Light My Way Back Home •Patrick Stump+Fall Out Boy•

Chapter Twenty Nine: I Said, "Don't Be Afraid, We're Going Home"

||Patrick Stump|| First Person||

"Cole," I say in an unstable voice, her name rolling off of my tongue easily with so much fear. I put the heavy pistol down on the deck next to her hands, not paying attention to it and its loud clang, and lean forward with a terrible feeling of nostalgia coursing through the veins that only want sunsets in them, my ear pressing to her mouth in hopes of hearing something from her. Very faintly, I can hear shallow breaths as she struggles to breathe in air from how much water she swallowed down. "Cole, I need you to stay with me, okay?" I don't know if I imagine her breath hitch or the slightest nod of her head.

I pinch her nose, tilt her head back, and press my lips to hers, breathing slowly into her mouth before pulling back, putting my hands together and giving her the necessary chest compressions. It's strange leaning over her and sealing our lips together as I breathe into her body, mainly because I'm thinking about what happened three years ago in a hotel room. I feel like Cole and I are there for nearly hours, when it's probably been five minutes at most with me breathing into her mouth and pumping her chest over and over again.

Just like in Vancouver.

"Cole," I trip over to the bathtub, barely taking note of my razor blade covered in dry blood on the floor. I don't know how long she's been in there, but she's deathly pale as I hook my hands underneath her arms and lift her up. She's heavier than usual, and I'm careful to put her on the green bath rug. Her pajamas cling to her body with water, her shirt damp and her pants wet. I look at her hands, three cuts lining each wrist. "SOMEBODY HELP!

She promised me not to do this.

I'm crying now, my throat closing off as I push her wet bangs back from her excruciatingly pale forehead. I press my ear to her chest, listening for something- listening for anything. Nothing. No heart beat. Nothing. "Please, Cole." I flashback to all the CPR courses my mom made me take when I was a kid, and I follow each step carefully as I pump her chest and breathe into her mouth. I have to breathe her back to life. She can't leave me. She can't leave me like this. "HELP ME!" I scream again, clasping my hands together and pumping Cole's chest. She isn't responding, and that's what's terrifying me the most.

I glance behind me to see Derek Skinner lying on his back in the thick red substance pouring out of the holes in his backside on the pool deck, his body writhing in pain from the bullet stuck in his back. I almost feel guilty for a moment there, watching the younger guy screaming in complete agony. But then I think about the shit he's done to others, shit he's done to Elisa Yao and Doctor Katherine, and shit he's done to my family. Elisa Yao has done some pretty messed up things, and no matter how much she tried to escape her past, it came back for her. Just like Cole. And Katherine was there to help Cole, guide her through the process of dealing with the struggles that make her wake up screaming bloody murder in the middle of the night, and she got caught in the middle of of it all. Hayley Williams lies in the kitchen with a bullet in her shoulder from protecting Pete's kids, Bronx and Saint locked in a closet probably hiding it out because of how terrified they are, and my girlfriend- my fiancée is lying here looking worse than the term worse.

Things could be worse, though. We could be dead.

Her hair, her normally short hair, is in a messy ponytail from the night she left the apartment. Her face sports cuts, scratches, and angry scrapes- her nose sporting a long, thin cut along it, her temple an angry gash, and scratches litter her cheeks. Her hands are grimy and blood stained, either evidence that she was behind the brutal stabbing of that kid in Derek's van or she was hurt more than I thought. Her sweater and jacket are ripped and are covered in blood, and her leggings are torn at the thigh with a nasty cut exposed and a bullet wound in her calf. I feel my heart contort in my chest because this girl is my world and she's so destroyed.

"Just coast with me." I whisper as I keep at the CPR, determined to wake her up from this state. I had to deal with this before- her drowning, and I'm not going to have it. I'm not going to let the second time knock her down. "It's gonna get better, it's gonna work out."

My head sinks into the pillow that vaguely smells of Cole's shampoo as I watch her dance around the wardrobe, struggling to pull on her shirt. She hops around with the sweater half on, her back and abdomen exposed along with her legs considering her lack of jeans over her underwear. I hold back a snort as she finally yanks the shirt down and over her belly before tackling the next obstacle. The skinny jeans.

"You should stay like that," I grin at her when she stares at the challenge of her skin tight jeans. She shakes her head and sighs. "You have a cute butt."

"I guess that means I have to ironically booty dance my way out of your life, right?" She says, referencing that short film called Moustachette that I starred in a few years back.

"Nah," I shrug. "You can just booty dance in place." I giggle, knowing that Cole was probably so done with my flirting.

"Oh, shut up, you goof!" She pretends to be angry, whipping her jeans at my face. I duck and laugh, catching her pants in my hands.

"Now you have to stay like that." I smirk, holding her jeans to my chest jokingly like a prize. She glares at me, trying to fane annoyance with me but obviously failing miserably. "What? You have a cute ass."

"Do not." She retorts sharply, turning around to put her hands on her hips. In her Roots hoodie and her panties, she looked extremely adorable.

"Yeah, huh." I shoot back witj a challenging grin.

"You have a cuter ass." She says, spinning on her heel to grab a pair of navy skinny jeans from the joint wardrobe. I blush furiously and look down at my legs. I have a cute ass?

"I don't think so." I say slowly.

"The fans beg to differ, Patrick." She steps into the article of clothing and begins to hop around the room trying to shimmy into them. I giggle at her frustration.

"How pretentious..." Cole coughs suddenly, gasping loudly for air before water is sputtering out of her mouth and choking her. I gasp in shock as she slips her eyes open, squeezing them together tightly. She's still here with me. She spits up pool water by the mouthfuls, coughing up the water that she swallowed unwillingly, and I guide her through the process. I raise her arm above her head and gently hit her back as a violent noise escapes from her throat before she sucks in a deep breath. She looks up at me and continues through gasps for air. "... of you... to... quote your... own music."

That's my Colby.

"Cole," I whisper, my hands flying up to her face as I cup her cheeks in the palms of my hands. I stare straight into her bloodshot eyes before pulling her frail body into my trembling chest. She was bruising and her body looked like she seriously broke something or somethings. "Oh my God,"

"Everything hurts," she whines in pain, her hand squeezing mine tightly. I nod my head in understanding, stroking the hair on her head. She looked sick and unbelievably pale, and that terrifies me- the thought of what she's been through. "They hurt m-m-me."

"Who's they?" I ask calmly, brushing my thumb across her cheeks. I know that there's Derek, but I was confused beyond belief as to who that boy in the van was. Cole shakes her head weakly.

"I killed a man," she whispers to me, and my heart drops in my chest to hear how scared she sounds. "I-I had to help Hayley and I stabbed him with a pen."

"Shh," I whisper soothingly to her. "He's not dead, Cole. Maybe close, but it was self defense."

"Patrick," she gasps for air, not allowing herself to cry.

"Don't be afraid," I rock her back and forth, rubbing light, soothing circles into her back. "We're going home." I tell her, smiling weakly at the thought.

"But, but..." Cole trails off, not that she was going to continue her story because I know my fiancée like the back of my hand. But she's pulling back so suddenly from where her face was tucked into my neck, her bottom lip quivering, and I think she might cry for a minute there, but then...

Her eyes widen and she's grabbing the gun near us, holding it up and pointing it at me.

"Cole?" I ask.

-/::\-

-Stay Classy, Young Volcanoes

•LeaveNoWordsUnspoken