I hold her close, trying not to move her, trying not to make anything worse.
“Help is coming. Hang on.”
The sound of blaring sirens cuts through the horror, and before I know it flashlights are shining in my direction. “Hello?” someone calls.
“Here,” I croak out, holding the girl close.
Footsteps sound out and then the area lights up as the officers arrive with re-enforcement. I can see the car now, and it’s more mangled than I first thought. I turn away, vomit rising in my throat. I just keep holding the girl, keeping her warm in my arms, willing her to just hang on.
“Sir,” an ambulance officer says. “Can you tell me what happened?”
I look up at him, and see he has four people with him. Two kneel down and start pulling the girl from my arms.
“I just . . .” My voice is so thick, so broken. “I was driving home and I heard their tires screeching. I looked over and they just launched off the road. There was no one else. I don’t know why the hell something like this happened.”
“So you didn’t see any other vehicles around?”
I shake my head.
“We need to assess this young girl. Can you tell me if you pulled her out of the car?”
“She was . . .” My voice hitches and pain stabs my heart over and over, like a thousand tiny needles. “Thrown. I found her here. She’s alive . . . breathing . . . I could feel her pulse in her wrist.”
The officer looks at his teammates, and one of them nods weakly.
“She’s gone.”
I shake my head rapidly as they pull her from my arms. “She was alive!” I yell, clenching my fists. “She was.”
“I’m sorry, sir, but she has passed. It’s nothing you did; the injuries she has sustained were far too severe.”
“She was alive!” I roar.
I killed her. I moved her when I probably shouldn’t have. I shouldn’t have touched her. I didn’t do CPR. I didn’t call the ambulance quickly enough. Dammit, why didn’t I call them as soon as I got out of the car? Why did I leave it a few minutes? They might have been able to save her.
“There’s nothing anyone could have done. Please believe that. Let me help you up; you’re in shock.”
Arms curl around mine and I’m pulled up and to the top of the bank.
I don’t remember what happens after that, because I black out.
I let her down. I could have saved her.
I as good as killed her.
~*~*~*~
“Right this way, madam.”
The sound of running feet makes me lift my head. I’m sitting in the waiting room of the hospital, ready to go home. The police told me that I did everything I could, that I couldn’t have saved those people, that little girl, but they’re wrong. I could have saved her. I shouldn’t have touched her. I should have bandaged her wounds. I should have gotten to her more quickly. It’s my fault she didn’t make it.
They told me the father was drunk. Drunk. Drunk. Drunk. With his little girl in the car. With his wife in the car. They used the words ‘difficult, damaged family.’ Because that makes it any better. Because that makes putting your child and wife in your car with you drunk so much fucking better. They said he was a problem of theirs, and had been for months. A bad seed, a dangerous man.
He still put his child in that car.
She didn’t have a seatbelt on.
“Max?”
I jerk and see Belle enter the room, her face pale, her eyes filling with tears. She rushes over, throwing her arms around my neck.
“Oh God, you’re okay. My beautiful Max.”
I’m not okay.
“What happened?” she whispers, pulling back and cupping my cheeks. “They told me you witnessed a car accident. Are you hurt, Max?”
I stare at her. Really stare. I look into her beautiful blue eyes and I can see the fear there. I can see how hard this is for her. I’ve never looked into her eyes and seen so much terror. If I tell her what I saw, it’ll make her chest feel the same way mine is feeling. It’ll crush her. God, what if she blames me too? What if she thinks I didn’t do everything I could?
What if she thinks I failed?
“I’m not hurt,” I say, my voice thick.
“I’m so sorry, Max. They didn’t tell me much, just that the people all died. Are you okay? Did you...did you see anything? Oh Max.”
Those eyes again. The ones that are wide and filled with tears, desperate for me to say it’s okay. She’s so scared for me. So broken for me. Her eyes are almost pleading for me to say it’s fine, that everything is fine. That I’m not broken or damaged from this, that our lives aren’t going to sink into fucking despair over this, that we’re going to be o-fucking-kay.
We’re not.
But she doesn’t need to know that.
I lock down, pushing the images of the little girl into the depths of my soul. I’ll find a way to deal. I’ll find a way that doesn’t damage the beautiful, blue eyes of my wife. A way that doesn’t cause them to drown, and be any less vibrant. A way that lets her sleep at night, the way she deserves . . . horror-free.
So I do the only thing I can.
I lie.
“Everything is fine, Blue Belle. It was just a shock. I didn’t see anything. I’m going to be fine.”
I’ll never be fine again.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
NOW – ANABELLE
“Hey,” a voice calls and a hand gently taps my cheek. “Wake up. Come on.”
My eyes flutter open and a sharp pain pounds through my head as I try to focus on the form leaning over me. It’s a man, a man with a patched face full of stitches and gauze to cover his wounds. It’s not Max, and as my vision gets clearer, I realize it’s Raide. The man Max was fighting. I go to sit up, fury washing through me, but he takes my shoulders gently and pushes them down.
“Don’t sit up that fast, you’ll hurt yourself.”
I open my mouth to demand he lets me go, but he gets in before me.
“Don’t be pissed at me. It was a fair fight, and he gave it as hard as he got it. I’m not here to hurt you; I’m watching you while Max gets patched up. Now calm down and don’t put up a fuss. You got hit pretty hard out there.”
“Is he . . .” I swallow, “okay?”
Raide grins, and gosh he’s good looking. “He’s fine. Max is a warrior.”
“I hope you sleep in a lot of pain tonight,” I grunt at him.
He chuckles. “Fair call. Now come on, sit up slowly.”
He helps me up, and I’m forced to hold his wrists for balance. My head is pounding. I release one wrist and reach up, rubbing a tender spot near my temple. “Ouch,” I mutter.
“You got hit good. Sent your man in there into a tizzy.”
“Max?” I say, my eyes scanning the room. We’re in a locker room, and it seems it’s just the two of us.
“Yeah, he got up and leapt out of that fucking ring like a raging bull. He put blood everywhere.”
“Oh,” I say.
“You got elbowed in the temple, so we need to keep an eye on you.”
“Wait,” I say, letting him go fully now. “Why are you in here looking after me?”
He shrugs. “I know Max. He’s helping me out. He asked me to watch you.”
I study his face. Gosh he’s beautiful—well, in a rugged kind of way. He has these amber eyes, that most intense, incredible color. His hair is dark, his skin is olive, and he’s got a few imperfections on his face, like a slightly crooked nose, but they only add to the flawed perfection that he is.
“I’ve never heard him mention you.”
He flashes a grin. “That’s because I don’t get mentioned.”
“What are you?” I groan, shifting. “A criminal or something?”
He runs a hand through his hair, and reaches down for the first-aid kit beside the bench I was laying on. “You could say that.”
I blink. “Dude, I was kidding.”
He studies my face. “I wasn’t.”
br /> Right.
“Okay, I don’t want to know. You’re friends with Max, yet the two of you nearly killed each other out there, and now you’re saying you’re a mysterious criminal.”
He chuckles and lifts an alcohol wipe. “Max and I knew what we were doing. It would have never ended with death, and I’m not a bad criminal.”
“Aren’t all criminals bad?”
His eyes flash. “Do you truly believe that statement?”
I sigh. “No,” I mutter.
“Exactly. Now, sit still so I can wipe that little cut you’ve got above your eyebrow. Must have split the skin.”
He moves forward and starts wiping the wound. It stings and I grit my teeth, but suddenly find myself staring at his chest, feeling nervous.
“So, ah,” I say, trying to look away, but he’s just too big and right in my line of sight, “are you friends with Max so he can help you?”
“I’ve known Max a while, but yeah, right now he’s helping me. Max knows a lot of people. People I need to find.”
“I don’t even want to know,” I grumble. “And what was the fight all about then?”
He shrugs. “It’s always fun getting in the ring with him.”
“You put yourself in a ring to get beaten up, for fun?” I gasp.
“It’s a great stress-relief.”
“You’ve got issues.”
He laughs, throaty and deep. “I’m not denying that.”
He leans back and studies his handiwork, then cleans up the mess and stands. “You want some water?”
“Yes please,” I croak.
He goes over to the cooler and pours me a foam cup full, bringing it back. I sip it and he sits beside me, waiting . . . for what I don’t know? Maybe he’s waiting for Max to return.
“When will Max come back?”
“Once they’ve finished his face.”
I study his bruising, battered face. “Who did yours?”
“Max.”
I shake my head. “Right. Crazy.”
“So, you and him . . . you’re married.”
“We were,” I groan, shifting my aching body. Being thrown around a crowd of crazy people does not feel nice. “Well, we still are, but we’re not together.”
“That’s a fuckin’ shame. The man looks at you like you’re the reason he’s still living.”
I flinch. “I think you’re seeing it wrong.”
“No, lady, you are. I’ve seen men, a lot of them, in love, and none of them look at their women the way he was lookin’ at you. I think maybe the problem here is that you can’t see it anymore.”
I look away, hands trembling.
“I was a bad wife.”
He sits down beside me, stretching his long legs out. “How so?”
“I didn’t realize he was in pain. That he was suffering. I let him push me away and then I had a child he didn’t know about.”
He’s silent for so long, I sigh.
“Go ahead and say it. I’m a shit person.”
“I don’t judge anyone. I’ve seen bad shit, enough of it that I don’t ever pretend to understand why people do the things they do. All I know is that if you think it’s wrong, and it’s hurting him, then you fix it.”
“I would if I knew how to.”
“Dig deep. There’s always an answer.”
I look over at him, and smile weakly. “I guess you’re not a bad seed after all.”
He grins.
I think I like Raide.
~*~*~*~
Max returns ten minutes later, and the moment he steps through the door my heart squeezes and tears burn under my lids. He orders everyone out of the room, and Raide stands, flashing me a smile before shaking Max’s hand and walking out. Then we’re alone. I don’t know what to say to him. I don’t even know where to begin. I look into his brown eyes, and I can see the pain there, and I wonder how the hell I ever missed it.
“You were protecting me,” I say softly, the first words that come to my lips.
I’ve had this thought countless times in the last hour, but hearing it out loud makes it so much more real.
“I wasn’t going to let some fucker hit you and just leave you there, Ana.”
“I didn’t mean then,” I say, trying to keep the pain from my voice. “I meant when we were married.”
He flinches, and I know I’m right.
I’m such a fool. He pushed me away to protect me. To keep the pain from entering my world. If I was paying attention, if I was giving him what I should have been giving him, I would have seen that. The night in the hospital, I would have seen that he wasn’t telling me the truth. I guess a part of me wanted to believe nothing had happened, because the very idea terrified me. How selfish.
“Why, Max?” I say, standing on trembling legs. “Why didn’t you lean on me?”
He looks down at his hands, jaw clenching, fists balled.
I step closer, reaching up and cupping his jaw. “Why?”
“Because if the light had been taken from your eyes, I wouldn’t have coped,” he says, his voice thick and slightly broken.
I don’t understand.
“You didn’t tell me so I wouldn’t get sad? So my eyes wouldn’t cry for you?”
He reaches up, taking my chin in his hands. “Your eyes are the only things I’ve had throughout all this. When you looked at me that day in the hospital, they were full of fear. Fear that whatever I had to tell you would destroy everything beautiful we’d ever created.”
“Max, no,” I say, feeling so hurt, so broken and so devastated that he’d think that.
“I couldn’t bear it. Couldn’t look into your eyes and see pain that I’d created.”
“If that was the case, why did you push me away?” Tears are burning my eyes now, but I keep my eyes on his.
“Because what was inside me slowly ate me away until there was nothing fucking left. After that, I was numb. I thought I could handle it, thought I could keep it from you and go back to my life, but I couldn’t.”
“What happened out there?”
He lets me go and turns away, his whole body stiff. I step forward, putting my hand on his back. “Please.”
He keeps his back to me, but starts speaking in a cut-off voice, devoid of any emotion. That scares me, but I let him talk. I need him to talk, but most of all, he needs this.
“I was driving home, off in my own world. I heard the screeching of car tires and saw a car just launch off the road and down the side. I pulled over and got my flashlight, then ran over to help. I called for an ambulance when I saw the state of the car. It was wrapped around a tree, and so fucked . . .”
His voice trails off, but I say nothing. I just let him continue when he’s ready.
“I got into the driver’s side, and the person in there was . . . horrifically dead. I couldn’t see the person in the other side. I noticed blood on the hood, and followed it.”
My heart is so tight I can hardly breathe, but I let him speak.
“There was a child.” His voice hitches and pain tears through my body. “She was only about ten, maybe older. She had been . . . thrown from the car. She was in a bad way, but she was still alive.”
Oh no.
Please no.
“I lifted her into my arms and started talking to her, even though she was unconscious. She was a fucking mess.” He sounds angry now. “The parents hadn’t put her seatbelt on. They hadn’t . . .”
My heart breaks in two and the tears flow down my cheeks, as I realize the pain he had been living through.
“Why didn’t they put her fucking seatbelt on?” he roars, launching his fist out and hitting the wall.
I step closer and wrap an arm around him, feeling his panting. I press my cheek to his back. There’s not a damned thing I can do that would bring comfort right now, but I just want him to know I’m here for him. Always. That I’ll give him what I was too blind to see before.
“By the time the ambulance arrived, she had passed. They told me
I did everything I could, but I didn’t, Blue Belle.”
His voice, God, the pain in his voice. I cry harder.
“I shouldn’t have touched her, should have called an ambulance sooner. I should have figured it out sooner . . .”
No. God no.
It wasn’t his fault.
“And she was dead, just like that. A life snuffed out by the careless act of her parents.”
“It’s not your fault,” I finally manage to say. “Max, you have to know it wasn’t your fault.”
“I shouldn’t have moved her.”
“It probably wouldn’t have mattered even if you didn’t. Honey, you did all you could.”
He shoves my hands off him and storms forward, pacing the room, his body shaking.
“Don’t try to make it better, Anabelle, because it can’t be made fucking better. I’ve lived with what I did. I’ve accepted it, but don’t try and make it better. You know now, so let it go.”
“I let you down,” I say, standing, unmoving.
He stops and turns, looking over at me with bloodshot eyes.
“I let you suffer alone because I didn’t see that you were hurting. I didn’t figure out that something horrible had gone wrong. I thought . . . I didn’t even link the two.”
“And why would you?” he says, his voice icy. “I told you I was fine.”
“But you weren’t!” I scream. “And I should have known, Max.”
Now I’m panting. “I should have known the man I loved was breaking to pieces. I should have—”
“Don’t,” he grates out. “Don’t beat yourself up over something you had no control over.”
I look down at my hands and tears drip off the end of my nose. “It’s why you walked away from her, isn’t it? When you saw us in the store.”
I don’t look up, but I hear his sharp intake of breath. I’ve thought about what happened with Imogen in the store that day, so many times. I’ve wondered why he walked away, why he looked at her with so much pain in his eyes. Now he’s told me his story, it makes so much sense. He saw the little girl, and the pain in his heart probably came rushing back. Hell, he probably thinks he can’t be what Immy needs, because of the tragedy that night brought upon his life.
“I didn’t know how to handle it . . .her hair . . .”
I look up and the pain in his eyes nearly rips me in two.