Page 13 of Reverie

“Hey!” I yell, and someone who looks like a medical assistant drops her uninjured arm. Another person in scrubs stands behind Winter with a wheelchair. Luna stares at Winter with a strange look from her place in the corner.

I shift my attention back to August when he makes a distressed sound, and I follow his gaze to the blood tracking down Winter’s arm.

He’s beyond overwhelmed and heading into meltdown territory.

In a snap, he pushes away from me and runs out the door, taking my phone with him. He can have it.

The people assigned to him rush out in pursuit.

“August, wait!” Winter moves to follow him, but the medical assistant who tried to muscle her into the wheelchair steps in front of her.

“Ma’am, you’re hurt. Please let us help you,” the man says.

“He’s my...That’s my—get the hell out of my way!” Winter yells as she groans. She tried to use her injured arm to push the man aside.

When her legs buckle, I lurch to catch her.

“H, you have to go after August,” she says. Her skin pales even more, and there’s a distant look in her glassy eyes. “You have to go. He’s alone and scared!”

Her eyes start to twitch from side to side, her breaths coming more rapidly.

“Sunbeam?” I rasp, grabbing her uninjured arm. I feel her muscles twitch beneath her skin as she begins to pant.

“Panic…attack,” she says with broken breaths. She grabs her chest, bending over. “Just give me—” She puts her bloodied arm straight out in front of her, backing away from all of us. I see iton her face when the pain registers. Her strangled, pained roar causes a primitive part of my brain to rebel.

“Sunbeam, breathe,” I command, hoping to force her out of her attack, even though I know it doesn’t work that way.

“Go with August, Hunter!” she screams at me, still backing away from all of us until she’s tucked into a corner of the room—the same space August vacated.

I put my hands up in front of me. “Let’s get you okay first. We need to get you stitched up and check on the baby.”

Winter’s eyes go wide as she says, “The baby…” and then collapses into my arms.

“Fuck,” I mutter, picking her up in a bridal hold. Winter groans, squeezing her eyes shut tight.

I spin to the wheelchair guy. “Fucking help us!” I shout, my voice reverberating off the tiles. A second later, Winter leaves my arms and lands in the chair.

I follow, only to have a mean-looking woman in surgical scrubs stop me.

“You need to wait here. There’s limited space and we need to triage and stabilize Winter before we can let you back.”

Red haze covers my field of vision.

“The. Fuck. You. Will,” I spit at the woman, and I question for the first time tonight if I’m losing my mind.

Mom. August. Winter. Mom. August. Winter. Winter, Winter, Winter….

The nurse crosses her arms, and I spot a tattoo on her forearm that marks her as special forces.

“The. Fuck.I.Will,” she snaps back. We’re in a stare-off, but when two huge figures—Nameless One and Nameless Two from our trip to Isla Cara—come into view, I feel my chest getting tight again.

Isla Cara.

Father. Dead.

Bile rushes up my throat as the cellular memory of the stench of rotting flesh assaults me.

I nod sharply, spinning around.