Series: Webs We Weave Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 126927 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 635(@200wpm)___ 508(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126927 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 635(@200wpm)___ 508(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
It’ll always and forever be on me.
He’s not dying.
I won’t let him die. I can’t let him die.
I just can’t.
Nova crouches beside me. His costume distracts me for half a second. What the hell is he wearing? Purple chest armor and a long trench coat complete what I’m guessing is an obscure superhero.
“Captain Underpants?” I ask.
His jaw tics. “Gambit. X-Men. Everyone knows him but you.”
“That’s definitely not true.” I keep pressure on my brother’s wound.
“You’re going to have to back up, Rocky.” Nova snaps on gloves from the trauma kit. We’ve all been trained in first aid, but Nova has the most experience delivering urgent care, since he was in EMS academy when he was eighteen.
I shuffle back and give Nova my position.
“I can already tell he’s gonna need a blood transfusion,” Nova says as he starts an IV in record time. “He’s lost way too much.”
Blood transfusion. I touch my wrist to my forehead, my palm bloody. I want to say that I can give him my blood, but I hesitate. “Do any of us know our blood types?”
Nova shoots me a tense look.
That’d be a no.
“Fuck,” I curse and dig out my phone and do a three-way call.
“Rocky?” Phoebe says, sounding panicked. “We got the message. Hails and I are on our way.”
“It’s Trevor?” Hailey asks since I used the bat emoji.
“I’m almost there,” Oliver says, out of breath like he’s running.
I tell them, “Whoever’s closest to a drugstore, we need a blood-typing kit. Steal it.”
“Oh my God,” Hailey mutters in the background.
“Ah, I just passed one.” Oliver breathes hard. “I got it.”
“Where’s Nova?” Phoebe asks.
“He’s with me,” I say.
“He’ll be okay, Hails,” Phoebe whispers. “You want me to drive?”
We all hang up after Oliver says he’ll be here in less than five minutes. Returning to the couch, Trevor blinks hard, his lips losing color and beginning to turn blue. “Just . . . sit down.” He winces. “And . . . play some Candy—” He coughs.
“Nova,” I say hurriedly, and I help him apply gauze on Trevor’s abdomen. While I add pressure to the gash, Nova starts to stitch the wound.
“It looks longer than it is deep,” Nova says in the quiet. “I don’t think he hit an organ.”
So much blood coats his gloves, the couch, the floor. I’m just hoping we have time for the blood transfusion—that it’s not too late.
Hope.
Belief.
It’s driven my entire life. But I manufacture belief for others. I create false hope and fake promises, and in a jarring second, I question if I’m tricking myself into believing we can help him. I’ve always trusted the confident voice in my head that whispers, I have this. Trust me. Everything. Will. Be. Okay.
My head is on a turntable. Whirling at high speeds.
Trevor trembles but stays conscious. I hold his hand in mine, using the other to stop the bleeding as Nova works on a portion of the long gash.
“Annabel Lee,” Nova says quietly while threading a needle through the wound. “Who came up with that? Do you remember?”
He’s referring to the message I texted everyone. It’s a line from an Edgar Allan Poe poem. Annabel Lee. It’s our biggest SOS signal. And we all know to meet at the safe location—which everyone already agreed would be the loft.
“Hailey did,” I say. “We were young. I can’t remember . . . nine or ten?”
The six of us created signals and codes outside of our parents. It’s just what we as kids did. Hide from the adults late at night with secrets of our own.
I tell him, “She felt like we all ‘loved with a love that was more than love’—she thought it was beautiful.” I watch as Trevor focuses on my voice, so I keep talking. “How the man lamented over a dead woman. I think it’s morbid.” I glance at Nova’s stitches. “Perfect for fucked situations.”
Nova fishes the needle in flesh. “We should’ve gone with the Tinrock-Graves family motto.”
“Which is?”
“ ‘Believe nothing you hear, and only half of what you see.’ ”
Also Poe.
The door opens with abrupt force. “I have it!” Oliver rushes inside with a blood-typing kit. He’s dressed as a pirate with a frilly white shirt and deep red vest. Panting, he rips open the box and fumbles with the contents.
“Give me the directions.” I hold out a hand.
“I’ll read them. Your hands are bloody, man.” Just as he says it, Hailey and Phoebe storm into the loft, the door banging loudly behind them.
“Is he . . . ? Oh my . . .” Hailey careens backward.
“I’m . . . fine,” Trevor says, no longer shivering. His eyes are heavy-lidded and try to close. “Fine . . . it’s fine . . .”
Phoebe searches through the trauma kit and snaps on gloves, and our gazes slam together with so much emotion that my throat swells closed.