I cried until I'd released everything and was left with that empty feeling that came only after something intensely emotional had passed. I pressed my lips against the back of his hand. “I'm here, my Cade. I'll be here when you wake up.” My fingers tightened. “Just wake up, baby. Please.”
Chapter 8
There was a crick in my neck. The first thought I had as I started to climb my way towards wakefulness didn't make any sense. Why did my neck hurt? Then I realized I was slumped over. My back bent and my head down, like I'd fallen asleep sitting up. Why would I have done that?
Even as I thought the question, everything came back in one excruciating rush. Cade telling me he loved me. Waking up with a note saying he'd be back. The hours of worrying. Arriving at the loft. Seeing the torn pictures. Then Cade on the bed with a man next to him. Realizing Cade wasn't breathing. Performing CPR. The ride to the hospital.
I was in the hospital, sitting next to a bed. I must've fallen asleep at some point while I'd been waiting for Cade to wake up.
Then I felt fingers tighten around mine and my heart stuttered. Cade.
I opened my eyes and looked up to find a pair of dark gray ones staring at me. Relief rushed through me so sharply that tears formed in my eyes. I grasped his hand tightly.
“Hey there, Sleeping Beauty.” His voice was weak, but it was there and that's what was important.
I threw myself at him, heedless of the wires and tubes connecting him to monitors and bags of whatever. I didn't care about any of that. I just had to have my arms around him, feeling him breathing, his heart beating. I pressed my face against his chest.
“I'm okay,” he whispered as he stroked my hair.
I didn't cry. Not really. A couple tears escaped, but that was all. I'd spent everything last night. Now, I was just exhausted. The little sleep I'd gotten was only enough to keep me from passing out, and this weariness wasn't just physical. Between everything that had happened the night before and then today, my emotions had taken me on a roller coaster ride like nothing I'd ever experienced before.
“Don't ever scare me like that again.” My voice was muffled against his chest.
“I won't,” Cade said. “Believe me.”
I let myself relax against him for a few more minutes, not wanting to break the silence with the questions I was trying to avoid. No need to create more drama. We'd had enough to last quite a while. I just wanted to listen to the steady beating of his heart, echoed by the beeping from the monitor. I couldn't even find the sound annoying. Not when it was reassuring me that he was okay.
“There are some things I need to tell you,” he said softly.
I sighed. Apparently my questions were going to be answered whether I wanted them to be or not. I could only hope that I could survive what he told me. I sat up and then back in my chair. Until I knew how this was going to go, I didn't trust myself to be touching him.
“But first I need to know what happened. How I got here.”
“Didn't the doctors tell you?” I asked.
He shook his head. “I haven't seen any. I woke up about ten minutes before you did.”
“And you didn't call anyone in here?”
“I didn't want to wake you.”
I managed a weak smile that I knew didn't reach my eyes. I gave him the short version of what had happened, starting with me being worried when he didn't answer my calls. My voice hitched when I got to the part where I'd realized he wasn't breathing, and he reached for my hand. I let him take it, needing the comfort more than I needed the distance.
“I'm so sorry, Aubree.” He pressed his lips against the back of my hand.
“What happened, Cade?” I couldn't stop myself from asking the question. “Who was...” My voice trailed off.
“The man you found with me is named Samuel Lehane. Sammy.”
The familiarity in the way Cade said the name made my stomach turn to ice. I forced myself to keep my hand in his. I'd trusted him this far. I would hear him out before I acted.
“I told you before about how a woman I'd worked for propositioned me and that was how I got started as an escort,” he said.
I nodded. I remembered. A flare of anger went through me at the thought of the people who had taken advantage of a hurting young man.
“That was true...to an extent.” His fingers tightened around mine. “There was a time between me running away and ending up in that woman's bed.”
I could see the struggle on his face. He didn't want to share this, and it wasn't because he wanted to hide things from me. He was in pain. “It's okay,” I said. “You don't have to tell me.”
“Yes,” he countered. “I do. You deserve to know.”
Maybe that was true, but I wasn't sure I wanted to know.
“I was on the streets for weeks after I ran, trying to find ways to eat, to survive, and I was losing. And then I met Sammy. He was the first friend I had. When he realized that I was working odd jobs for barely enough money to keep me alive, he told me I should do what he did. Turn tricks. I kept telling him no, but he persisted and, finally, when I was hungry enough, I agreed.”
His fingers twitched and suddenly, I was holding his hand and not the other way around.
“He took me to meet his pimp who told me I was perfect, that I'd been made to fuck.”
My lips flattened into a thin line but I didn't speak. I knew how hard it was to re-start a painful story once stopped. I wasn't going to interrupt.
“He told me that he had the perfect client for me to start with and gave me an address. That simple. All I had to do, he said, was do what I was told and I'd get sixty bucks and get to keep half.”
Thirty dollars. I really didn't want to know what he'd had to do for that money.
“When I got to the address, it was a warehouse and the client was a man.”
My eyes widened.
“I tried to leave, told him I wasn't gay, but he grabbed me. Hit me.” Cade's hands were cold. “I'd barely eaten for weeks. I wasn't strong enough to fight back.”
I felt like I was going to be sick. I didn't want to hear what happened next, but if he could tell it, the least I could do was listen.
“He tied me up, took my clothes.” Cade's voice was flat, emotionless, but his eyes told a different story. “He touched me, told me how I was only good for one thing, told me what he was going to do to me. I knew he was going to rape me and leave me for others to do the same. And I hoped that in the end, I would die.”
Oh, my Cade. I had to bite my bottom lip to keep from saying it out loud.
“Before he could...” He paused, and then continued. “Sammy showed up. He hit the guy with a brick. Killed him.”
The man I'd found with Cade had saved his life. I didn't understand.
“I went to the hospital. The man went to the morgue and Sammy went to jail. I tried telling the cops what had happened, but all they could see were two hooking street kids who'd killed a respected schoolteacher. Sammy pled out on a self defense charge and got out last week. He showed up at the loft after you left the other night...” His voice trailed off and I knew he was remembering the fight.
“It's okay.” I put his hand on my cheek. “I'm here.”