Friends and Foes

Gaege- 11

Graham picked me up at the airport and we drove the 20 minutes to the hospital in silence. When we pulled into a parking spot, Graham barely put the car in park before I jumped out of the car running through the entrance and to the front desk.

"I'm here for Skylar Gibson, I'm her brother, Gaege Gibson," I blurted not giving them the chance to greet me.

She just nodded clicking a few buttons and then gesturing me to follow her. As we walked, she caught me up on Skylar's current stable condition then ended with, "your sister has a very sweet fiancé, he hasn't left her side since he brought her in."

My eyebrows pulled together, she would have told me if she was engaged, I thought to myself. The nurse knocked twice on the door before slowly opening it revealing my sister who was unconscious and looked like hell. She was hooked to machines I'd only hoped I'd ever see in movies. The nurse gave a warm smile as she turned and left, once the door latched shut, I turned my attention to the mystery man sleeping in the chair beside the bed.

"Who the hell are you?" I growled startling him awake. His eyes went wide and they looked bloodshot as if he had been crying. Although he had only been here for about a day and a half the dark bags under his eyes suggested that he hadn't slept in days. "I said, who the hell are you!" I repeated swiftly walking towards him causing him to jolt to his feet, "you're not her fiancé, not even a boyfriend she'd have told me--"

"Look man--" he started trying to cut me off to explain.

"--I don't need an excuse just tell me who the fuck you are!" I yelled grabbing the collar of his shirt in my fists.

"Coen!" he yelled holding his hands up in surrender, clearly not wanting a fight.

"What did you do to her?" I slammed him against a wall he grunted at the sudden force.

"Listen man, I didn't do this, if it wasn't for me and my friends, she'd be dead." he tried explaining through gasps of air. Realizing I wasn't letting go he continued, "They had her tied up, beaten, and on fire, we did our best to put it out, we cut her down and drove her here. If we had waited for an ambulance, you would have gotten a very different call on Graham's behalf."

"Who's they? How do you know Graham?" Coen's face began to look a bit familiar.

"I don't know who 'they' are, as for knowing Graham my friends and I record YouTube videos with him."

Graham and a blonde guy burst through the doors.

"Gaege, let go of Coen they're around to help I swear," Graham spoke calmly. I looked at Graham and the blonde then back to Coen. I let go of Coen with one last shove and then stepped backwards.

"You good Coen?" the blonde asked as Coen just nodded. "Graham asked where you were when we told him that you were still with Skylar having the nurses think you were her fiancé," the man stood up from his hunched position then continued, "he figured Gaege wouldn't take to kindly to a stranger if the nurse let it slip that her fiancé was with her since she'd have told him."

"Gaege and Skylar don't really have secrets," Graham laughed nervously. "Glad we came in when we did."

"No kidding," Coen breathed fixing his shirt.

"Why did you say you were engaged to her?" I asked with my arms crossed.

"I didn't want her to be alone," Coen started, "like I said we found her in horrible condition, I didn't think it was fair for her to continue to be alone, there's no way she had hope through all of that. We're all friends, she was supposed to come with us to the forest to film a video."

"Why didn't she?" I relaxed slightly.

"We were supposed to pick her up from her apartment, but on our way out she messaged Ethan, said something came up." the blonde guy informed.