Page 156 of Love Thy Brother
There was a rolled-up bank note on the floor.
Powder on the counter.
My gaze fell on his white face and blue lips and I sank to my fucking knees.
Fuck, River. No.
A part of me died. I swear to God. My heart fractured. Atrophied in the split second it took me to believe River was dead.
I gasped, shocked nausea ramming my senses. Reaching for him, and yet somehow not moving, frozen in place by my worst nightmare coming true.
Locke ran up behind me. I heard him swear, but it was absent noise. Sounds with no meaning.
“Get him outside.”
His voice boomed in my ear. His strong hands gripped me.
“Rubi.”
I had nothing.
Locke let me go. He barged past and hauled River from the floor, heaving him over his shoulder as if he weighed nothing. “Go,” he shouted. “Get outside.Now.”
I’d heard that tone from Locke before. When Mrs Valentino’s house had blown up. It was the order of a man who knew better than any other in the room, and it fucking reached me.
I scrambled to my feet and followed him to the front door and out into the street.
Across the road to the driveway of someone else’s house.
Only then did he lay River down.
“He OD’d,” I choked out. “I saw the bag.”
Locke crouched beside River, shaking him hard. “It’s not drugs, man. It’s that fucking boiler.”
“What? Are you sure?”
Locke shook River again, slapping his face and calling his name, bending to listen for breath. “There’s no powder in his airway. In his nose. It’s carbon monoxide poisoning. Call an ambulance. He needs oxygen before his organs fail.”
Terror gripped me.
I fumbled for my phone and made the call.
Then I dropped to the ground and took over trying to rouse River, doing everything Locke told me to, until I was crying and pleading with River to wake the fuck up.
Sirens sounded in the distance. I pulled River into my lap, cradling his head, my fingers tangling in his damp hair. “Riv, please. I can’t lose you. I need to hear you say those fucking words.”
In a perfect world, that would’ve been enough. My desperation would’ve got through. He’d have opened his eyes and told me he loved me.
But he didn’t wake up.
He broke my fucking heart.
28
RIVER
I woke up in the ambulance.
