Page 52 of Down in Flames

“Hit me!” he yelled.

“You hit him, and you’ll deal with me next,” Michael warned from behind him.

Derek ignored him. “No.”

“Hit me back, damn you. You’ll feel better.” West gnashed his teeth, sucking in any little scrap of rage-filled breath he could drag into his lungs.

“I said no,” Derek snarled.

“I fucking deserve this!” West’s voice cracked. “Treat me like an equal for once in my goddamn life.”

His brother’s expression was ice cold, and through the fog in West’s vision, his lips formed a single syllable. “No.”

“You son of a bitch,” West spat furiously.

His voice echoed in the sudden silence. Everyone had frozen. James still had an arm across Derek’s chest, as if he was the most dangerous person in the room even though he hadn’t made a move to defend himself from West’s onslaught.

He didn’t know when it happened, but suddenly, Michael was at his side. His expression was tight and grim. There were undercurrents here that he didn’t understand, and he didn’t like being caught off guard. But he curled one arm around West’s shoulders and said in that low, reassuring voice of his, “I’m here.”

That was all that mattered. Michael’s love was the gift that had changed his life, and he’d repaid it with nothing but deceit. The truth was going to come out now. There was no way to avoid it. But maybe he could do some damage control.

He just needed to slow his heartbeat first. Rage was still coursing through him, so strong that it must have been brewing all his life, growing in strength until it blew his lid right off. He couldn’t find the stopper to get it under control. His heart wasn’t just thundering anymore; it was racing like a hijacked rollercoaster. Faster than he’d ever felt it. Faster than he could ignore. His limbs were beginning to loosen, and he couldn’t catch his breath.

Surreptitiously, he slid two fingers to his inner wrist, but he couldn’t even track his pulse, the beats were coming so quick.

“West?” Michael asked. His voice sounded like it was coming from a distance, but the alarm in it was crystal clear. “West, honey?”

He caught West by the elbow as he sagged.

“I’m okay,” West said breathlessly. “I just need to sit down for a minute.”

Everyone was looking at him strangely now, and there was an old, familiar fear slowly creeping across their faces. The dingy bulb over the sink was flickering. But maybe that was his vision, because he suddenly couldn’t focus on his brothers’ faces.

He shoved himself out of Michael’s arms, desperate to stand on his own, but he overcorrected. The room whirled, and then, astonishingly, everything stopped. He became aware of nothing else. He felt the exact second it happened, the moment when everything in his body went terrifyingly silent. His beleaguered, overworked ventricle had finally given up.

Michael caught him before he hit the floor.

“West!” he shouted.

West had never seen such terror. Raw agony screamed across his face, enough to drive a man insane. He was on his knees, cradling West’s head in his lap, pleading in a broken voice. West couldn’t make out the words, but they didn’t seem important. The only thing that mattered was telling him, just once more, how much he loved him. But he had no breath. He was suffocating.

Derek’s face was a blur above him. His fingers were on West’s throat, and then he was shoving him flat and ripping open his shirt.

“Get the AED!” he shouted to someone in the hall.

His eyes were full of horror, and West was sorry for it, but it wasn’t what he wanted to take to the grave with him. Fog was closing in, and all he wanted was Michael. But he couldn’t find him anymore. Couldn’t feel him.

There was only darkness.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

“You did this to yourself, you know.”

Dr. Harvey peered at West over the glare of his wire-rim spectacles. He'd been practicing medicine for longer than West had been alive, but he'd been practicing that accusatory expression even longer. He looked like he'd be more at home in a robe and slippers than a lab coat. His shock of white hair stood up on end like he’d been licking electrical sockets. He took no shit from anyone, but especially not from a man he'd been treating since birth.

"Can we spare the lecture, doc?" West asked irritably. "I've already gotten it from everyone else."

"But were you listening?" Harvey raised one eyebrow, looking skeptical. "Complications aren’t unusual for patients with HLHS. You know that, West. You should have contacted me the first time you noticed how fast your pulse was getting."