When the phone wakes me up from a deep sleep, I jump in bed and almost fall off the side. Greg is already reaching over and tagging the phone off the side table by the time I have righted myself on the bed and calmed my heart a little.
Jesus, who the hell calls at four in the morning?
“Cage,” I hear him rumble. In a moment of silence, his voice has lost all the rough sleepy sound, and he barks his next words with so much venom, my eyes snap to him in shock. “What. Did. You. Say?”
When he tosses the covers back, throws a shirt in my direction, and starts pulling on his own clothes, I know that this isn’t going to be just a pleasant wake up call. Something is wrong. He would never pull me out of bed like this.
“When?” He barks into the phone, frozen as if turned to stone with his pants only up to his knees, and looks over at me. When I see fear in his eyes, I know that this is not going to be good. “Get fucking over there now, Coop. Call local on the way and figure out what you can. Now, Coop.” He pulls the phone away, and after dropping it down on the floor, walks over to me. “Baby, it’s going to be okay, yeah?”
“You’re scaring me, Greg.” I just look at him and wait for him to spit it out. “Who is it?”
“Coop got a call from the monitoring company in charge of your mom’s security system. You remember the system I put in a few months ago? Wired it straight to our servers so all distress calls get reported to us as well as the local authorities. Shit, baby. Someone pressed the panic button. Coop called me first, but he doesn’t know anything else. Get dressed and let’s make sure everything is okay.”
When I clearly can’t force the moves on my own, he helps me pull on my clothes and guides me out to the truck. We make the trip across town to into the neighborhood where my mom lives in less than ten minutes. When we turn on her street and see her house lit up with all the emergency vehicles surrounding, it my heart stops and I know I’m going to be sick.
“Stop the truck! STOP IT NOW,” I scream and slam my hand over my mouth. He pulls over and stops the car. By the time he makes it around to my side, I have already lost the contents of my stomach all over the sidewalk.
“Baby, stay here and let me go see what’s going on okay?” I know he is trying to do what’s best, but no, that is my family in that house.
“NO! We do this together. I need to know, Greg. I need to know what is happening and I can’t be without you when I find out.”
“Right. Come on, baby, and stay at my side.”
We walk the few feet left between where he pulled over and the police tape begins. I have to fight every instinct in me to keep from running straight for the front door to find my mom and Cohen and make sure they are okay. He looks around for a few seconds until I hear him calling someone over. I don’t hear the words; my eyes focus only on the open front door, watching as a dozen or so uniformed men walk in and out of my mother’s house.
I don’t even realize that I am shivering until Greg pulls me to his side and wraps me in his arms. I can feel his voice against my ear, but I still can’t make out the words. After a few seconds, I feel his body tense and look up into his eyes.
Even in the dark of the night and the odd shadows the flashing lights make on his face, I can tell he has lost all the color in his skin. He looks pale, hollow, and pained.
“What? What is it?”
“We need to get to the hospital, baby.” He looks down at me and I can see it there in his face that he isn’t telling me everything.
“Tell me now, Greg. I can’t take the not knowing.” The tears are already coming quick and I can feel the sobs starting to bubble up. “Tell me now, dammit!” I scream.
“Your mom, baby, she’s been hurt, and we need to get over there.” He’s still not telling me everything. His own tears are starting to fill his eyes, and he blinks a few times, trying to compose himself the best he can. “It’s Cohen baby, he’s—he’s not here.”
I don’t hear anything else after that. I feel my body hit wave after wave of bone chilling cold. I hear Greg calling out my name, and feel him reach out to grab me as my vision dims and my body crumbles.
Greg