She nodded slightly and a soft sob followed by a huge breath in snapped her back to the present. “Gage! It was on me! I had no idea—I was just lying there and I felt something. I tried to get it off and it was still there!” Another huge breath in. “I looked down and I didn’t realize what it was at first, and then its tail, oh my God, its tail did that thing where it, where it, you know . . .” She tried to show me with her hands.

It was so damn cute, but she was freakin’ out and had just been stung. I knew from experience that it hurt like a bitch, and the one that got her wasn’t little either, so I kept my mouth shut as I carried her over to the counter where our sinks were and turned the water on, waiting for it to warm.

“A-a-and I just freaked! I tried to sit up and scramble away and it stung me before I could get it off. I’ve never even seen one before! Why was it here? They aren’t supposed to be in Texas, are they?!” She took another shuddering breath in, and before she could continue her chest started heaving up and down quickly.

“Breathe, Cass, deep breath in and hold it, then blow it out. Darlin’, you’ve got to calm down, now, you’re gonna hyperventilate. Come on, Cass, deep breath in.” I gripped her shoulders and tried to force her to breathe with me for the next couple minutes until she was breathing normal and her head was slumped onto my chest. “Good girl. All right, let’s get this washed off, I’ll get you some ice, and we’ll go back to bed; sound good?”

She whimpered some kind of agreement and clutched her stomach.

God, I’d forgotten she was sick too. This was just not her day.

After we washed where she was stung, I laid her down in bed and propped her leg up on a couple pillows before getting some ice wrapped in a towel. I held the towel against her calf and rubbed her back until she was sound asleep, then curled around her tiny body, and before my head hit the pillow I was out.

NO WAY IT’S time to get up yet. I would put money down that I just went to sleep. My eyes opened and I realized my alarm wasn’t going off, and it wasn’t even predawn outside, it was pitch-black. I heard Cassidy getting sick in the bathroom and realized that must’ve been what woke me up. Turning slightly, I checked the clock and saw we’d only gotten back in bed about an hour ago. I wished there was something, anything, I could do for her. I felt so helpless, and I hated it. I’d just swung my legs off the bed when a loud smack came from the bathroom and for the second time tonight I shot off toward it, this time to find my wife sprawled out on the floor, eyes rolled to the back of her head and barely breathing. As soon as I finished checking her, I was at my nightstand grabbing the phone, dialing and running back to her side, sliding up to her on my knees.

“Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?”

“M-my wife collapsed, she’s—I don’t know, she’s barely breathing and she’s not waking up.” The hand that wasn’t holding the phone was going everywhere: her eyelids, her mouth, her neck, her chest, her wrist. Anywhere to get a response or to feel her breaths or pulse. “Cass, baby, wake up, please wake up!”

After telling the woman on the other line where we were, she asked, “Sir, can you tell me what happened prior to you finding your wife in this condition? Had she been drinking or—”

I didn’t even let her finish. “No, no, she’s been sick all day with the flu and then an hour ago she was stung by a scorpion. I cleaned it and everything and we went back to bed. I woke up and she was throwing up, then I heard her hit the floor.” My whole body was shaking and I kept begging Cassidy to wake up. The fact that her pulse was so faint I had to struggle to feel it was scaring me worse than anything had in my entire life.

“You said she was stung by a scorpion?”

“Yeah, about an hour ago. But everyone in my family, including me, has been stung at least once before. I washed it, put ice on it, and elevated it.”

“Has your wife ever been stung before, sir?”

“Cassidy, please wake up! What? Um . . . no, no, she’s never seen one before tonight.”

“What does the area look like where she was stung?”

“What? Look, is someone coming? I need an ambulance, she’s still not waking up!”

“Sir, I dispatched them as soon as you gave me the address. Now I need you to tell me what the area where she was stung looks like.”

I touched Cassidy’s face and throat once more before looking down at the side of her calf. “Oh shit,” I breathed. “It—it’s big.” What the hell?

“Is it red?”

“Yeah.”

“All right, sir, she might be having an allergic reaction to the sting.”

“What can I do?”

“I’m sorry, sir, but there’s nothing to do right now other than wait for the ambulance.”

“She’s barely breathing! This isn’t a normal allergic reaction. I’m not just gonna sit around and wait for someone to get here!” I shot up and ran into the bedroom, grabbing the first clothes my hands touched. “Do you know how fuckin’ long it takes for an ambulance to get out here?! You tell the EMTs they see a black SUV trying to get their attention, it’s me meeting them on the way.” I hung up and rushed back into the bathroom. Cassidy usually slept in nothing but my shirt, but thank God she’d been sick, because she had little sleep shorts on with her hoodie. Sick or not, I didn’t want anyone else seeing her but I wasn’t wasting more time dressing her.

Grabbing her up in my arms, I walked as steadily and quickly as possible out to her Tahoe, put the passenger seat all the way down, and laid her in it. After putting the seat belt over her, I ran around to the driver’s side and took off while dialing the main house. Dad was outside and waiting for me when we pulled up; Mom was in a nightgown with her hands covering her mouth. Thankfully Dad said we’d call her and she ran back into the house to get ready in case we needed her. He jumped into the driver’s seat and I hopped into the back so I could watch over Cassidy as we drove.

About ten minutes after we’d gotten off the property, she groaned and her eyes fluttered open. My heart started racing as I brushed my hands lightly over her throat; her pulse was still soft, too soft. “Cassidy, baby, can you hear me?”

She nodded and it looked like she was still struggling to breathe.

“Thank God,” I whispered, and rested my forehead on hers for a moment before sitting up to look into her honey eyes. They held mine for barely two seconds before rolling back again. “No, Cass, no. Wake back up!” My hands started doing their check, and when they passed over her chest, I realized it felt wrong.

Even compared to her shallow breathing in the bathroom, this felt wrong. I put my hand back on her chest and crouched low in the seat, making myself eye level with my hand. It wasn’t fucking moving.

“Cassidy, Cassidy, babe, I need you to wake up. You hear me? Wake up, darlin’, please, God, wake up.” I let one hand go to her wrist and the other go to her throat. “Damn it, babe, please.” My hands were shaking so bad, I had to take deep breaths in just to calm them so I could check for a pulse. “Come on, sweetheart . . . open your eyes again.” I kept quiet as I focused and about cried out in relief when I felt the faintest beat in her throat. “Keep breathing, Cassidy, ple—” My words broke off on a sob and I let my forehead fall onto the top of the seat. “God, Cass, don’t leave me, wake up.”

“Gage,” Dad said gruffly, and I looked up through tear-filled eyes to see flashing lights. He hit the brakes, put on the emergency lights, and started flashing his brights at them.

They’d just started to pass us when they slammed on their brakes. Thank God for that dispatcher. I was already out of the car and running to the other side when an EMT came out of the back of the ambulance, and another came from the passenger side. I didn’t wait for them to ask, I just started saying everything I could think of that had happened in the last two hours as I opened the passenger side of the Tahoe and unbuckled Cassidy. They put her on a stretcher, and once again I didn’t wait for them to ask; I got into the ambulance with them. No way in hell they were taking my girl without me.

I held her hand and silently pleaded with her to breathe. Once in there, the EMTs started an IV, shot her with something else, and when they started spouting off words, all I heard was anaphylactic shock. My heart stopped; there was no way. No way, she’d never been stung before; that couldn’t happen from just one sting, right? I gripped her hand tighter and begged God not to take her from me after just giving me her. Twenty minutes later, just as we were pulling up to the emergency room driveway, Cassidy’s eyes opened halfway as she took the deepest breath she’d taken in who knows how long and locked on mine for a split second before the EMTs moved the stretcher out of the ambulance.

I jumped out with them and kept her hand in mine as they wheeled her in. We’d just gotten to the double doors inside the waiting room when a large male nurse stepped in front of me, stopping me from going farther.

“No, I have to go with her!”

“You can wait out here; if you’re family, a doctor will be out to talk to you.”

“She’s my wife, I need to be in there with her!” I tried to sidestep him, and when he put a hand to my chest, I just threw it to the side and kept marching forward. She’d just opened her eyes again. I needed to be there for her.

“Sir, I’m going to have to ask that you calmly sit down, or I’m going to have you removed.”

“If that was your world, would you let some nurse with a complex—”

“Gage.” I turned to see my dad behind me. As I opened my mouth to tell him how ridiculous this guy was being, he spoke again. “Son, sit down. They’ll talk to us when they can. In the meantime, you’re not doing Cassidy any good if you get kicked out of the hospital.”

He didn’t wait for me to respond; he put a hand on my shoulder and led me over to the chairs.