He called 911 from the car, one hand on the wheel, rain streaking the windshield. He gave the dispatcher the location. He told her a boy was having an asthma attack and couldn't breathe. She told him not to approach anyone, that officers and an ambulance were on the way, maybe twelve minutes out.
Twelve minutes.
Jake remembered the fitness test last fall. The sound Noah had made, that thin, terrible whistle, his lips going blue. Emma had not waited twelve minutes. Emma had not waited at all.
He parked at the end of the gravel road behind the school and ran down the path toward the bridge.
He heard them before he saw them. Laughter. The specific kind of laughter Jake knew very well, because a year ago it had been his.
Cole Ritter was standing on the old wooden bridge, holding Noah's backpack over the railing, dangling it above the brown water of the creek. His two friends stood on either side. One of them was filming on his phone.
Noah was on his knees in the gravel, one hand on the ground, the other at his throat. His glasses had fallen off. His chest was jerking in short, desperate pulls. The sound coming out of him was high and thin and wrong.
"Come on, little man," Cole was saying. "Just ask nicely. Say please. Say, 'Please, Cole, I'm a little baby who can't breathe.'"
"Give it back," Jake said.
Everybody turned.
Cole's face lit up in a slow, delighted grin. "Oh, look who it is. Shouldn't you be on a scale right now, superstar?"
"Give him the bag, Cole."
"Or what?" Cole stepped off the bridge onto the gravel, the backpack still in his hand. "You gonna fight me? Here? No ref, no gloves? Victor would love that. His big new signing gets his face rearranged the day before his debut." He laughed. "Actually, you know what, I'd love that too."
Jake didn't answer him.
He walked straight past Cole like he wasn't even there, knelt down in the wet gravel next to Noah, and put a hand on his back.
"Hey. Hey, Noah. It's me. It's Jake. Look at me. Slow. Try to go slow."
Noah's eyes were huge and wet and terrified. He shook his head. He couldn't.
Jake stood up and turned around.
"The inhaler's in the front pocket," he said to Cole. "He's going to pass out. I need it now."
"Then come and get it."