Page 64 of Forever Mine
I’m already jumping out of the car before he finishes the sentence, my only thought is to get to Elijah.
I’ve had five minutes to think the worst, so when I barrel through the doors and don’t see him or David anywhere, I almost lose it.
“Are you here to pick up an order?” the girl at reception asks.
“I’m looking for my boyfriend. Blond, curly hair.”
“Oh, yeah. He was sitting in the back booth with that football player. Darci won’t shut up about him.”
I don’t fucking care.
“Are they still here?”
She turns to look behind her. “Um, it looks like they left. You must’ve just missed them.”
David said to come to Belly’s.
“Thanks,” I tell her. I’ll do my own looking.
“Julien!” David’s voice cuts through the noise just as I pass the hallway that leads to the restrooms.
“Where is he?” I demand.
David gestures to the open door of the men’s restroom. “In there.”
My heart shatters with fear when I see Elijah hunched in a ball on the bathroom tile floor, his arms wrapped tightly around his knees and his head buried in his arms, his whole body trembling.
“What the hell happened?”
“I don’t know,” David replies, clearly worried.
“You don’t know?” I bark.
Then why does David look guilty as hell?
“He flipped out and won’t tell me what’s wrong. Just kept saying your name, so I called you on his phone. I found it on the floor.” He points to where. “He must have dropped it.”
Going to my knees beside Elijah, I gently brush a lock of his hair away from his sweat-dampened forehead. His skin feels clammy to the touch, and his breaths are coming out in short, ragged gasps as if he is struggling to breathe.
“Baby, I’m here.”
David hovers over us. “Should I call an ambulance?”
“Yes.”
Elijah lifts his head, his eyes wide and unseeing, trapped in some private hell. A soft, broken sound escapes his lips.
“No… ambulance,” he rasps.
Worried beyond anything else, I implore, “Sweetheart, if you’re hurt, we need to get you to a hospital.”
I don’t like the different scenarios that play through my mind, the foremost being that someone hurt him again. I still have nightmares about the night Justin attacked him. Walking into Elijah’s hospital room and seeing the bruises on his face. If anyone laid a hand on him again, I will burn the fucking worldto the ground to find them and make them suffer. Fallon would help.
“Not…”Gasp.“Hurt.”
After a quick, cursory onceover, I don’t see any blood or obvious bruising, but I can’t be a hundred percent sure.
“Elijah, please.”
