Spectacularly Broken (18 page)

“Okay,” Jarett said. He was peering at the scavenger-hunt item list he held instead of looking where he walked, which, unsurprisingly, caused him to nearly crash into Nicky. “So we got all the stuff we were supposed to find; we’re good there. And we did pretty well on all the game stations, except for the one where we had to carry water with our bare hands.”

Yeah, that one had been a bust. It had taken us forever to fill the small bucket, but we had made up the time at the obstacle course. Cai had been impressive and finished climbing and jumping in what we had been told was record time.

So there was that.

“You keep looking at me,” Cai remarked.

He wasn’t wrong. Ever since that conversation with Finn the day before, I’d been worrying about him and me and the lie I was living and whether there was any way out of it that wouldn’t totally crush everyone’s feelings. God, I was scared. It was ridiculous.

“It’s…nothing,” I evaded and swung the pinecone bag.

“Uh-huh.”

“I’m just looking because you’re pretty.”

“That is not an adoring look on your face, baby. That’s something halfway to terrified.”

I tried hard to look less terrified. It didn’t seem to work very well, if Cai’s expression was any indication.

“So what’s up?” he tried again. “What are you scared of?”

“There’s something I haven’t told you,” I burst out.

“Okay.”

“Okay?” I was skeptical. Probably because I was pretty sure it wasn’t okay.

“Yeah, okay. I understand perfectly well that there’s stuff you might not be ready to share. I’d never fault you for that, Haze. Remember who you’re talking to.”

“It’s not that kind of thing. It’s…” I chewed my lip. “I’m worried that you’ll be incredibly angry with me if I tell you. That you’ll hate me, actually.”

That gave him pause and put a surprised look on his face.

“Wow,” he said. “Well, it’s hard for me to know for sure if I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I highly doubt you could tell me anything that’ll make me hate you.”

“Shit,” I muttered.

“You don’t have to tell me right now.” Cai switched his walking stick to his other hand and reached for my free hand. “Breathe, okay?”

“Yeah but—”

“What the heck is that?” Nicky yelled.

I squinted and tried to make out the figure in the distance.

“Ah, crap,” I said then. “That’s Dr. Pierce.”

“Well, what’s she doing here?”

When we’d gotten closer, I realized that she was standing in the middle of a triangle made from three huge pegs anchored in the ground, each as thick as my thigh and tall enough to reach my hip. One peg was holding a variety of thick wooden discs, sorted by size from a five-foot diameter to one that was maybe six inches. Together they made a strange little round pyramid. I didn’t even try to guess what the hell any of it meant.

“Green group!” Dr. Pierce greeted us cheerfully. “Hello, Haze.”

Since I was the only one of us who had her for a therapist, I couldn’t get around a polite greeting.

“This is another team thing, isn’t it?” Cai asked. He was eyeing the stakes.

“Indeed it is.” She smiled at him, and I didn’t miss the way her eyes lingered on our joined hands for a moment. “Last station before the finish line. Are any of you familiar with the Towers of Hanoi?”

In unison, the five of us shook our heads. Go, team.

She launched into an explanation of the rules. I struggled to understand what we were supposed to be doing—move the discs from one peg to another, according to Jarett—and rolled my eyes at the extracomplicated rules for stacking. We were only allowed to move one disc at a time; we couldn’t put a larger disc on top of a smaller one… I couldn’t keep it straight.

However, three minutes later, the entire green team was lifting and moving and dropping wooden discs. They were heavy, and I was terrified of splinters, but I still managed to pull my weight—sort of, anyway. Jarett seemed to have the best understanding of the problem, so the rest of us listened to his directions. His eyes behind the thick glasses gleamed with pride.

“Mediocre, my ass,” Cai muttered just loud enough for me to hear it while we jogged back to lift yet another disc. “That kid’s smarter than the rest of us combined.”

* * * *

We won—by a point. When all was said and done, we’d done well, but so had Finn’s group, and it turned out that we had collected one more pinecone than they had.

One freaking pinecone. And I couldn’t really blame them for taking that personally, but it didn’t stop me from gloating.

Lunch was a picnic of sandwiches, fruit, and iced tea served in the garden. Afterward, there were more group activities. Orange and yellow groups appeared to be shooting a movie. One long-haired kid wielded a video camera, and the rest of them got dressed up and discussed and moved props back and forth. The guys and girls from blue and white vanished inside the manor and occasionally popped back up with flour-speckled aprons on. Red and black were competing head-to-head in a number of relay games. And we got dodgeball.

I wasn’t exactly pleased, even though the ball was made of foam and therefore wouldn’t hurt if it smashed full-on into my face. It just so happened that I’d never been particularly sporty. I took care to keep in shape, sure, but I wasn’t good at all with anything ball-related.

Insert your favorite gay pun here, of course.

“This seems like a horrible idea,” I said to Finn as we helped each other tie the group-colored bandanna around our heads. My gaze wandered to Lexa, who looked unsure, and then to the infamous Paige from purple group, who, as it turned out, was quite obviously four or five months pregnant. She was busy braiding her long blonde hair into pigtails.

“Yeah, I know,” Finn agreed. “Damien’s still really pissed about the pinecone thing.”

I eyed the field, which consisted of a large rectangle of grass that had been marked at the corners with six large white stones some unfortunate soul would be sure to stumble over, and ropes laid out in between them. Kelly was putting the last of them in place at the moment.

“He really wanted to win that scavenger hunt?”

“He’s competitive,” Finn explained with a shrug. “Just try not to make it worse, if you would. Letting him tag you a few times would go a long way towards calming him down.”

“Ah, crap,” I sighed. “I hate this game already.”

The teams met in the middle of the pitch, with Kelly supervising from the edge. She was too far away to make out Damien’s words when the tall, faux-hawked guy glared at Cai and me and then drawled, “This gonna be a game of dodgeball or smear the queer?”

My mouth fell open, and for once I actually didn’t have a comeback to someone’s stupid taunt.

“Damien, I swear to God, you say one more word, and I will shove my foot up your ass,” Finn growled.

“Ah, fuck off, Sandy,” Damien spat. I reacted to his abominable shortening of my given name with understandable indignation, even though it wasn’t me he was talking to.

“Really, you guys are gonna start this again?” The other girl in purple group, a tomboyish strawberry-blonde named Lorelei, glared from Finn to Damien and back. “Can you both be assholes to each other later, when we don’t have to listen to it?”

I took my position on the field, feeling doomed. Purple group was quite obviously out for blood, and green group appeared collectively terrified. Well, except for Cai, who widened his stance and narrowed his eyes and suddenly looked like some kind of predator.

And then I found out that Cai could really play dodgeball. He was quite obviously pissed at Damien, and the two of them ended up being the generals of their own personal war spanning the entirety of the dodgeball field. They slammed the sponge ball at each other like it was going out of style, and if the material of the ball had been the slightest bit less forgiving, they would have managed to bruise the shit out of each other.

“Holy hell,” I panted at one point, when we’d both been tagged and were waiting on Jarett and Paige to duke it out on the field. “Did you use to play competitive dodgeball or something?”

“I played competitive anything.” Cai grinned. “Back with…” He tilted his head.

With Cassiel.

“It is unnerving how good you are at this,” I informed him. “And sexy. But mostly unnerving.”

His grin broadened, his brown eyes sparkling. Seeing him like that took my breath away. I couldn’t resist grabbing him and kissing his cheek before we returned to the field.

“Is there anything you’re not amazing at?” Finn wheezed a round later, bracing his hands on his knees and gasping for breath after a particularly tense bout between him, Lorelei, and Cai. Cai had crushed them both.

“Astrophysics,” Cai replied promptly, making Finn laugh.

“He also snores,” I stage-whispered to Finn.

“I do not!” Cai whirled around and poked his finger at me. “You take that back!”

“Never!” I evaded him for a couple of seconds but then broke down giggling as he tickled me. “Okay, okay, fine. You don’t snore. You’re beautiful and perfect. You’re a saint in low-rise jeans. I worship the ground you play dodgeball on.”

“I can watch his head swell from here,” Finn informed me wryly. “Better watch out, else— Oh
hell no
!”

His abrupt change in tone caused Cai and me to freeze at once. By the time I turned, Finn was already racing to the opposite corner of the field, where Damien appeared to be yelling at a cowed-looking Lexa.

I sprinted. Cai overtook me in moments, and from the corner of my eye, I saw Kelly hurrying to intercede as well. Damien had a death grip on Lexa’s arm. He appeared to be in the process of taking all his pent-up frustration out on her, and she was very obviously frightened.

Finn reached them first. He slammed into Damien’s chest, yelling, “You stay the fuck away from her!”

Together they stumbled over one of the ropes marking the field. Damien pushed Finn away, but right away he was back in the homophobic jerk’s face. “I fucking warned you, asshole! You do
not
mess with her.”

Cai ignored the two of them in favor of wrapping Lexa up in a hug. I was torn between joining him in calming her down and making sure my cousin didn’t get his ass kicked, but before I could make a decision, it was already too late. Damien tripped Finn, or Finn stumbled—it was hard to tell which—and then he was pitching to the ground, and we all heard the sickening crack as his skull hit the corner rock.

Chapter Twenty

“You want a drink or something?”

I looked up. Cai was standing in front of me, looking concerned. I hadn’t even noticed him returning from the cafeteria. I’d been too busy being worried out of my mind. The image of the blood-stained rock wouldn’t leave my inner eye, which was unnerving the hell out of me. The busy hospital environment took care of shaking up whatever calm I might have had left.

“Water, please,” I croaked. My throat felt like sandpaper. I blamed the low humidity of this god-awful place.

“Okay.” Cai left for the vending machine. I slumped back against the wall and continued to wait.

It had been nearly an hour without news, and I was going absolutely insane. The nurses I’d harassed had told me repeatedly that this much waiting was normal, but I had my doubts. Finn currently had my name, my insurance, my father’s fame on his side, which should have gotten him the best, fastest treatment possible. This shouldn’t have taken so long.

“Nothing yet?” Cai asked when he came back. He handed me a bottle of water and took his seat next to me.

I shook my head. “Not since the CT scan.”

They had brought Finn straight from the ER to radiology to get the scan done, which had revealed what I’d been told was a compound fracture of his skull. Apparently that was code for “really bad,” because Margaret had reported to me that the doctors were now worried about all sorts of stuff, from infection to hematomas and probably fifty other things I never even wanted to think about. Immediately afterward, Finn had been transferred to ICU. They were considering surgery, and I wasn’t allowed anywhere near him.

So I was busy worrying myself sick instead.

I saw movement to my right and raised my tired eyes to meet Margaret’s, who had just emerged from the stairwell. She held her cell phone in her hands.

“Finnegan,” she said. I had not realized until today that not only did she insist on calling me by Finn’s first name but also by the unabbreviated version. It was really annoying, though I couldn’t bring myself to make a fuss about it.

“Yeah?” I asked.

“Do you know a better way to get in touch with your uncle? I’ve left two messages on his agent’s voice mail, but…” She frowned at her phone. “There’s got to be something more direct.”

Ha-ha. I decided the lady should consider going into comedy. She was probably expecting my dad to be all freaked out and concerned too. Well, I wasn’t going to shatter her illusions. That would happen when his PA arranged to have the hospital bill paid, made a couple of donations, and told her to shut up.

“No, sorry.” I shrugged. “He’s difficult to reach.”

I was a little bit worried about Aunt Janice, and I’d considered calling her, but ultimately, it was probably for the best if I didn’t. She couldn’t afford to take time off work to drive up here, and even if she did, there was literally nothing she could do for Finn right now. And I would be 100 percent okay with it if my dad paid the bill and nobody ever had to know that it hadn’t been me getting my brain x-rayed.

Besides, imagine the confusion that would ensue if they realized Finn had been processed under the wrong name. So I decided it would be much more considerate of me to keep my mouth shut.

Margaret sighed. “I’ll keep trying, I suppose,” she said to no one in particular. She looked strained. When she pinched the bridge of her nose, I actually felt a little sorry for her. Then I remembered that Finn was somewhere beyond the large double doors with his head bashed in, and the feeling faded pretty damn fast.

The door at the end of the hallway opened again and revealed Lexa. She was staring at the floor and hidden behind her curtain of hair, dragging her feet. Her restless wandering had started soon after we had gotten to the hospital, and unsurprisingly, she hadn’t said a word the entire time. Every once in a while, she popped back up and checked in with us—like now.