Draw (Gentry Boys #1)(58)

My mind was a roaring tornado on the short drive to the hospital. I worried for Chase. I’d begun to see Chase and Creed as more than Cord’s brothers. They were my friends and I cared for them. My fears weren’t just limited to Chase’s injuries though. When Cord came barreling through Devin’s door and went straight for the bastard’s throat, I saw how he’d lost the struggle in that moment to contain the fury which threatened them all. What would the pain his brother had suffered do to him? More importantly, what would he and Creed do in retaliation?

When I reached the hospital, Chase had already been whisked somewhere into its antiseptic depths. Since I wasn’t family, the woman at the front desk merely gave me a sympathetic wince and told me to have a seat. I couldn’t. I stood in front of the building, knowing Cord would come roaring up there any moment.

The old Chevy shuddered with a painful screech as Cord braked to a halt. Creed spilled out first, his rugged face on the verge of collapsing into tears.

“You know anything?” he asked me.

I shook my head.

A young guy in a beige polo with the name of the hospital emblazoned on the front ran up to Cord and started yelling about he couldn’t park there.

Cord glared at him, then threw the keys over. “Do whatever the f*ck you like with it,” he growled.

I tried to hold him but he seemed made of wood. He was looking grimly at the building.

“Did you see him, Saylor?”

“Only for a second,” I said, touching his cheek. “He was on the stretcher. He looked pretty bad.” Cord’s blue eyes closed as if they were trying to blot out terrible things.

Creed had already headed inside. I put my hand on Cord’s back and moved him towards the door.

“It’ll be okay,” I told him, trying to pull him close. He gave me a look of sharp incredulity.

“How the hell do you know that?”

I couldn’t answer because I really didn’t know. It was just something you were supposed to say when things looked awful.

Creed was already beside the triage station, talking to a doctor. A few police officers stood nearby. I hung back a little when Cord went to them. Whatever soft words the doctor uttered made his shoulders slump in a heartbreaking way. The doctor placed a comforting hand on Cord’s shoulder. Cord didn’t seem to feel it.

Creed stood a few feet apart. He was looking down a long corridor as the doctor continued to speak to Cord. There was a loud scuffle at my back as a little girl was brought in with a bandage around her leg. Her mother was shouting that the child had been bitten by a neighborhood dog. The little girl, who was only about five, looked up at me with grieved, perplexed eyes. I wanted to reach out to her. I wanted to tell her it was going to be okay. But Cord was right; how the hell did I know it would be?

I waited until the doctor headed down a long corridor, followed by the police officers. The Gentry brothers stood there in bleak silence. Cord didn’t seem to notice the feel of my arms around him. An aging nurse approached us and ask if we would be more comfortable waiting in the more private area, for those whose loved ones were in surgery.

It was a slow, silent walk down a series of long hallways. Creed kept apart from us, his eyes on the ground. I glanced up at Cord a few times. He looked lost.

“Surgery?” I finally asked in a gentle voice when we reached a room filled with comfortable chairs and a scattered collection of grim-faced people.

Cord nodded stiffly and sat down. “Yeah, they think there’s been some kind of internal rupture so they hustled him in there. His head’s also messed up, a bad concussion. I don’t know what else yet.” He swallowed painfully. “I don’t know, Say.”

Creed let out a cough and held his head in his big hands. “Who?” he moaned.

I didn’t miss the way Cord’s jaw set. “Later, Creedence,” he said in a voice which frightened me. It spoke of blood and revenge.

Cord leaned over and exhaled raggedly. I rubbed his back helplessly. He came to life all of a sudden and wrapped his arms around me tightly, burying his head in my breast. Creed watched us with bleak, hooded eyes. I gathered Cord’s powerful body in my arms as best I could and ignored the attention we were beginning to attract.

I kissed him and said things with the word ‘love’ repeatedly, hoping it made some small difference as he cried softly.





CHAPTER TWENTY


CORD



I was unaware of time as we sat in that waiting room. Creed sat across from me doing nothing, saying nothing. Every so often our eyes would meet and I saw the mirror of my own wrath. The furious Gentry blood which I’d long struggled to control was boiling over. When I thought of the men who had nearly killed my brother I thought of murder. Creed did too. I was sure of it.

Saylor squirmed in my lap and held me together as best she could. Every so often she would grab me tightly, as if on some level she was aware of the conflict in my soul. It would all have to wait though.

Police officers came and went. Chase hadn’t been real aware when they’d questioned him upon arriving at the hospital. He knew he’d been attacked. He didn’t know who had attacked him. Haltingly, I told the officers of the threats by the fraternity boys.

“Do you know them?” frowned one of the officers; a thin, dark-skinned man whose sharp eyes were a contrast to his weary, overweight partner.