Accidentally Kidnapped

Chapter 51

In stormed none other than Fern.

"Yo, wazzup?" I made my fingers into a peace sign and grinned at Fern from between them.

She looked so cute, standing there in a pretty pink sweater and holding Diana in her arms. I love my sister.

Fern gasped and ran to me. She placed Diana carefully on the bed beside me, and then threw her arms around me. Her perfume made my nose tickle and I sneezed right into her shoulder. She didn't even notice, she was babbling on and on about something that I was too high to listen to. I patted her shoulder nicely, feeling bad about sneezing all over her. In fact, I think I might have cried about it a little bit but I wasn't too sure. Everything felt like a dream.

Fern let me go and picked Diana back up, tears in her eyes. "Oh my God, November! I thought you were dead! You have no idea how scared I was. The nurses wouldn't tell me anything except that you were unconscious. God, I thought I lost you forever-"

"You found me again!" I grinned.

"Oh my God." Fern breathed. Her eyes and nose were red, like she had been crying. She pulled up a chair from nearby up to the bed and sat down, taking deep breaths. "I was so worried."

I became serious when I saw how serious she was. The drugs were affecting my ability to function, but worry crawled its terrible little way into my heart. I had more questions than I had time to speak, but I decided to try and come at this in a rational way. There hadn't been much rationality in my life ever since Cage Vickers invited his pretty face into it.

I picked at the cast on my finger. "Where's Cage?"

"What were you thinking, November?" Fern asked angrily, completely disregarding my question. I understood where her frustration was coming from. I wasn't going to win any 'Best Sister of the Year Award' anytime soon. But there were so many things I couldn't tell Fern. She clutched a sleeping Diana protectively and and fixed me with a desperate glare. "Please, just explain to me what you were thinking when you jumped off a goddamn roof with a criminal the entire world's been searching for."

"Fern-" I felt the sniffles coming on and I tried to shove them back, but my emotions took over. They always did and it was one of my biggest flaws. I better work on fixing that before it got me killed. After all, it was those stupid emotions that almost ruined my life. "-where is Cage? And Nick and Heath? What happened to them?"

Fern fell silent. She was quiet for so long that I began to fear the worst. Fern watched me carefully from where she sat. "I don't know, November. Ugh, it was all so sudden. I don't know half of what happened and I'm probably the last person to ask. But I do know that Nick and Heath are safe. I saw them last night at Polly Heights. They were a little roughed up but they're okay."

My panic increased. "And Cage? Is he..."

"I don't know, November." Fern repeated. "He's...not here."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that Cage Vickers is not here." Her voice was soft and wary of my reactions. "After you both jumped, the firefighters managed to put out a net just before you guys hit the ground. Except you landed half on the net and half on the ground, which explains all those bruises. And Cage...I don't think he was too badly hurt. As soon as he landed, he took off. The cops recognized him and they went after him. I guess someone tipped them off."

I cringed. I guess my plan hadn't worked after all. "I did. I called them before I went after Romeo with a burner phone that Cage gave me to call you. They had snipers watching Romeo from neighboring buildings. So I didn't exactly rush in to this without precaution, Fern. I was safe when I was up there. Except Cage got involved and the whole thing went sideways."