Start a War (Saint View Psychos #1)(44)

I blinked, realizing we were talking about two different things. I’d been talking about him telling Caleb he wanted me. He was talking about his threats to maim and disembowel.

A shiver rolled over me, but I tried to shake it off. People said things like that all the time. Just because Vincent was a tad on the literal side, didn’t mean that he’d really meant any of the things he’d said in the heat of the moment.

He’d protected me. Stuck up for me. I’d felt safe with him, and more than that, I liked him. A man who tenderly wiped toddler tears and listened to twenty-minute-long, rambling stories about Spider-Man and Disney Princesses was not anyone I needed to be worried about.

“Well, I appreciate the backup—”

“Kellan?” Vincent snagged the boy’s arm as he ran past, quickly dropping down to his eye height.

“I’m playing, Mr. Vincent!”

“I know, little friend. But look at me for a moment.”

I saw what Vincent had spotted. One of Kellan’s eyes was half swollen shut. The skin around his lips had turned a rashy red.

“Are you feeling okay?” Vincent asked carefully.

Kellan rubbed at his swollen eye. “I’m fine.”

He clearly wasn’t fine at all.

My heart thumped harder while I racked my brain for Kellan’s medical history. “I think he’s had anaphylactic responses before. How long has he been like that?”

Vincent knew instantly. “He was normal when we came outside, so no longer than ten minutes.”

“That eye is swelling fast then.”

Vincent bundled Kellan into his arms. “Okay. We’re off to get you some medicine. Everybody else inside to Miss Sarah. I think I heard her say she’s getting the painting easels out.”

The kids cheered and traipsed inside. Sarah looked up at the sudden influx of little bodies, took one look at Kellan’s face, and blanched white. “His eye…”

“We’re on it.” But I could already see where this reaction was heading. “Josie’s at lunch. Get her back in and call that agency she gets temp workers from. We need someone to come out now because…”

I bit my lip, not wanting to say it out loud and scare Kellan.

But I could already see that this reaction was going to end with an ambulance. “Get him an antihistamine and have his EpiPen ready to go. Just in case he gets any worse.”

But this wasn’t my child. And I wasn’t taking any chances when I was the most senior person here. I let Vincent walk ahead of me into the staff kitchen where we kept a locked medicine cabinet up high on the wall, out of reach of children. In Josie’s office where Kellan couldn’t hear me, I called 911, gave them the center’s address, and told them we had a child with anaphylaxis who needed immediate attention.

Vincent had Kellan sitting on the kitchen counter when I got back in there, a bottle of kids’ antihistamine with the lid off next to him, and an EpiPen clutched in his fingers.

“How is he?” I asked in a rush, trying to keep the panic at bay.

Kellan’s eye was almost completely swollen shut. He was still talking and breathing okay, chattering away over the sound of a YouTube video on an iPad Vincent had given him, but there was no sign of the allergic reaction slowing down yet.

“I don’t think that antihistamine is going to be enough,” Vincent said quietly.

I eyed the EpiPen in his hand. “You ever used one of those? On a reallive person, I mean. Not just during first-aid training?”

I hadn’t. And the prospect of holding Kellan down and stabbing him in his skinny leg was terrifying.

“I have a peanut allergy. I’ve had to jab myself more than once. It’s not pleasant, so let’s hope we don’t have to do it to him.”

For some reason, that made me feel a bit better. “I think his allergy is peanuts too. How did he even get any peanuts in here? The center is nut-free.”

Vincent shook his head. “If he’s particularly sensitive, it might have been that one of the other kids had peanuts before they came this morning and didn’t wash their hands. Or maybe this is a new reaction. Something outside might have set him off.”

“Could be pollen, or the grass? Maybe one of the trees in the yard, though none of them are new.”

Vincent stared down at me. “Could be dog hair.”

“Little Dog is still in Josie’s office.”

“None of the children have been in there, but her hair is probably on my clothes too.” Vincent’s mouth pulled into a grim line. “If this is my fault and something happens to him…”

I took his hand in mine and squeezed it.

He jumped, like I’d shocked him. His deep-brown gaze dropped to our joined hands. But then eventually he squeezed back.

The wail of the ambulance sirens had us both breathing easier, and Vincent bundled Kellan and the iPad up, striding quickly out the main doors to meet the paramedics. I grabbed Kellan’s bag from his cubbyhole and ran after them.

Kellan looked tiny, sitting on a long white stretcher while a paramedic checked him over.

The woman nodded once, then turned to us. “He’s not too bad. You did the right thing, getting the antihistamine into him. I don’t think we’ll need the EpiPen, but I want to take him to the hospital for observation anyway. One of you can come with us.”