Page 80 of Love JD

“Your words are slurring,” Tristan replied, his voice calm but echoing back to me like we were kids playing that game where we spoke from toilet paper tubes connected by a string. “What’s wrong, Isla?”

“It’s Zev. I can’t reach him. He-he said he was coming and then his phone went dead.” Panic scrabbled up my throat, rising with a torrent of tears that stung my eyes and clogged my voice. “People were screaming, Tristan. I heard them. Can you find him?” I choked out.

“Hold on.” I heard his voice further away, talking with someone, but I couldn’t make out what he said. The world prickled and went fuzzy, like velvet had wrapped around my brain and suffocated my senses. “Isla?”

“Yeah.” My voice split and came out as weak as I felt.

“Azura is going to find Zev. Is that what you’re worried about? You can’t get a hold of him?”

“I think he’s dead,” I hissed out, barely able to get words past the tears that pushed through my lashes and fell to my cheeks hot and fast.

“What? Azura, come here.” Another pause, then, “I have you on speaker. Isla, what’s going on?”

“I think he died,” I blurted out, panic taking over and hammering loudly in my ears. “He’s dead, I think he died. He was coming, and then there was screaming.” Sobs tore through my words, making them barely intelligible. “I-I told him not to.”

“I’ll find him,” Azura’s voice said, and I heard the tightness in it.

“Isla, calm down,” Tristan added, switching off the speaker and filtering through my snarling panic. “Take a breath. I mean it, in through your nose, hold it for five, and let it out. Breathe.”

It was only then I realized my lungs were gasping in and out, pulling tight and barely dragging in useful sips of oxygen. “I ca-I ca—”

“Shit. I’m calling an ambulance. I never should have left you.”

“Kael,” I gasped. “Call Kael.”

“Kael… you mean Ghost? Why?” Tristan sounded frantic, and it forced a bit of calm back into my awareness.

“Send me Kael. Please.” I needed to get to Seattle. I didn’t care if I had to pay Kael every cent left in my bank account to drag my half-conscious body onto a plane. I was getting there.

“Okay, I’m texting him.”

Kael found me what felt like minutes later, but by the way the light in the house had dipped, I realized it must have been some time after I’d dropped my dead phone to my side. His light footsteps sounded through the house as he jogged, looking for me, and when he finally got to the bathroom, I tried to lift myself off the ground.

He crouched in front of me, his silver-streaked hair combed away from his face and his expression, for once, truly concerned. “Hey, Shortbread.”

I gave him a bleary-eyed squint. “Mattie?”

“Yeah, she likes you.” He shifted, putting his arms around me and lifting me almost as easily as Zev had. He hefted me into a fireman’s carry, sweeping me out of the hallway.

“Is she…?”

“On the run,” he replied tersely, giving me a shrewd downward glance. “I can’t imagine how she got a pen, but that was all the little fox needed.”

“Weird,” I murmured, looking away.

“Uh huh. Listen, Tristan filled me in, and I’m putting pieces together,” he said, his low voice rumbling through me as he carried me through the darkening house. “Let me guess—you want me to drag your half-dead body to Seattle.”

“Yeah.”

“I figured. Tristan wants me to take you to the hospital.” He stooped slightly, swiping up my purse from the foyer table.

I clutched Kael’s black T-shirt forcefully. “Don’t.”

“I hear you, Shortbread. Lucky for you, I’m a rebel. I’ll hook you up to some fluids, and when you finish them, I’ll take you to the airport. You have a nine-fifteen flight.”

I deflated with relief. “For real?”

He kicked open the front door, which he’d left ajar, and then heel-slammed it closed. “Yes, and I’ll tell you why, but if you faint on me, I’m not going to be nice about it.”

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