Page 70 of Triumphant Kings

“Shut up,” I whisper, not taking my eyes off my girl. “Shut up.”

My fingers tremble as I brush her sweaty hair off her forehead. She looks so fragile, so weak. I fucking hate it.

I’m so fucking done with others hurting the people I love.

“Kitten. Baby. You need to wake up. Please.” I’ve never sounded so desperate in my life. But I don’t care. I just need her to open her beautiful blue eyes. “Don’t leave me, baby. I need you. I just got you back. You said you wouldn’t leave me. You promised.” I’m crying now, tears spilling down my cheeks.

Grayson and Declan are shouting, demanding to get inside to see Sadie, when I see EMTs enter the bathroom. They kneel down next to me, asking Sadie’s friends what happened. I ignore them as I focus on my girl, brushing my thumb back and forth over her cheekbone the way I know she likes it when we’re cuddled in bed and the world around us is peaceful.

Right now, the world is in chaos, and I need it to stop.

“We’ll take it from here,” the female EMT says. She goes to reach for Sadie, but my hold tightens on my girl.

“Don’t fucking touch her,” I growl, eyes wild and lethal. I’m three seconds away from losing my fucking shit right now.

“We need to help her. You want her to get help, right? You want her to be okay, don’t you?”

My eyes drop to Sadie. “Yes,” I whisper.

When she goes to take Sadie again, this time, I let her. And it feels like she’s ripping my soul clean out of my body.

They work fast, checking her over before lifting her onto a stretcher.

I’m on my feet and following them out the door, only stopping when Collin steps in front of me.

“Don’t you even fucking try to stop me from going with her,” I snarl in his face.

He leans down in mine. “Only one person is allowed to go with her. And that's me.”

“No,” I snap.

“Yes. Legally, I'm her husband. I know you don’t like that, but it’s how it’s going to be right now. Call a town car, because you're in no shape to be driving.”

“I fucking hate you,” my voice breaks, trying not to break down into a fucking mess right now.

“I know you do. And I’m sorry. But I love you anyway. She’s going to be okay.”

“How do you know?!” I shout.

“Because she always is.” There’s something he knows that I don’t, and I fucking want to know what that is. He turns to his mom, who’s standing near us. “Tina is to be expelled today. She will not be at this school when Sadie comes back. Don’t fight me on this, Mom. I won’t back down.”

“I know,” Carol whispers, tears filling her eyes. “I know.”

Collin looks at me again. “I have her, brother.” He puts his hand on my shoulder. “She’s going to be okay.”

I watch him run after the EMTs as they bring her out of the school. I’m about to take off after him when Grayson and Declan come running over to me. “What happened to her?” Declan asks.

“Fucking cops wouldn’t let us past,” Grayson growls. “As soon as we went to follow after, they grabbed us and told everyone to get back.”

“She puked until she passed out,” I say numbly, looking at the crowd of people until I find her friends standing nearby, crying.

“What!?” Grayson growls. “Why? Fuck. Fuck! We have to go after them.”

“We will,” I say, eyes still on her friends. “First, we need answers.”

I stomp towards her friends, stopping when I am in front of them. “Start talking,” I demand, their frightened eyes on me.

They tell me everything. How Sadie has been downplaying the bullying Tina has done because she didn’t want to worry us, or stress us out. How she wanted to just enjoy the good we had and didn’t want Tina to have any more of her happiness, and she thought if she could ignore her long enough, she would go away.

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