37. Cole

“I’m going to get us out of here,” a voice whispers. It’s soft, calming. The person is stroking my hair, gripping my hand tight, repeatedly telling me that we’ll be okay.

The voice keeps going, saying soothing words while the hand keeps stroking. I feel like I’m in an oven one second and shaking with how cold I am the next.

When the hand vanishes, I feel something tug at my side, and I flinch all over and try to sit up, but the person pushes down on my chest to keep me still.

“I need to change your bandage. Stay still, Cole.” There’s silence, and then she whimpers. “The infection is getting worse.”

I blink my eyes open, my vision distorted. I can only see shadows, so I blink a few more times, screwing my eyes to focus.

Someone, a woman, with long hair and a warming, sad smile, stares down at me. “Don’t move. The stitches aren’t my best since I didn’t have much to work with.” She sighs, discarding the bloody bandage into the trash can beside her, then opening a saline water pack. “You need⁠—”

Her voice is cut off by someone coughing, their footsteps coming closer. She pales, her hands shaking as she cleans around my wound and then pulls the bandage from its packaging.

It hurts, but I’m more focused on her face. It comes in and out of view and she has bruises on her cheek and jaw, her lip cut as if she was punched.

“How is he?”

My father comes into view, my vision still blurring, but I can see claw marks down his face. Mom put up a fight. Good. But he’ll look better six feet under.

“He needs to go to a hospital,” Mom says, her voice filled with desperation. “I can’t stop the infection.”

With a hum, he crouches down beside me, inspecting my side like he’s praising his work. “He’ll survive. Pack up. We’re leaving in an hour.”

Her eyes go wide, and she stands when my dad does. “Where?”

“I told you. The fucking unit is out looking for me. I know a guy who can make us disappear.”

“You must be more insane than I thought if you think I’m going anywhere with you. I hate⁠—”

She topples onto the ground with how hard my dad back-hands her, and she pants, gasping, tears springing in her eyes as she looks up at me.

I want to stand up for her like I used to. I want to get to my feet and jam my fist in his mouth and snap the motherfucker’s neck, but I’m too weak to even keep my eyes open as they fall shut again.

“He’s bleeding through the bandage,” Dad scolds her. “Clean him up and get ready to leave.”

He grabs my jaw, squeezing as he leans down to me. “I promise we’ll be a family again, son. If you stop fighting me, I’ll be proud of you. I’ll be your father, not your enemy.” He shoves my face. “Sort him out, Rachel.”

Then he’s walking out again, grabbing a gun from the table filled with tools and straddling the seat, studying the weapon.

My attention flicks back to my mom, who’s trembling as she kneels beside me, tears soaking her cheeks, her jaw rattling so much I can hear her teeth clashing together. “I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I’m sorry, Cole.”

I want to tell her not to be, but I cough instead, and it causes pain to rocket through my body like I’ve been struck by a car at high speed.

She gives me a drink of water that sputters from my mouth when I cough again. Fuck. I feel like my body is shattering with each harsh breath.

“I did what I could with what I have,” Mom says, her eyes glassy. Her lip twitches when she looks down at my wound. “Your father made me become a nurse. He wanted me to treat his abuse at home, so no one would ever be suspicious.”

I stay silent, staring at her.

A tear slides down her cheek. “I failed you. I failed you so badly, Cole. I should have run with you sooner. The moment he became aggressive, I should have packed our bags and snuck out while he was at work. When he said I should go study to be a nurse, I thought he was getting better.” She lets out a breathy, fed-up laugh. “I should have known he only wanted me trained so I could treat us at home.”

My lips flatten. I never saw it that way.

“You deserve to be happy, Cole,” she says. “You deserve a good life. If you hold on for me, I can figure a way out of this. We can get home, fix your relationship with Allie, and if you need to, we can move away. Or I can give you money for you to move away.”

Dad scoffs in the distance. “You are home. And why would he want her? He doesn’t even like pussy. Ain’t that right, son?”

My body hurts too much to pay him any attention, but he keeps going anyway. “Did you know he was fucking your stepson?” He lets out a haunting laugh that echoes around the warehouse. “Or was he fucking you?”

“What are you talking about? Cole has a girlfriend.”

“No, I don’t,” I grit out painfully, and the words make my body vibrate with even more pain, so I close my mouth and screw my eyes shut.

“Stop talking. You’re only hurting yourself. I said we can sort this out. All of it,” she says. “You can fix whatever is going on between you and Allie. She’ll forgive you for whatever you’ve done.”

Dad springs up from his seat and marches toward us, gripping a flashlight now. “He’s fucking gay, Rachel. Did you not just hear what I said about your new, piece-of-shit husband’s son?”

Her brows draw in. “No. Blaise and Cole can’t stand one another.” Glancing down, she looks at me questioningly. “What is he talking about?”

I roll my eyes, tensing as I try to shift to the side to put distance between us since she’s still kneeling beside me and stroking my hair. “He’s not lying.”

She frowns deeper. “I’m not following.”

“It doesn’t matter. Cole is done with the Rowle family, and so are you.” Grabbing Mom by the hair, he yanks her to her feet. The urge to stand and attack him is strong, but the pain and weakness is worse. He drags her to the table and forces her to bend over it.

I try to get up. I fucking try, feeling the stitches my mom did ripping as I force myself to sit upright the moment he unzips his pants.

Seeing stars and feeling blood piss out of my wound and down my leg, I put one foot in front of the other, dropping to a knee with a wince and getting back up again. Vomit rises in my throat. My fingers curl around a pipe, but the dragging of the metal makes my dad freeze his movements before he can enter her, my mom’s cries hitting every wall around us, begging him to stop.

He turns to me, tucking himself away and letting out a laugh. “What are you going to do with that?”

Everything around me goes in and out of focus, my lungs seizing as sweat coats my face, unable to put my foot forward for one more step. I gulp down a lump, swaying back and forth, the pipe slipping from my fingers before I fall forward.

Dad catches me, still laughing. “I think it’s time to tie you up.” He steps to the side, dragging my limp body with him, even though my mind screams for me to fight.

He sets me down on the ground, holding me up against a metal beam built into the structure of the warehouse. My arms are pulled behind me, and I hear the click before the cold metal tightens around both of my wrists.

“That’ll keep you out of my way until it’s time to leave.” He slaps my cheek. “I’m proud of you for wanting to protect your mother, though. Really fucking proud. Maybe you’re not weak, after all.”

Mom cries as Dad pulls her toward me. “Sit behind him,” he orders.

He cuffs her to the beam too, our cuffs crossing over, and I can feel the warmth of her body, even though there’s a metal beam between us. I’m mentally being comforted by my mother – my mind is tricking me into a dream where I’m safe, under the bed, hidden, and my mom is protecting me like she should have when I was a kid.

His footfalls grow silent as he goes outside. I hear him talking to someone on the phone—forty-five minutes until someone arrives. Something about a boat to somewhere, new identifications too.

“Cole didn’t have his phone. I saw it lying on the ground when I took him.” There’s silence, and then he adds, “No, I smashed her phone up and threw it in the quarry.”

My eyes focus on the sign near the entrance. Allertons Factory. I’ve heard of it before, but I can’t remember where.

I roll my head to the side. “Mom?” I think it says it audibly—maybe I mouthed the word?

“Yeah?”

“Can you…reach my back pocket?”

Her fingers move around, and she freezes when she feels the burner phone my dad must’ve missed. She pulls it out, but it drops. We both stop breathing, my eyes lifting to the entrance, even though my sight is shit and I can barely see, I know he didn’t hear it.

I reach for the phone, groaning as I try to turn on my side, my eyes straining to look as I type out a message to Blaise. I drop the phone twice, and the pain that rocks through me every time I move is indescribable.

“What the fuck have you got there?” Dad bellows, and my fingers go faster as I hear his heavy boots, just like it used to be when I was younger.

I have no idea if it sends before he grabs it and tramples all over it. He crushes it to pieces, launching it off the wall before marching out of the warehouse entrance and tossing it down the well.

“You think you’re fucking smart?” he grits, and my hearing vanishes as he smashes his boot into the side of my face, making my mom scream at him to leave me alone.

I smirk up at him, spitting blood at his feet. “F-fuck you.”

“If you do one more thing to step out of line, I’ll take it out on your mother.” My smile drops, and he grins, shaking his head as he walks away. “Fucking weak-ass pussy.”

The next half an hour, I think I fall in and out of consciousness, and my wound is gaping, stinging, and fucking burning like I’ve been chucked in a fire. My entire body aches. My mouth is dry, and I have sweat layered all over.

I think I might die. I know I’m already heading in that direction and Dad isn’t going to get me any medical attention. He’s a delusional asshole who needs to be sectioned, or better yet, killed.

“If I…” My words stop as I grit through the pain, and I cough, making the pain even worse. “If I don’t make it.”

“You’re going to be okay, sweetheart.”

“Tell Blaise…I love him.”

I love him so fucking much; he’s all I can think about as I slip in and out of the darkness. Death is waiting for me with his scythe grinning, impatiently tapping his foot with his black cloak.

Blaise Rowle gave me a few months of life. I wasn’t the defective, useless asshole who let a girl treat me like a doormat, or a son who couldn’t follow simple rules, and I wasn’t the stepson who was hated. I was Cole Carter, and someone loved me back.

Mom claims to have always loved me, but she didn’t protect me like she should have. Not right away. Blaise, however, other than drugging my ass and fighting me every step of the way, loved me.

I swallow, tasting copper—that can’t be good. My side is burning more, and it feels like a golf ball is lodged in there.

She’s silent for a beat. Two beats. Three. “You can tell him yourself, okay? Because I won’t let him take us. I’ll make your dad take you to a hospital.”

Bless her heart. She has no idea how ridiculous that sounds, considering Dad is packing bags into the new truck, loading guns into a satchel before hiding them under the seat. He doesn’t give a fuck about my condition, or that the chances of me walking are slim to none. I can’t even sit up properly without thinking I’m about to die on the spot, and I’ve lost all feeling in my legs.

There’s no stopping him. He’ll take us. And what happens next, I have no idea. Hopefully, I die before I find out.

“Change of plan. They’re at a meeting point. It’s a twenty-minute drive from here. Let’s go,” he says, marching over to us and unfastening our cuffs. “Stand up.”

He grabs my mom and pulls her away from me. She doesn’t fight or stop him from kicking my leg to try to wake me up. My eyes are open, are they not?

Barely.

Mom worries her lip, hugging herself. “He can’t. He’s really sick, Malcolm. The wound is getting even more infected, and if we don’t get him treated, he will probably go septic if he isn’t already.”

“We’ll take those chances. Grab all the medical supplies and get your ass in the car. I’ll deal with him.”

She stands over me to stop him from grabbing me. “A few bandages and gauze aren’t going to help him. If we don’t get him help, our son will die. Do you hear me? Our son is dying.” The last word cracks in her throat, and she covers her mouth. “Please don’t take my boy from me. I’ll go with you. I’ll do whatever you want. Just take him to the hospital.”

My heavy eyes glance up at him. I want to tell my mom that there’s not a chance in hell she’s going with him or giving herself up for me, but I’m so weak, too fucking tired. I want to kick him in the balls and put a hammer through his skull, but I can’t do a fucking thing.

He grinds his teeth, getting up close to her, and she shrieks as he snatches her throat. I try my best to sit up, to move my hand to grab his ankle, but I can’t. I fucking can’t.

“You took Cole from me, so fucking sue me if I want to do the same to you. If he dies, then he dies. Less dead weight.”

The slap echoes around us as my mom’s hand swipes at his cheek.

He growls and drags her to the car, tosses her inside, and tells her if she gets out, he’ll put a bullet in my head. By the time he gets to me, I have one eye open, my pain is starting to subside, and I can barely see.

If this asshole is the last person I see before I die, I’m going to be more than pissed.

“I should leave you here. You’re going to be nothing but a nuisance, but I need her to love me again, and she’s never going to do that if I let you die.” He grabs my arm, yanks me up, and fists my hair with his free hand. “Walk to the fucking car.”

He shoves me, but I just fall on my face, my skull smacking the ground. I can hear it rattle, the way the bone connects with the hard surface, but I don’t feel anything.

I’m tired. So fucking tired. I just need to sleep. When I open my eyes again, I’ll be beside Blaise, and this would’ve all been a dream. A fucking nightmare I can’t wake up from. This isn’t real. None of this is happening. My dad isn’t dragging me along the ground by my ankle, and my mom isn’t screaming my name as if I’m already dead.

It doesn’t hurt anymore.

Fading in and out of consciousness, I feel arms around me. My back is to someone’s chest, and there’s a hand stroking hair from my forehead. They’re shushing me, even though I’m silent. Rocking me like a baby. Tears. Sobs. Pleads.

I’ve needed my mom my whole life. I did everything I could to make her happy. Even when we moved in with Blaise and his dad, I tried to be on my best behavior, but I failed. I couldn’t even hold down a girlfriend for her, because I couldn’t fall in love with Allie.

I tried.

I forced myself to stay with that girl for two years for my mom. I saw how happy she was when I brought Allie around and they’d sit and chat away for hours before telling me I better marry her one day.

And I was going to. I was going to marry Allie to please her, to keep seeing the smile my father snuffed out years ago. Fuck, I even tricked myself into thinking I could have a family with her, fall for her along the way. That my broken soul would fix itself for someone I didn’t care for.

Then I fell for her stepson. I started needing him more than I needed air filling my lungs. I still do. I wish I could see him. One last time, I’d tell him how important he is to me. I’d tell the world he’s mine and I’m his.

I’d do anything to go back. I’d change so much.

“Fuck!” Dad shouts as he swerves right, but it’s too late.

Something rams into the side of us, and blinding hot pain rips me back to reality.