Page 105 of The Holiday Fakers
I smile, even as my own eyes prickle. “If that’s okay with your folks, then sure, I will.”
Billy looks pleadingly at them. “Mommy? Daddy?”
“Of course, baby,” his mom says, then turns to me, tears streaming down her face. “Thank you, Mr King. We can’t thank you enough.”
Billy’s dad takes my hand between both of his. “Thank you,” he says gruffly, his expression strained like he’s barely holding it together. He doesn’t seem much older than me, and that’sanother sucker punch. If I’d stayed in Hideaway and married Piper, we might now have a kid Billy’s age.
“I need you out now,” one of the paramedics says. “Mom, Dad, one of you needs to ride up front.”
“I’ll go,” Billy’s dad says, and follows me and Walter as I open the back door.
Sonia and her cameraman are pushing through to the front of the crowd. I’m suddenly aware that I’ve got my coat in my hand and I’m topless.
“How did you find Billy when so many others couldn’t?” Sonia yells.
I look past her, scanning for Piper, and my gaze lands on Ethan. I’m too exhausted to read his expression, and my legs are too weak to support me anymore.
I fall forward, only barely aware of John and Hudson holding me up.
My hands and arms are shaking. I can’t control them. The cold is cutting down to my bones, and my teeth chatter so hard I can’t speak.
Everything’s spinning around me like I’m on a rollercoaster. Faces blur, and voices are fading.
Piper is screaming at people to get back. I think I hear Marv, too, but I’m falling.
My arms are shoved in my coat, and the zipper’s pulled up. Then my feet leave the floor, and I’m moving.
I try to talk, but it’s just a mumble.
“Don’t say anything. We’re taking you home.”
Was that Ethan?
I’m aware of the back of a car.
“Piper!” I manage. “I need?—”
“Shh,” she says. “I’m right here.”
She’s here. Billy and Lucky are safe. Everything’s going to be all right.
Then my thoughts disappear into blackness.
CHAPTER 20
PIPER
“Pulse still thready,” Ethan says, his words clipped as he tucks Brody’s hand back under the mountain of blankets piled atop him. “Temperature status?”
There’s a beep, and Mom removes the digital thermometer from Brody’s ear. “Ninety-four,” she says. “It’s rising.”
Ethan takes it from her and checks the reading himself, then frowns.
Brody’s on one couch in the family room, and I’m on the other. Both of us are bundled under every comforter and blanket in the house, and Ethan’s made us wear woolly hats. The room is filled with people, but no one dares say anything or move a muscle. The unspoken consensus seems to be that the person in the room most at risk is my older brother. Even Martha is sitting quietly on Harper’s lap as she watches her father.
Ethan strides over to me, gently tucking my hair behind my ear so he can take my temperature. He grunts when he sees the reading.
I’m feeling fine, but I’m not going to tell Ethan that when he’s driving full throttle down Panic Street and his brakes have failed.
