Leave The City (Book 8 of Adopted by the Josephs)

88. Brendon

"Uh, Brendon?" Dylan's voice came over the phone. "I'm not going to be able to have Sam home by midnight."

I frowned. It was only ten thirty. But Dylan also sounded worried.

"Dylan? What happened? What's the matter?"

Sarah sat up straight when I spoke.

"Sam passed out at the game. She has a really high fever. We're at the hospital," he said.

"Shit," I said, more to myself than anyone.

"What's wrong?" Sarah asked.

"Sam's sick. Dylan took her to the hospital because she passed out at the game," I said.

"Uh, actually," Dylan said. "They called an ambulance."

"That's not better. What hospital and what's happening now?"

"We're at Cedars-Sinai. She's still unconscious and they're worried about febrile seizures because her temperature hasn't come down from 104.7°."

"Okay. We're on the way. Let us know what's happening if anything changes, if she wakes up, if she gets worse, anything, okay?" I said.

"Yeah," Dylan said, worry evident in his voice.

Sarah grabbed Sam's medical and insurance info and we hopped into the car and sped off to the hospital.

"Should we call Tyler and Jenna?" Sarah asked.

"Let's see what we're dealing with. Maybe Sam's blood sugar tanked and that's why she's unconscious," I said.

"That wouldn't give her a fever though," Sarah frowned.

"No. It wouldn't. You're right. I thought she looked off this morning. I thought she felt warm. And I let her convince me to let her go to school. God I'm stupid."

"B. You're not stupid. She's an adult. She makes her own decisions. And unfortunately she's going to learn the outcome of this one in a less than pleasant way. But for now, we have a sick kid to tend to and we don't know what happened."

Sarah always manages to talk me down.

I pulled into the hospital parking lot and once parked, we ran into the emergency room.

Dylan was standing outside the doors, tears running down his face.

"Dylan!" Sarah exclaimed, running to him. "What's happening?"

"She-she was having a seizure. It was bad," he said.

"She had...? Dylan? Is Sam... is she okay?"

Dylan sobbed.

"It's just so hard watching her go through it. They got it stopped, but she had a couple right after. Her temperature won't come down. It's over 105° now and nothing is working."

"Okay, it hasn't been very long," I said. "Nothing is going to be a quick fix."

I remembered when Jess would get sick. Sometimes it was really bad really fast and we learned to be patient and let the doctors administer the medications and wait for them to work.

Sarah had Dylan in her arms as the poor kid sobbed. How he reacts when Sam gets sick is all the proof I need that this kid is the real deal.

"Can we see her? Will they let us back?" I asked. Dylan nodded and we followed him through to where Sam was.

It was calm around her bed just now. There was just one nurse checking her IV and monitors. Sam was laid out, flat on her back, ice packs surrounding her, a cooling blanket covering her and an oxygen mask on her face.