Page 284 of Cross Checked
“I have to go to him.”
“You can’t, Bug. You need to listen to Knox.”
That broke something. I fought harder, not because I thought I could beat Ryker’s hold or move my father out of the way, but because my body did not know what else to do with a terror this big. It had to go somewhere. Into my hands. My feet. My throat. Into the useless, frantic way I kept trying to turn toward the arena doors like love could outrun emergency responders and locked hallways and whatever blood Cade had already lost.
“I didn’t kiss him after the game,” I said, and the words came out fractured, hysterical, not connected to the right part of the conversation but suddenly the only thought my brain could hold. “I didn’t kiss him. I was waiting. I thought I had time. Dad, I thought I had time.”
Dad’s face crumpled. For one horrible second, he looked like I had cut him open.
“Oh, Bug.”
“I thought I had time,” I said again, my voice rising, breaking, turning into something I didn’t recognize. “He was supposed to come out. He was supposed to come out and he didn’t, and I was just standing here talking about his stupid goal. I was laughing. I was happy. I was happy while he was bleeding.”
“No.” Dad’s hands tightened on my face. “No, listen to me. That is not yours. You hear me? That is not yours to carry.”
I made another sound, smaller this time, worse somehow because it came from deeper. From the part of me that hadalready lived through one monster and had just realized the cost of surviving him might be Cade.
Aura reached for me. “B.”
I jerked away so violently Ryker had to tighten his grip again.
“No! Don’t touch me unless you’re taking me to him.”
Aura froze like I’d slapped her. Regret flashed somewhere beneath the panic, but it drowned before I could reach it.
“I’m sorry,” I sobbed immediately. “I’m sorry. I can’t. I can’t be here. I can’t stand here. I can’t breathe out here.”
Charm was crying hard now, mascara dark beneath her eyes. “B, we know.”
“You don’t,” I said, shaking my head too fast. “You don’t know. He can’t die. He can’t die because of me.”
Ryker’s arms tightened. “Stop.”
“He came into this because of me.”
“No.”
“Luke was my problem and I had it under control.”
“No,” Dad snapped, and the force of it hit hard enough to make me blink. “Luke was never yours to deal with. He was a monster who chose this. Cade chose you. That is not the same thing.”
I stared at him, vision shaking.
Cade chose you.
Cade chose you.
Cade chose you.
The words should have comforted me. Instead, they almost destroyed me because Cade choosing me was the whole reason he was inside.
Cade chose me when he agreed to the project. Cade chose me at my father’s table when he saw too much and stayed anyway. Cade chose me in the dark when I finally handed him the truth. Cade chose me in a hospital room when my face wasswollen and my throat was bruised and I thought maybe the worst parts of me would make him look away. Cade chose me through glass tonight in front of an entire arena.
And now, maybe, Cade had chosen me in a hallway with Luke Dempsey and a knife.
The realization went through me so violently my knees gave out even before Knox came back to us.
“Hospital,” he said.
