Page 145 of A Little Secret
Ice sprays against my calves as Ev stops short in front of me. “Hey, you good?”
“Something’s wrong.” The realization hits like a truck, and makes my heart pound faster and faster with every passing second. Racing to the bench, I barely cast my coach a glance. “Family emergency. I gotta go.”
“Thorne,” Coach starts, but I don’t stop as I rush down the tunnel toward the locker room.
A text with a hospital address is waiting on my phone. Adrenaline buzzing through my veins, I grab my street clothes and start changing when the locker room door slams open, revealing a pissed-off Everett. “What’s going on? Where’d my family go?”
“Hospital,” I answer as I rip off my jersey and pads.
Ev kicks his ass into gear and opens his locker as the word rolls off my tongue. “Seizure?” he asks.
I shake my head while replaying the image of her hobbling up the steps. “I don’t think so.”
“Baby?”
Unease twists in my gut as I reach for my T-shirt and shove it over my head. “Just hurry.”
“You gonna call your parents?”
I send them a quick text, then jerk my skates off.
I’m coming, Fin.
After meetingmy parents in the parking lot, I punch the hospital’s address into my GPS, and my dad speeds toward it. My dad drops me off with Everett at the entrance, promising to meet us inside once they find a parking spot. Uncle Mack’s waiting for us since Everett had the foresight to give him a heads-up we were on our way.
When he sees us, he motions to his left. “Third door on the right. She just changed.”
“Take Griff,” Everett offers. “I’ll wait for Uncle Colt and Aunt Ashlyn by the entrance.”
With a swift nod, Uncle Mack guides me down the hall toward Finley’s room. The smell of cleaning supplies hangs in the air, making my nose scrunch.
I haven’t been back to a hospital since Finley’s seizure. Before that? Archer’s passing and Mav’s surgery.
I shake off the foreboding feeling and ask, “She okay?”
He squeezes the back of his neck but doesn’t answer me immediately, making my pulse race even faster.
“Uncle Mack?—”
“She is, yeah.”
“And the baby?”
“Not sure yet. We’re waiting on the doctor.”
It’s not a no. I cling to his words.
Not a no.
Relief spreads through me, and I look up at the ceiling, saying a silent prayer of gratitude.
“Not outta the woods yet, Griff,” Mack warns. “There’s a lot of blood.”
A chill races down my spine, and my heels dig into the ground outside the third door on the right.
There’s a lot of blood.
She’s in there. Anxious. Scared. In pain. Probably going out of her mind with unanswered questions.