Autumn

by Sierra Dean

  When Lou awoke she felt a pang of nausea in her gut, like a fist cinching around her stomach and squeezing tight. She rolled over, and her head hit the floor, reminding her of the pain that had brought her to the rough carpet in the first place. She found a large knot on the base of her skull, and when she pulled her fingers away, they were tacky.

  She didn’t need to see blood to know what it was.

  What the hell had happened?

  Lou sat up, then doubled over, her head swimming and her body wracked with the urge to vomit. Her mouth was dry and her throat begged for water, while the stabbing discomfort in her belly slid deeper, making her scan the room for any sign of a bathroom.

  She pawed the floor around her, groping for her bag. How long had she been out? And why had she been so stupid to eat all that candy and not immediately take her insulin?

  When she couldn’t find her bag, she scrambled close to one of the nearby shelves to help prop herself up. Panting, she brushed her hair back from her face and tried to come to grips with what was going on.

  Nigel had knocked her out and locked her in a room. She’d been out for God knows how long, and she hadn’t had any of her insulin since taking her pre-bed meds the night prior.

  The high blood sugars hitting her now were more than a little concerning. Without knowing how long she was out there was no way to determine how long her body had been processing all that sugar without any medicinal assistance. But based on how she was currently feeling, it had been awhile.

  Worst-case scenario, she was in the early stages of ketoacidosis. As worst-case scenarios went, it was a scary, bad possibility.

  When Lou had been thirteen and still new to her life as a diabetic, she had behaved a bit recklessly with her insulin, testing the limits of her illness. She’d found the boundary by going a half-day after Halloween without taking any insulin. She’d ended up in the hospital for several days while the doctors worked to correct the damage she’d done.

  Since then, she’d been good. Well, if not good, she’d been a lot better. Taking her insulin regularly, not pushing things too far. But she hadn’t known she was going to be knocked out and locked up, so she had assumed she’d be able to take a shot with plenty of time to spare.

  Apparently she’d been wrong.

  The symptoms were there, and knowing what they meant made her feel even sicker. She needed her insulin and she needed it now before things went beyond just requiring a shot.

  She got to her feet, feeling woozy and sick, and fumbled her way along the bookshelves by touch until she reached the door. For the moment she wasn’t focused on why Nigel had locked her up, or what he planned to do. As far as worries went, she had enough to deal with, fearing her body might be on the verge of a self-destruct sequence. It was difficult to be afraid of a potentially violent librarian, when her own kidneys were working on finishing her off from the inside.

  If she could get insulin, then she’d worry about Nigel.

  Tapping on the door, she called out, “Hello? Nigel?”

  Nothing.

  “Nigel, I don’t know what’s going on, but I really, really need my backpack. Not even my whole backpack, just the case with the purple flowers on it.”

  Nada.

  She slapped her palm against the rough wood a few times, but it barely made a sound. Resting her head against the door, she took a few deep breaths through her nose, trying to ignore her bladder’s insistent nagging and her stomach’s equally demanding urge to vomit. She was in bad shape.

  “Nigel. I’m really sick. I have diabetes, and my insulin is in my bag.” Lou knocked again. “I’m not kidding around. If your plan is to kill me, then by all means leave me—”

  The knob rattled. “Step back from the door.”

  Lou did as she was told. She’d be totally useless in a fight. Even a scrawny guy like Nigel could best her most days, and right then a four-year-old could have knocked her out. She waited in the center of the room as the door opened, letting in a thin crack of light. Something was placed on the floor, and he shoved it towards her then quickly shut the door again.

  She’d have loved a bottle of water and a bathroom break, but she would take what she could get.

  Besides, if she had to pee in the corner of the office, she wasn’t going to feel bad about it. She was locked in against her will, after all. It would be the best form of revenge she was capable of enacting.

  Lou collected her kit and ran through the process of checking her sugars. Her shaky hands didn’t make collecting blood easy, but once she got enough for the test strip, she waited in the cold blue glow of the glucometer, waiting for the verdict.

  She was at 475.

  Considering a healthy, normal level for her was 135, she was appalled to see such a high number in her reader. She adjusted her dosage accordingly and lifted the hem of her shirt to inject the insulin into her stomach.

  When she was done, she packed her kit up and let her head loll back against the shelf she was seated in front of. She would be okay. The insulin wasn’t a magic wand, and it would take a little while for her to get back to normal, but she was out of the woods.

  Or, more accurately, she was out of the frying pan and into the fire.

  Things could get bad again if she was trapped long enough for her sugar to go from high to low. If it dipped in the opposite direction, no medication would help her. She’d need to eat something, and unless books suddenly had enough carbs to keep her balanced, she was going to be royally screwed.

  Whatever higher power came up with diabetes was a dick. It was the ultimate high wire balancing act, and there were times she didn’t think she knew how to walk in a straight line.

  She got up again, still wobbly, and fumbled around the room until she found a small lamp on one of the bookshelves. The light wasn’t much, but it was better than sitting around in the pitch dark. Once she could see, she scanned the room for an escape route.

  The vent at the top of the wall would have been great if she had a five-inch waist and no shoulders. Without windows or a different door, she was trapped like a spider under a glass.

  And was she going to just wait for someone to put her out under the sun and fry her?

  Hell no.

  Instead of waiting for inspiration to strike and show her how to MacGyver a way out using lint and paper clips, she started looking for something to use as a weapon. The most promising option was all the heavy books, but she didn’t think she had the strength to swing one with enough force to make it worthwhile.

  She stared at her kit on the floor and stooped to pick it up, unzipping it to get a look at the contents. There were two pens, one for her short-term insulin and the other for her overnight. She popped the cap on the one she’d just used and inspected the needle. It wasn’t long, not like a standard syringe. But if she jammed it into someone’s face or neck, she could probably take them by surprise. She wouldn’t do any serious damage, but she might stun Nigel long enough to make a break for it.

  The library wasn’t far from the sheriff’s office. If she could make it to the front door, that was all she needed. She was amazed Nigel had been bold enough to lock her up in the middle of the day, but she didn’t think he’d chase her out into the street.

  She went back to the door, feeling braver than before but still not very strong. She knocked on the door again and called out, “Nigel? I need to pee.” It was the truth, so she hoped it didn’t sound like she was bluffing.

  No reply.

  “Nigel, I really need to pee. And unless you want to clean up the carpet in here, can you please let me go to the bathroom?” That ought to get the urgency across.

  She listened through the door and heard soft footfalls on the carpet outside. Straightening, she held the pen in one hand, primed to strike out at face height when he came in.

  The knob rattled again, and the door opened. Lou waited for him to push it open wider, then dove towards the crack of light, jabbing the pen in the general direction of where she anticipa
ted Nigel’s eyes would be. A voice yelped, but Lou missed her mark entirely, stumbling down on her knees. She scuttled forward, adrenaline pumping as she crawled blindly towards the library’s entrance.

  She could see the glass rectangle of the front door, still bright with golden daylight, and it was the only thing she needed. Passing the end of the bookshelves, she got to her feet and bolted headlong for the exit.

  “Stop,” Nigel shouted, collecting himself and chasing after her, the thuds of his shoes softened by the carpeting. His fingertips grazed the back of her T-shirt, and she banked left, out of his reach.

  And face-first into a woman she hadn’t known was there.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  After the fourteenth unanswered text message, Cooper knew something was wrong. Six hours was longer than it took to charge a phone, or watch an entire movie marathon—not that there was a theatre in town she could go to—and yet she still hadn’t responded to any of his messages.

  Before the previous night’s events he might have assumed she was avoiding him, but considering all they’d been through and everything they’d discussed, it seemed impossible she could just shut him out like everyone else.

  He parked his truck at the bottom of her grandmother’s driveway and turned the engine off. He dialed her number and kept an eye on the gravel path winding up towards the house. He could barely see Elle Whittaker’s home, with the exception of the peaked rooftops from the two turrets, which he now knew were a part of Lou’s room.

  The phone rang and rang, indicating it hadn’t been shut off, but after the seventh ring the familiar sound of Lou’s voicemail clicked in. Hey, you’ve reached Lou, leave me a message.

  He didn’t. He’d already left three.

  Cooper chucked his phone on the passenger seat and took a deep, steadying breath. When he thought he might be able to survive the expedition, he got out of the truck and jogged up the driveway until the house came into view. Once he saw the butter-yellow front door, he had a change of heart.

  He stopped running and stared up at the house. Last night it had been dark, like a haunted mansion, but in the light of day it was ten times scarier. At night he’d been with Lou, and on the back porch not thirty feet from where he was standing, she’d kissed him and made him feel like they were the calm eye at the center of a hurricane.

  But here in front of him was the full fury of that storm just waiting to knock him off his feet.

  He sucked in a breath and reminded himself Elle Whittaker was pushing eighty and couldn’t hurt a fly. It didn’t make him any less scared of her. Especially considering what Lou had told him about the old woman shouting at Jer in the woods. Why would she tell a coyote he wasn’t allowed there if she didn’t know what he was?

  Cooper mounted the stairs to the front door, and before he could reconsider, he knocked three times. He paced the welcome mat like a caged animal until the interior door opened and a familiar, chubby, white-haired woman peered out at him from behind the screen.

  “What do you want?” She didn’t feign any of the traditional Southern hospitality the women in Texas were known for.

  “Where is Lou?” If she didn’t need to be polite, neither did he. Nothing he said or did was going to make Elle like him, so he wasn’t going to put out the energy to convince her he was a good person.

  “I don’t see how that’s any of your business, Cooper Reynolds. I’ve asked her to stay away from you, and I’d like to request you do the same. You’re no good for that girl.”

  “What do you know about me and how good or bad I am for Lou?” Anger snuck into his words in spite of his attempt to keep calm. Terse was one thing, outright rage wasn’t going to get him anywhere.

  “We both know what you are.”

  His body went rigid, and he stared at her. “What am I, Mrs. Whittaker?”

  “Bad.”

  “I’m no worse than you.”

  They stared at each other through the screen, her wrinkled eyelids narrowing until he could barely see her irises. “That might be true. But it doesn’t mean I want you near my granddaughter.”

  “She’s not answering my calls.”

  “Good. Perhaps she has a bit of good taste and common sense. Good afternoon.” She started to close the door, and Cooper had to think fast.

  “I know what’s going on,” he said, though he hadn’t the faintest damned idea.

  His bluff worked. She opened the door a little wider and stared at him.

  “What precisely is it you think you know?”

  “You think I’m a danger to her. But I’m not going to hurt her. I won’t ever hurt her.”

  “Oh you silly boy. You’ll hurt her without ever knowing you’ve done it, that’s the worst part. Pain is in your bones, it’s part of you. Your destiny is just injury waiting to happen. I wanted to protect her from that.”

  “I don’t think you can.”

  Elle looked at him, casting a withering glance from head to toe. He thought she might close the door anyway, but instead she said, “Eloise has gone to the library.”

  She shut him out after that, but she’d given him the only thing he needed.

  Cooper made his way back to the main road, thinking about what Elle had said. He knew his fate, but he hadn’t thought of it as being a destiny of pain to others. What a miserable existence. When he reached the road, he noticed a small, impractical Mazda sports car parked behind his truck. As he approached, the driver-side window rolled down, and Archer dangled an arm out. He reclined casually in his seat as though he didn’t have a care in the world.

  Must be nice.

  Hell-bent on ignoring his teammate, Cooper beelined for his truck, acting as if it were perfectly normal for Archer to be stopped out in the middle of nowhere.

  “Don’t ignore me, Coop.”

  Cooper stopped at the driver’s door of his truck with his fingers brushing the handle, and turned towards Archer. “So it’s okay if you guys do it all day to me, but God forbid I deign to ignore the mighty Archer Wyatt. I don’t have time for whatever crap you have planned right now.”

  He was halfway into his seat when he heard Archer’s door open and close, and was just about to start his engine when the quarterback appeared outside his window.

  “What do you want?” Cooper grumbled, not meeting Archer’s gaze.

  “You have somewhere you need to be?”

  “Would it matter?”

  “No.”

  “Then tell me what you want so I can leave.”

  “I want to know what you’re doing here.”

  Cooper stuck his keys in the ignition but didn’t start the car. If this was going to be another stay away from Lou discussion, he didn’t have the patience for it. Certainly not from Archer. If he didn’t listen to his own mother’s warning, it was highly unlikely he’d take advice from a dude his didn’t even like.

  “I was bringing a muffin basket to Elle Whittaker.”

  “Your mother doesn’t strike me as the kind of woman who makes muffin baskets.”

  “Who said anything about my mother?” Cooper’s fingers fiddled with the keys, itching to start the truck and drive away, leaving Archer in his literal dust. But he waited. Something about Archer’s presence there made him uneasy but left him wanting to hear whatever message the other boy had come to deliver.

  “You’re playing a dangerous game here, I hope you know that.” Suddenly any friendly pretense was gone, and Archer’s tone became that of a much older, more mature individual. “You know what they say about people who play with fire, don’t you?”

  “That someone will get burned.” Cooper stared at him meaningfully, hoping his message was conveyed.

  “You and Lou…you can’t be together.”

  There it was.

  “I’ve had enough of this.” He started the truck, but Archer’s arm darted through the window and latched on to his wrist. Cooper felt as if Archer’s touch carried a shock.

  Cooper’s gaze trailed from the hand on his ar
m, across his body, to where Archer was leaned halfway through his window. “I need you to listen to me,” Archer insisted.

  “Take your hand off me before I ruin any shot in hell you have of a scholarship.” Cooper gave himself props for sounding calm. All he wanted to do was punch Archer in the head or break all his fingers. He took a deep breath through his nose then said again, “Get your hand off me, Archer.”

  The other boy complied hesitantly, and as soon as his fingers were gone so was the uncomfortable electric tingling. “I’m not trying to be a dick here.”

  “Could have fooled me.”

  “You are running out of time. Just like your brother did.”

  That was it. Those words were like a dousing of ice-cold water poured over Cooper, sobering his rage and replacing it with a tangible fear he thought he might choke on.

  “I’ve got your attention now, don’t I?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m not telling you to stay away from Lou because I like her. Don’t get me wrong, I do like her. But you two can’t be together. Not shouldn’t. Can’t.”

  “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.” He also wanted to know what Archer knew about Jer, and what any of it had to do with Cooper’s relationship with Lou. People were out of their minds with the need to keep the two of them apart, and for what? They weren’t Romeo and Juliet. They were two people who liked each other, and it was the twenty-first century, for crying out loud.

  “You’ll hurt her. Or she’ll hurt you.”

  “That should be up to us.” Frankly he was sick of hearing about it, especially from people who had no goddamn place meddling in any aspect of his personal life, like Archer.

  “Have you kissed her?”

  Cooper went rigid. “That’s none of your business.”

  “You have, haven’t you? Was there anything weird about it?”

  Aside from the fact that Cooper had lost almost all gentlemanly decorum and had wanted to literally shred Lou’s clothes off? He’d rather not be reminded about that little lapse.

  “No,” he lied.

  The look on Archer’s face said he wasn’t buying it. “I can help you.”