Hothouse Flower

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RYKE MEADOWS

The moment I step through the emergency room doors, a gurney is brought out, and doctors and nurses pry her from my arms, setting her on the white sheets. The fluorescent lights burn my eyes, and sweat drips down my forehead. I try to follow the gurney back through these double blue doors, but a couple nurses block me, holding up their hands.

“I can’t leave her,” I say. I can’t fucking leave her.

It takes me a moment to realize the nurses’ lips are moving—that they’ve been talking in French. They switch to English, thinking I can’t understand them. My mind is all over the fucking place.

“Sir, you need to sit down. We’ll get you cleaned up and looked at.”

“Come here,” the other says.

She leads me to a chair in the hallway, out of the waiting room and next to a large white scale and counter.

“I can’t leave her,” I say again. “I have to go back there.”

“She’s being admitted,” the forty-something nurse tells me. Her tawny hair chopped at her shoulders. She wears pink scrubs, and I glance at her nametag. Janet. “They’re taking care of her right now. She’s in good hands.”

The other nurse, in teal scrubs, is a little younger and brunette. She dabs a piece of wet gauze on my eyebrow. I didn’t even realize it was fucking bleeding.

I stare at the floor, holding back a scream that so badly wants to rip through my body. Why? I want to know why her. Why did this have to fucking happen? This is a nightmare. I’m going to wake up. Any fucking second now.

But I don’t wake up. I’m here, in a foreign city, at a hospital, covered in blood. “Arms up,” Janet orders. I mechanically do as she says, and she pulls off my shirt. I glance down at my hands once, finally registering how red they are, my palms stained with Daisy’s blood. My stomach overturns.

“Margery, a bucket,” Janet says quickly.

The brunette nurse puts a cream tub underneath my chin, and I vomit.

“What’s your name, honey?” Janet asks, rubbing my back.

I wipe my mouth with my forearm. “Ryke.”

She shares a look with Margery, as though recognizing me now, from television and the news. Thankfully they don’t make a big scene. My hands shake as I take out my phone and dial a number. I press it to my ear, and the line doesn’t even fucking ring. My brother’s cell just shuts off.

Not him too. I can’t lose these two people today. I can handle a lot of fucking shit, but not this. I don’t know how to handle this. I shoot up from the chair, and I dial the number again, my hand on my head. Both nurses watch me with even more concern.

“I have to find my brother,” I say aloud, my heart pounding.

“Let me show you to the bathroom,” Margery says. “You can wash your hands—”

“I have to find my little brother,” I say with the shake of my head. I dial again. Nothing.

“You’re in shock,” Janet says slowly so I understand. “Please, you need to calm down.”

I think I’m being pretty fucking calm right now considering. Hot tears well in my eyes, and I ignore their requests. I call Connor next.

He answers on the second ring. “Where are you?” he asks, his voice spiking with fear. Fear—from a guy who’s composed at every fucking moment.

“The hospital. Where’s Lo?”

“He’s fine. He’s with me.”

I try to breathe normally. I try to accept this, but it barely lifts the weight off my chest. “Why wasn’t he fucking answering?”

“Someone stepped on his phone. It’s trashed. We’re coming to you. Is Daisy with you at the hospital?”

“Yeah.” My voice chokes at the word, and I pinch the bridge of my nose to stop from breaking down and crying. I rarely ever fucking cry. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve shed a fucking tear.

There’s a long pause before Connor asks, “Is she alive?”

The question sends me to my fucking knees. I breathe heavily, no amount of training preparing me for this agony. I shake my head and I say, “I don’t…I don’t know.”

I could have been carrying a girl without a pulse for three miles. I didn’t check.

I just ran.