Page 6 of Mason
“Move, now!”I thundered, causing more people to scatter so I could finally reach Mom.
She was able to roll out from under Sutton and was now leaning over her.With a gentle pat to the cheek, Mom attempted to rouse her.“Open your eyes for me, Sutton.Help is on its way.You’re going to be okay.You’ll be okay.”
I heard choked emotion in Mom’s voice, as if she was trying to reassure herself almost as much as she was the girl on the floor.
“What can I do?”I asked, dropping down beside them.
“I think she’s in shock.There’s not a lot of blood, but the piece that pierced her is fairly long.All we can do is wait for the paramedics.”
A soft moan came from the girl, and she blinked a few times before opening her eyes fully.Only to quickly scrunch them shut again.“What is happening?”
“You fainted,” Mom informed her.
“Crap,” Sutton muttered, her brow crinkling.“I should have eaten earlier.”
“Do you have a history of low blood sugar?”Mom asked.
“Kind of,” Sutton said with a sigh, keeping her eyes shut.
“That explains exactly nothing,” I grumbled, brushing a few strands of hair that had escaped her braid back from her face.“It’s a yes or a no, beautiful girl.”
Her lashes flickered, lifting quickly, and she frowned right at me, only to snap her eyes shut again before I could see what color they were.“Sometimes I forget to eat.”Her chin trembled before she locked her jaw and swallowed hard.“More so recently than…before.”
“Oh, Sutton,” Mom whispered, sounding like her heart was breaking.
Frustration and something else crawled through me.I didn’t like the thought of her not eating.If she forgot so easily, she needed someone to remind her.
Me.
Shoving that thought aside for the moment, I focused on the two men in uniform who came rushing onto the stage, one carrying what looked like a gym bag on one shoulder.Dropping it beside me, he started asking questions as he and his partner began assessing.
“Hey, Sutton.I’m Trent.My partner, Martin, and I are going to be taking care of you.What happened that resulted in you being on the floor, darlin’?”
“I fell,” she said with a heavy exhale.
“She was tripped,” Mom amended.“On purpose.”
I’d seen Sutton stumble, and I wasn’t sure what had happened after that because I’d taken off running, the overwhelming need to get to her pushing me.Finding both her and Mom on the stage floor surrounded by people while Neil tried to contain the crowd had only spiked my urgency to get to her higher.
“I fell and landed on my cello,” Sutton continued, tears filling and leaking from her eyes.“I broke it.It’s ruined.”
“We’ll have the cello repaired, sweetheart,” Mom assured her.“Don’t worry about it right now.We need to focus on you.”
Sutton didn’t reply, her next breath coming out choppy, full of suppressed emotions that caused her lips to tremble before she locked her jaw.Her pain was close to the surface, not all of it necessarily physical trauma.Heartbreak was stamped on her, and I wanted to ease it.Make it better.Heal what was broken.
Which was definitely the cello.It was in two pieces, held together by nothing more than the strings.
No—three pieces, I realized, noticing the shard that had pierced her a few inches from her pelvic bone.Damn, that must hurt like a bitch.I had to suck in a breath, centering myself so I didn’t react impulsively.My first instinct was to remove what was causing her pain, which could potentially harm her more.Tearing my eyes from the shard, I focused back on her face.
Up close, I soaked in all her beauty, memorizing her face, the little flare at the tip of her nose, the single dark mark near the corner of her mouth that wasn’t a freckle.I lingered on the tiny imperfection that drew my attention to her lips over and over, no matter how hard I tried to look away.They were so ripe, and I kept wondering if they would be sweet like a strawberry or a watermelon.
I wanted to know—fucking needed that knowledge.
Mom glanced at Trent and then Martin, both of them in their mid-to-late thirties, wearing silicone wedding bands on their left hands.They had a world-weary aura going on, as if they had seen some bad shit and were prepared for anything.“The cello broke, and a piece obviously pierced her abdomen.She also passed out a few moments ago.But she didn’t hit her head.I am concerned that her blood sugar is low, however.”
Both men nodded along as they listened to Mom.She was always the steady one when it came to emergencies.Having a best friend who was a nurse had trained her to keep a cool head when things got messy.Dad, on the other hand, would have already been spewing his guts out at the first sight of blood.
Martin strapped a blood pressure cuff around Sutton’s arm and then put a pulse-ox monitor on her index finger.While he checked her vitals, Trent was busy getting a sample of Sutton’s blood from her other hand to check her glucose levels.
