A nearby thump finished waking me up. I’d already been halfway to consciousness, but the sudden noise sent me bolting up to sitting.

I looked around the room in confusion. “Paige?”

No answer.

Stretching my arms above my head, I languidly stood up. Just enough sun entered through the thick curtains for me to easily make out the room. Just how long had I been sleeping for? And where had Paige gotten off to?

I turned out of the doorway and froze, momentarily taken aback by the strange, crumpled mass in front of me.

Had I left something out here the night before?

But no. It was no bunched-up rug or pile of clothes on the floor.

It was Paige.

“Paige!” I shouted, dropping to my knees and taking her head in my hands. Her face was pale, her eyes closed.

“Paige!” I tried again.

Had she just randomly fainted? From what?

An asthma attack! That could do it, right?

No. That couldn’t be it. She’d been telling me just the day before about her asthma, about how it could unexpectedly flare up and that’s why she always carried her inhaler with her.

But there was no other answer. There was nothing in the hall she could have hit her head on.

Asthma had to be it.

I thought fast, my mind working at warp speed. Where had she put her purse?

The bedroom.

Putting her head back down, I flew into the bedroom. Her purse sat on the floor, just underneath the footstool holding her duffel bag.

Something in the unzipped bag caught my eye.

Her inhaler. Thank God.

Snatching it up, I leaped back into the hallway.

I’d never had to administer a dose of whatever was in these inhalers before today, but it seemed pretty easy. Craning her head back a little bit, I put the mouthpiece between her lips and pumped the device.

“Come on,” I muttered, my heart beating so loudly I could hardly hear my voice. “Come on, Paige.”

The relief over finding the inhaler quickly disappeared. It wasn’t working.

What next? CPR?

What if that did no good either?

I needed to call for an ambulance.

Nearly tripping over my feet, I ran into the room and grabbed my cell phone. Each second without a medic there was precious time. I didn’t know how long it had been since Paige became unconscious, but even minutes could be long enough, without the right medical care.

I stammered my address and an explanation of the emergency into the phone line. The operator instructed me to administer CPR until the medics arrived.

Relieved to have an answer as to what to do, I hurried back to Paige. It had been years since I took that CPR course in high school, but it all came back to me as I worked frantically to save her.

Chest compressions. Two quick breaths.

The pulse in her neck told me she still hung on.

I checked for breathing. Nothing.

Come on, Paige. Not now. Not when I’ve just found you.

She couldn’t be dying. It just wasn’t fair.

Adrenaline pulsed in me. I wasn’t going to lose her. Hell no.

More chest compressions. Another head tilt and a deep breath. And then I felt it. Her exhale on my lips.

“Paige?”

Her eyelashes fluttered.

At the same time sirens filled the air.

I hopped up and ran as fast as I could to the front door. Two paramedics rushed up the drive.

“This way,” I told them, directing them down the hallway to where Paige lay.

I let them go first and then rushed after them. Paige lay where I had left her, but her head moved slightly to the side. Was she waking up?

“What’s her name?” the female paramedic asked.

“Paige,” I thickly replied. “That’s her inhaler next to her.”

“Paige? Can you hear me?”

Her eyes still closed, Paige garbled something unintelligible in response. I sighed in relief. At least she was conscious now.

The paramedics helped her sit up while I hung back. She put her palm to her face like she had a headache.

While the female paramedic checked Paige out and helped her get a hit from the inhaler her male counterpart questioned me on what had happened. I gave him the story from beginning to end. Everything I could remember, I shared.

“It looks like you saved her,” he replied. “We’ll get her to the emergency room. She needs to be checked out.”

“All right,” I nodded. “I’ll follow you there.”

I smiled at Paige encouragingly, but she looked so out of it, it seemed she didn’t even notice me there.

One of the paramedics retrieved a stretcher and they took her away, talking to her and crowding my view.

Eager to get to the hospital, I went back into my room to dress. Throughout the chaos, I’d been wearing a pair of striped boxers. Hopefully the paramedics had seen people in less.

On the drive to the hospital I called my brother.

“Dominic,” I started, the second he answered.

A moment passed. Dominic wasn’t an early riser. Then, “Yes?”

“I need to talk to you about Sophia.”

Another moment, this one longer, passed.

Getting so close to losing Paige made me realize I couldn’t be complacent. Not only could I not let her slip away, I couldn’t just rest idle, sitting on my hands, while a mysterious swirl of activity surrounded me. I needed to know what we were in for, needed to know what came next.

If experience taught me anything it was that when things happen all at once they’re usually connected.

There were too many secrets. All I needed to do was a bit of unraveling.

Dominic was one of the hardest people to get information from. You had to work him, convince him you were onto things when you actually weren’t.

“Why are you even asking about her?” came his cool reply.

“Because whatever is going on with her has to do with me.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

I hit the gas, taking a quick right just before the stoplight in front of me turned red.

“Maybe not directly, but...”

“No.”

I ground my teeth together and fought the urge to lash out at him.

“Just tell me this. What’s her job? I know being a DJ is a cover for something.”

“You know everything you need to know, Angelo. Stop sticking your nose in places it doesn’t belong.”

“It’s important.”

I couldn’t tell him anything more, couldn’t let him on to the forbidden romance I was getting deeper into by the moment.

“Please,” I said, using the word I’d probably said to him maybe twice in my life.

I gulped, ashamed at begging. This wasn’t like me. I didn’t ask people for things, didn’t plead for what I wanted. I took what I needed, and if it wasn’t easy enough to get I just walked away. Most things weren’t worth keeping long term anyway.

But now was a time I couldn’t just mosey off into the sunset.

“Fine,” Dominic snapped. “If you must know, Sophia is in the Western Europe Burn Unit. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to bed.”

“The...”

There was a muffled noise, and then silence. He’d hung up on me.

I still held the phone pressed against my face, my ears buzzing from shock.