Page 31 of Ashes

Quickly, I pulled my phone out and dialed the emergency number for the campus.

“The wards,” a bored sounding female answered.

“It’s Sinclair Priest. We need someone here. Now!”

“OK. What’s going on?”

“Malachi Wolfe. He-he tried to kill himself. Hanging.”

“Is he breathing?”

I looked at him and saw the rise and fall of his chest.

“Yeah. He’s breathing. He has a pulse too. He’s just unconscious.”

“Elevate his legs higher than his head. Continue to check for breathing and a pulse. Please have the door unlocked. Someone should be there any minute.”

“Thank you.” I hung up, not waiting to hear the rest of her instructions. I ran over to his bed and grabbed a couple pillows and put them beneath his legs.

Church clung to his hand, his own breathing shaky as Ashes wiped a tear from the corner of Stitches’s closed eyes.

Fuck. How did it get to this? And how the hell did I stop it?I knew shit would get bad, but I never thought this would happen.

Guilt surged through me as I knelt next to Church.

It should be me on the floor, not Stitches. I was the one who deserved to die.

Stitches’s eyelids fluttered, and his eyes cracked open.

“Stitches,” Ashes murmured. “Hey, man. Welcome back.”

Another tear slipped out of the corner of his eye. And another.

“Don’t you dare fucking do this shit again. I can’t. I just fucking can’t,” Church choked out. “Not you, man. You fucking promised.”

“S-sorry,” Stitches rasped, his voice barely audible.

His eyes were so bloodshot it made my stomach roil. He squeezed Church’s hand before his eyelids fluttered again, and he went silent, his breathing deep and even.

Church wiped at his eyes as the front door banged open.

Four of the wards—emergency service people from the hospital on campus—barged in with a stretcher and a bag of supplies. We stepped away from Stitches as they set to work on him. They gave him oxygen and hooked him up to a heart monitor before putting him on the stretcher, positioning his head between two blocks to stabilize it in case he’d done damage.

“We’ll be right behind,” Church said thickly as the men moved Stitches out of the room.

We followed behind to the living room.

“Give us a few minutes with him,” one of the guys said. “Doc will want to assess him and all that. Might be a bit of a wait.”

“Fine.” Church nodded, his eyes fixed on Stitches as they hauled him out the front door. The last ward followed, closing the door behind him and leaving us in silence.

“He’ll be OK,” Church whispered, swallowing.

“How did he know? Asylum?” Ashes asked the question that was rattling around in my head.

“I don’t know,” Church murmured, finally looking over at us. “It doesn’t make sense.”

“He’s a weird guy,” I muttered, running my fingers through my shaggy hair.

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