Page 56 of Dirty Love

“Dead,” he manages to say, struggling to breathe with my fingers digging into his neck. “Better hurry if you wanna see his body before they take it to the morgue.”

All the color drains from my face and I move as fast as I can, knocking into people while I rush out through the library and into the hallway. Blind rage and cold fear consume me as I check every bathroom, every janitors closet, every fucking stairwell I pass, but I can’t find him.

I can’t fucking find him.

“Where are you, baby?” I whisper, my heart lodged in my throat while I think about what Jasper said.

Dead.

His body.

Last time I saw him was in the shower…

“Kade, what are you doing?” Arianna asks, squealing when I shove past her and take off running. “Kade!”

I get to the boys locker room within seconds and push my way inside, almost slipping on the water beneath my feet while I head straight for the showers.

That’s not water, Kade…

I finally get to where I need to be and stop dead in my tracks, because the scene in front of me is something taken right out of the horrors that haunt me in my sleep.

The first thing I see is my baby brother lying face down on the floor beneath a downpour of icy cold water.

And the second thing I see is blood.

So much fucking blood.

I choke on my own saliva and fall to my knees beside him, reaching up to shut the shower off before I gently roll him over onto his side. The sight of his beaten face makes me choke some more and I tear my jacket off, frantically pulling my phone from my pocket while I wrap it around his freezing cold body.

“Don’t you dare be dead,” I cry, shielding his form with mine while I press two fingers to his pulse. “Don’t be dead, don’t be dead, please, don’t be dea—”

“What the hell is going on in h… oh my god.”

I whip my head over my shoulder to find our old gym teacher standing behind me, his eyes wide in horror as he takes in the state of Nicky’s unmoving body.

“Nine one one, what’s your emergency?”

“Talk to them,” I rush out, tossing my phone into his fumbling hands. “Tell them he’s not breathing.”

He looks down at it and hesitates as if he’s unsure, and I swear to god if my brother wasn’t in this state right now I’d get up and cut his fucking throat out.

“Talk to them!”

He jumps at my tone and does as he’s told, quickly pressing the speakerphone button before he tells them what’s happening. I turn my attention back to Nicky and follow their instructions word for word, double checking his pulse again while I roll him to his back.

“I don’t feel anything,” I rasp, my features screwed up with pain I never thought possible when he just lies there with his mouth hanging open.

“You’re sure?”

“Yes, I’m fucking sure.”

“Okay, give him CPR,” the woman on the phone says to me. “Thirty chest compressions and two breaths. The other one of you needs to keep your fingers on his pulse and tell me if his heart starts beating again.”

I nod and do exactly as she says, pressing my hands to his chest to try and bring him back to life.

“Come on, baby,” I plead, my own heart pumping wildly against my rib cage. “Wake up.”

He doesn’t wake up, but I don’t stop trying, begging him not to leave me because I can’t fucking do this.

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