Page 93 of Burn Bright (Cobalt Empire #1)

“You’re not my brothers.” That’s when the door blows open, and four indomitable forces storm the basement. “They are.”

Mutterings of holy shit hit my ears. The Kappas go still. It’s rare we’re all this accessible all together without a legion of security around us.

My mistake.

My fucking mistake.

I was supposed to be in and out. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Now they’re in this mess with me, and I can’t even regret it when I want them to help Audrey.

Charlie and Beckett are bullets toward her.

I move out of the way, standing behind her head. She peers up at me, blinking too slowly. Her breathing is still bizarre to me. She’s not roofied?

“What happened?” Beckett asks her and me.

“Surprise?” Audrey says weakly.

“She hurt her ankle,” I explain.

Charlie sweeps her with one long glance. “She’s on something.”

It’s a shotgun blast to the chest. I glare at Leif. “Did you give her something for the pain?”

Leif is taking several, several steps back from Eliot who looks like he’s going to decapitate him.

“Speak!” Eliot shouts, pointing a baseball bat at the Kappa president. Yeah, he has a bat. I’m sure Beckett keeps one in his car, considering he’s been mugged before.

“It was just Tylenol?” Audrey says like she’s now unsure if they deceived her.

Leif’s face is splotchy red. He whirls around to the Kappa brothers. Last thing he wants is an OD in his basement. “Who gave her the pain meds?”

Prescott comes forward. “It was, uh, out of a baggie.”

“Oh this is going to be fun,” Charlie says dryly.

“Ben,” Audrey whines. “Am I going to pass out…I don’t feel right…my toes are tingling. I’m dizzy. The room is spinning…it’s spinning.”

“You’re okay.” I crouch down to be level with her head on the armrest. “You’d be totally out of it if it were that bad.” Right? I look to Beckett who looks to Charlie.

Tom is pacing like he has to piss. “Charlie, they’re filming,” he whispers to him.

Charlie peers backward at the Kappa brothers. “You record anything, and we’ll use it to get your frat banned for life. I know it must be an impossible task for all of you, but try not to be fucking morons before you decide to put this Cobalt Show and Tell on YouTube.”

“Put your phones away!” Leif yells at all the Kappas. “Javi, you too! Jesus Christ.”

Eliot slaps a cellphone out of someone’s hand. They shrivel back.

“Can I have the baggie?” Beckett asks Prescott, gesturing him over with two fingers.

“Am I going to die?” Audrey asks us dramatically. “Please let me only die from embarrassment. Please. Please ….please. Charlie, tell me…tell me this is just the death of my common sense.”

“That died years ago.”

“It was…resurrected.” Her breath sounds are weak.

Charlie’s gaze darkens on her. I can’t tell what he’s thinking, but I know his lack of biting response isn’t good.

Beckett gets handed a baggie filled with too many different pills. “Which one?” he asks Prescott.

“I…I can’t remember.”

Eliot might just murder him. Prescott scuffles so far back while Eliot stalks him around the basement, and I wonder if the bat will be more than a prop tonight.

Beckett is quickly inspecting the baggie. “Vicodin or benzos?” he asks Charlie.

“Both are in there.”

“Should we call Farrow?” I ask them since Audrey isn’t doing well. She might be dramatic, but this isn’t her normal. Her breathing is not right. She’s sinking deeper in the couch.

They’re not listening to me. They exchange a serious look when they identify more pills. A kitten hops up on Audrey’s lap. She tries to reach for the tabby, but her arm droops off the cushion. Limply.

I’m going to throw up. “Beck?”

Audrey starts slumping, and Charlie catches her first, pulling her farther down the sofa while Beckett rests his knee on the cushion. They move so fast. Beckett hovers over her, tapping her cheek. “Audrey?”

Her eyelids are fluttering. “I…don’t feel…”

“Tom,” Beckett captures his attention. “Go get Narcan from my car.”

“On it.” He’s sprinting out of the basement.

“Oh fucking hell.” Leif has his hands on his head. “This can’t be happening.” All he cares about is this frat.

All I care about is my sister. “What’d they give her?” I ask.

“An opioid, we think.” Charlie scrapes a hand through his hair. “But if it’s Rohypnol, the Narcan isn’t going to work.”

“What’s Rohypnol?” I ask.

Charlie snaps me an annoyed look for all the questions—but it fries quickly into ash, then nothingness. I’d almost believe he was worried about me. Almost. I don’t have a mirror. I have no clue what my face is telling him. I know I am mere seconds from retching on this floor.

“Just tell me,” I choke out. “Just tell me, Charlie.”

“Date Rape drug,” Charlie says. “Roofies. She’ll get knocked out.”

Acid bubbles in the back of my throat. Audrey is losing consciousness. Beckett is saying her name and, “Reste éveillée.” Stay awake. His calming, soothing voice isn’t reassuring me. He’s taking her pulse at her neck.

Then her eyes shut. Body slackens. She’s out.

Beckett rubs his knuckles against her sternum. “Audrey? Audrey .” No reaction.

“Is she breathing?” I ask them. Maybe I don’t even release the words. Because I don’t hear their response. I can’t hear a thing. I drop to one knee and puke off to the side. Everything I ate on the car ride here meets the concrete floor.

My sister is ODing in the basement of the frat. “Your frat,” she’d said. My frat. I caused this. If I hadn’t been here…why am I here?

My fingers dig into the plastered wall while I vomit again. I can’t even help her…how do I help her when I can barely help myself?

Pain tunnels through me. I feel a hand on the back of my head. Eliot’s? I feel him lifting me off my knees. I’m leaning most of my weight on my strongest brother. He’s cupping my jaw, trying to train my gaze on his. I think he’s saying my name.

My eyes are flaming like I rubbed jalapeno in each one. I just barely see Beckett administering the Narcan up her nose. I just barely feel Tom rattling my arm. I just barely hear a kitten hiss at a frat brother, then I see him blow smoke from a joint in the tabby’s face.

They aren’t safe here. The Kappa kittens.

I reanimate. Gain muscle function. Just to gather all the cats. I’m making things worse for my sister, and the only good thing I can do is save these fucking kittens from this fucking frat house. I’m in a daze, hunting for kittens and putting them in a blanket-lined beer box.

Eliot gently rests a black cat in with the others. “That’s it, brother. That’s the last one.” I hear him say.

I count only six . “There’s seven kittens.” I know there are. I feed them every time I’m here.

“That’s it. This way.” He’s directing me out the basement’s backdoor. “Time to go.” We’re all leaving. I see Beckett. He’s cradling Audrey in his arms. She’s lucid. She’s coherent. She’s awake?

“She’s okay.” Who’s saying that Tom or Charlie?

I feel drunk. Intoxicated with visceral emotion I can’t escape.

No matter how much I repeat she’s okay in my head.

With one blink, I’m going from point A to point B.

Soon, I’m in the very back of Beckett’s SUV, holding onto the beer box as the kittens let out tiny meows.

I press my forehead to the cardboard edge.

Someone is rubbing my back. Beckett? He should be with Audrey. She needs him, and it’s the first time I look over.

Charlie is beside me.

It makes no sense. But what has? He comes into powerful focus. And the first thing he tells me is, “Don’t puke on my lap.”

Yeah.

That’s Charlie.

It strangely calms me. The bitter, biting familiarity of him. He’s looking straight into my eyes, and again, I don’t know what he sees. They feel bloodshot. My face feels slick with silent tears.

“She’s okay,” he says, and now I’m more certain that he’s the one who said it the first time. “She became responsive immediately. She never lost a pulse. We’re taking her to the hospital. Do you understand?”

I nod.

It’s not helping. Everything he said—it’s not helping me, and I don’t know why. It should. She’s okay. Our little sister will be okay. The reassurance is in outer-fucking-space. I have no way to fly there without being asphyxiated. It feels like I’ll never reach it.

“What’s the problem?” Charlie asks with a great deal less annoyance than usual. It roils my stomach. “Ben?”

I shake my head over and over. I can’t be here. I can’t be here. I can’t be here. I can’t be here.

I can’t be here.

I’m going to hurt everyone I love.

“ Ben .”

I lift my gaze to his.

Confusion—confusion I’ve never seen from Charlie—stares back at me. I am confusing a genius now? There is so much agony inside my body, and I can’t verbally translate even an ounce. Just kill me , I want to tell him.

Then I think about the blood. Beckett’s car. Can’t do that.

Then I think about her, and I nearly break down. “Harriet,” I choke out.

Someone hands Charlie a phone—minutes later? Moments?

He’s putting it against my ear.

“Ben?” I hear her tough voice, and I wipe a hot tear that rolls down my cheek. She continues when I don’t say a word. “Is everything okay? Tom didn’t even insult me. He said you need to talk?”

I struggle to speak.

“Cobalt got your tongue,” she says flatly. “Get it. Lions, cats…dumb joke, I know.”

I clear the knot in my throat. “I’ve actually heard that one before.”

She intakes a sharp breath of relief. “Yeah? Here I thought I was finally being clever…Ben. Are you okay?”

No. I pinch my watery eyes. “Can you do something for me?”

“Anything.”

“Can you just read to me for a second?” I swallow a rock, holding the phone tight against my ear.

“Yeah,” she says fast. “What are you in the mood for? I have an O-Chem textbook that’ll put you to sleep or we can go dark and moody and read about Pyramus and Thisbe—I vote O-Chem.”

I feel a smile somewhere in me. “Scared of the dark, Fisher?” I hoist my glassy gaze to the roof of the car.

“Sorry to say, me and the dark were friends before you.”