Jet (Marked Men, #2)(82)

I wrapped my arms around her neck, and let her hug me back. It was so nice just to appreciate my friend, to know that she was simply there for me. Everything else that was facing me back home didn’t seem nearly as daunting.

“Thanks, Cora.”

“You’re a great person, Ayden, and you deserve the best.”

I pushed my hands through my hair and let her pull me up off the floor.

“I had it. I let it go.”

“He didn’t go far. Just call him.”

“Maybe after I figure out what’s going on with my brother, I can tackle that issue. Asa really might not make it.” I was surprised that the thought choked me up.

“Let me come with you, or call Shaw. You know she’ll drop everything and probably even charter a private jet or something.”

I shook my head and headed toward my room.

“No. I need to do this alone.”

“But Ayd, if something really bad happens, you shouldn’t have to deal with it alone.”

“If something really bad happens, I promise I’ll call in the troops, okay?”

She just watched me for a second, then squeezed my arm. “Promise?”

I hugged her again. “I promise.”

“All right, well, while you pack I’ll call and make you a reservation, and get you going, okay?”

“I adore you, Cora.”

“Well, I am adorable, so that is totally understandable.”

She scampered toward the phone, and I started throwing together everything I could think of into an overnight bag. I called work and told them I was going to miss a few days and called Shaw to give her a quick update. That took longer than anticipated, because she demanded to come with me and it wasn’t until Rule wrestled the phone away from her and told me that he would sit on her until I landed, that I managed to get out the door. Cora took me to the airport, since I was lucky to get a flight out right away, and it only took a few hours until I landed in Louisville.

Being back in Kentucky was like a smack in the face. Everyone moved a little slower and talked a little sweeter, and by the time I was in the rental car on the way to the hospital, I was starting to feel like I’d never left. It was a quick drive into the heart of Louisville, because Woodward was too small to handle Asa in the condition he was in. All the while, all I could think was that Asa had to at least make it until I got there. It didn’t matter what kind of selfish prick my brother tended to be, no one deserved to die alone and scared. I called ahead and found out he was still in the trauma unit and that he was unconscious. It made my skin pebble up when I heard the sadness in the nurse’s voice. Clearly he wasn’t in good shape, and I hated that he was that way because of me.

I didn’t even have to ask where he was when I got there. The admitting nurse was obviously waiting to see if anyone was going to come for the pretty broken boy. Even on the brink of death Asa still had that effect on women. They led me back to a tiny little room and I almost fell over when I finally laid eyes on my big brother.

My larger-than-life brother looked like a broken marionette. There were tubes and wires coming out of him everywhere. I couldn’t see his face because of the gauze wrapped around him. He had a ventilator in his mouth and I could see the unnatural rise and fall of his chest, indicating he wasn’t breathing on his own. Both arms were in heavy casts and his leg had something that looked like a medieval torture device on it. Bad shape didn’t even begin to cover it. He didn’t look human or alive.

I gulped and walked to the bedside. I put a hand over the plaster, on one of his. A doctor came in with a chart and looked slightly startled to see me.

“Are you family? We’ve tried to get ahold of his mother but she said she was in Illinois and wouldn’t be back for a few weeks.”

I cleared my throat.

“I’m his sister.”

The doctor looked at me over the top of his glasses. “You might want to impress upon your mother that the situation is very serious. She might want to get here in case his condition deteriorates further. His brain was bleeding. We put him in a medically induced coma to help with the swelling and to see if we could get it to stop. It’s very touch-and-go.”

I wrapped my hands around the rails of the hospital bed.

“I’ll stay with him. She won’t come back.”

“It doesn’t look good. Even if he wakes up, there is no guarantee he’ll be the way he was before. Frankly, it’s a miracle he survived this long. I’ve never seen a beating like this. He must have made some very bad people pretty angry.”

I closed my eyes.

“He has a particular talent for that.”

“The police are doing a comprehensive investigation. Hopefully, they’ll come up with something.”

They wouldn’t. Woodward was a small town and things didn’t work that way out here. This was just good old-fashioned justice, an eye for an eye, and Asa would be lucky if he survived it. I bent down and kissed him on his thickly bandaged head. I still had all my stuff in the car. There was no way in hell I was going back to that trailer, and it looked like I was going to be here awhile, so I needed to find a hotel close to the hospital.

“I didn’t think we had anything in common anymore, Asa, but it looks like protecting the people we love, even if it nearly kills us, is a Cross trait. We really gotta be smarter than that, big brother.”