“What? Are you smoking crack?” I nearly yelled. “You’re the diabetic, not me.”
“Your smell, it’s not a good thing,” Neva explained. “Have you been feeling odd? Headache? Irritability? Mood swings?”
“Nooo,” I drew the word out, thinking of Daughtry.
“We need to go back to the table and check your sugars,” Neva ordered me as she spun me around and reached for the door. “If what I’m thinking is right, it’s fucking dangerous.”
I pulled back and stopped her from moving past me.
“Dangerous?”
“Yeah,” Neva leaned close and sniffed me again. “It’s not coming from your mouth though, it’s like it’s coming from your neck.”
“What does it do? What does that mean?”
“Your body has too much sugar, Jamie. It fucks with your kidneys and even your brain.” Neva pushed me again, urging me to go back to the table. “You could fucking die, Jamie.”
“No!” I tugged on her hand. “I have to go back to the shop!”
“What?”
I was glad the little cross strap purse she had brought for me to use was still across my chest. I didn’t have to go back to the table for my keys.
“Something’s wrong with Daughtry and I have to go back!” I yelled as I ran down the short hall. “I’m sorry!”
I flew outside and ran to my car, not even bothering with a seatbelt as I shot away from the curb.
“Be okay, be okay, be okay,” I chanted as I barely paused at a stop sign before I sped through it. “Please be okay.”
Daughtry’s bike was still in the same spot and I could faintly see the light from his office shining through the glass of the front door. I parked the car sideways in front and shut it off before I jumped out and yanked the door open.
“Daughtry!” I screamed as I ran past the reception door towards his office. “Daughtry!”
I threw his office door open hoping against all hope I would see him sitting there staring at me like I was a crazy person. But he wasn’t.
Daughtry’s big body was slumped over the desk and he was unconscious.
“Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck.” I reached down and felt for a pulse in his neck. It was faint, but steady. “Please be okay.”
I yanked the phone out of its cradle and dialed 911. While the phone rang, I shook Daughtry’s shoulder to wake him up. He didn’t even moan or flinch and it terrified me.
Once the operator answered, I gave her the address of the shop. As I described Daughtry’s symptoms to her, I pulled my phone out of my little purse and flipped it open. There was a text from Eli and I pushed the button to open it. I didn’t even read it before I hit reply.
“Emergency at shop. Daughtry sick. Ambulance coming. Call his family. Come lock up.”
I could hear sirens getting closer and see the red and blue lights bouncing around the dark shop. With one last glance at Daughtry, I dropped the phone back in its cradle and darted for the front door.
◆◆◆
JAMIE
“What the fuck do you mean he went into a coma?” Kale yelled. He lifted his hands up and I flinched back until I realized that he was just going to grab his hair the same way Daughtry had done so many times today. “Fuck! Is he gonna be okay?”
“I don’t know!” I shook my head. “They won’t tell me anything. I’m not his family.”
“I’m his goddamned family!” the man roared as he walked to the nurses’ desk.
I dropped back into the chair and watched Kale try to get control of himself as he talked to the same nurse who had snubbed me. This man, as he dealt with the news of his sick brother, was a completely different beast than the sweet man who had serenaded his goddaughter and family.
I heard motorcycles outside and looked up to see Lout and five other men I recognized from the cookout come to a stop in the no-parking zone and get off their bikes to rush inside. They were all wearing their cuts and every one of them looked ready to kill.
I stood up and glanced at Kale and then back to see Lout close to my side.
“What happened? Was he shot?” Lout grabbed my shoulders and shook me. “Who shot him?”
“No, he wasn’t shot,” I stammered, terrified of the look on Lout’s usually smiling face. “I think it’s his blood sugar.”
“What?” he whispered. “What did you say?”
“His breath was sweet and my friend smelled it on me from where he kissed my neck,” I stammered out, afraid of the intense look on Lout’s face and the other two men who were crowded around me. “My friend is diabetic and she sniffed me and smelled him. She said it meant he could be really sick, so I went back and he was slumped in his chair.”
Bird and Clem had gone straight to Kale. There was a different nurse with her hands held out toward the three men. As I watched, I could tell that she was trying to calm them as she explained what was happening. They listened to her intently and I could actually see them get calmer.
“I didn’t know what it was really,” I whispered. “I just got a bad feeling and I had to go back and check.”
“Good,” the silver haired man nodded. I wasn’t sure I remembered his name correctly, then I realized it was on his cut and that I had been right after all. His name really was Grunt. “Good job, girl.”
Grunt, Lout, and the other man I thought might be Hank stood around me and watched the other three men at the desk. Bird ran his hands over his face a few times as he stared down at the floor. Clem looked terrified as he watched Kale’s every move. Kale was quiet now, but his hands were fisted down at his sides as if he could explode any second.
“They’ve got him on some medicine and he’s already starting to come around,” Daughtry’s oldest brother, Bird, said as he walked up to our little group. The other two were behind him now and I was relieved to see that they looked calmer since they’d gotten the news that Daughtry was waking up. “They said he could have died.”
Kale reached around the brother in front of him and pushed him to the side. I made a weird half squeak/half gasp noise as he picked me up in his arms and squeezed me tightly in a bear hug. Just before he put me down, he whispered, “Thank you for getting him help.”
“You good?” Bird asked Kale after he set me back down.
“I’m cool. I’m cool. Yeah. Yeah,” he repeated himself. Then Kale shook his head back and forth rapidly as he sat down and put his head between his knees and started gasping for air. He started rocking back and forth and I could hear him whispering over and over again, “No, no, no.”
“Oh, fuck,” Lout muttered and went to his friend.
“What’s your name again, girl?” Grunt asked me.
“Jamie,” I whispered without looking at the man as I watched Lout crouch down in front of his friend and speak softly to him. “Jamie Evans.”
The dark haired men sat down on either side of Kale and the smaller one, Clem, put his hand on his brother’s back and started to rub in circles.
“Luke’s baby sister?”
I looked away from the men and snapped my eyes up to Grunt.
“Yeah.”