Page 262 of Claim Me
"I should call him back." I dial, and right then my eyes widen…
My 5-sec vision hits me. I already know what he’s going to say the second he picks up.
"Oh fuck," I mutter, putting him on speaker.
The first thing my dad says is in Russian.
"? ????, ????????!"[21]
Then he switches to English, his voice breaking.
"Marlow tried to kill himself! They found him just in time. He’s in critical condition, in a deep coma. Please if you can, ask Blue for help. They can’t stabilize him. He’s in severe respiratory depression, they’re fighting for his life, but it’s a small suburban hospital. He needs better care." He chokes, and I can hear the tears in his voice. "Please… beg Blue."
Blue sits up abruptly, tension flashing across his face.
He grabs the phone.
"Which hospital?"
My dad’s voice shakes as he gives the name.
"I’ll send a helicopter. We’ll take him to Malden General. We’ll do everything we can."
"Thank you, Blue, thank you! Please hurry! They’re doing everything they can… his oxygen saturation is dropping. They’re worried about brain injury."
My hands are shaking. A wave of guilt crashes over me. The way I treated him… over the past year I pulled away, almost completely, I stopped even responding to his text messages and we used to be so close, but it slipped apart while I focused on Blue, on love, on my own happiness.
"Fuck… my brother…" I groan in pain.
Blue doesn’t answer. He takes out his phone, turns, and steps into the hallway.
I hear his voice, controlled, but urgent.
I just sit there, trying to process it. Did we all miss it? The signs? His depression?
Blue comes back a moment later and starts getting dressed. Seeing that, I grab my own clothes too, pulling them on quickly, the same ones we threw aside in a rush earlier, when Blue and I were tearing them off each other just moments before our intense, passionate sex.
But… while I was fucking, my brother was preparing to die. The thought is almost unbearable.
My jaw is clenched so tightly my muscles ache as we leave the penthouse together and, for the first time in my life, I head with Blue to the helipad.
When we stop there, waiting for the helicopter, Blue says in a voice filled with something tense underneath,
"I feel partly responsible for this. I’m almost certain the bad news about the alpha activation program today was the final straw. He lost hope completely, the hope he’s been living on for months, believing I’d find a solution for him."
"That’s absurd. I don’t believe that. This isn’t a decision someone makes in a second, based on one factor. He must have been carrying this for a long time…"
But Blue shakes his head.
"You didn’t see him when I told him today that the research had been paused for now. It was like the light inside him went out. I realized then it meant more to him than I’d assumed. But I couldn’t lie to him. I couldn’t mislead him with promises I might not be able to keep, or offer him something unethical."
"No one can predict things like this. But maybe I’m the one who should have. Before I went to prison, we were close. Marlow is sensitive. After his last breakup, he was depressed. I took him on trips, talked to him for hours, let him vent, and he somehow got through it. Now he didn’t have anyone to talk to, anyoneclose, someone he trusted, and he doesn’t trust many people. Over the past year I basically stopped existing in his life as a brother."
Blue takes a deep breath.
"We probably all carry some part of the blame for not seeing how serious it was."
"Fuck, I simply turned my back on him!" I snap, feeling a surge of pain. "I even ignored his text messages…"
