyes a similar colour to her hair, but she was still attractive.

How long had we been waiting here? It couldn't have been more than a couple of hours? I looked around the waiting room we were in, but found no clock.

"Do you want coffee?" Ryan asked Sage, kissing her damp cheek.

She meekly nodded her head, but kept her eyes trained on her feet, not daring to meet his eyes. As soon as he was gone I took his seat and noted the way her body angled toward mine, almost as if she wasn't aware of her own actions.

"I'm sorry," she apologised, knitting her eyebrows and clenching her fists so tight that her knuckles turned white. I didn't tell her that she had nothing to be sorry for. I thought it best if I just listened and offered her comfort." He just fainted." She threw up her hands in exasperation. "He didn't touch my blood this time. The first time was enough to make him sick again."

I gathered her into my chest as she began weeping anew. She grabbed a fistful of my shirt and this seemed to stop her hands from shaking. Her grip on me tightened with every passing second, like she was hanging on for dear life; afraid to let go in case she fell.

I gently lifted her chin, so that she gazed up at me. I pushed her hair out of her face and traced her eyebrow with my thumb. As I tenderly touched her, I could feel her trembling. She was scared, not for herself, but for Holden. She always put others before herself, which is why she sacrificed her happiness for Ryan's.

I wanted to tell her that it wasn't her fault and that she should stop blaming herself, but her unblinking eyes told me that wasn't what she wanted to hear. "I love you." I smiled at her. Those three simple words caused her face to light up; even though she tried to hide it, I could tell that my words had touched her.

I knew that I didn't have a lot of time with her; Ryan would return soon and tear her away from me. I spent the little time I had by whispering sweet nothings into her ear and rocking her gently. She was so small compared to me that I could cradle her like how one would cradle a small child. I smiled when she buried her head in my chest and her breath tickled my skin.

Aaron kept glancing my way,...either judging me for soothing someone else's girl or judging Sage for seeking comfort from someone other than her boyfriend; but he was too distraught over Holden to muster the energy to say something to me, so I ignored him as best I could. I allowed my attention to be captured by this beautiful girl, who captured my heart and soul just by breathing.

"Get your filthy hands off her!" Ryan returned and it took him only a couple of minutes to figure out what was going on.

"No," I challenged, wrapping my hands tightly around her waist, but she still tried to scramble off my lap.

"Put me down," she ordered, looking at Ryan and mouthing something to him. I couldn't see what she was saying, but I assumed it was an apology.

"You were about to fall asleep," I very gently told her. "You need to rest."

She yawned when I mentioned sleep, but she tried to stifle it, to try to prove a point to me. "No, I'm fine," she replied.

I knew her well enough to know that she was stubborn, and there was close to nothing I could do to change her mind.

I shifted her in my arms so that I was able to place her on the metal chair next to me. Why did hospitals always have these crappy chairs? They were so uncomfortable; it required an awful lot of squirming to find a comfortable spot.

She grimaced as I put her down, not expecting the metal to be as cold as it was. It took all my self-control not to scoop her up again. Ryan watched my every move and it seemed like he wasn't at all mad at her for sitting in my lap. All his fury was targeted at me. At least he wouldn't hold this against her. He was a good guy, I admitted to myself; but he still wasn't good enough for her. In fact, neither was I; but ever since she came into my life, I had changed for the better. I would continue to better myself if it meant that one day she'd return to me.