Текст книги "Crashed"
Автор книги: K. Bromberg
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Crashed
The Driven Trilogy – 3
K. Bromberg
Dedication
To Mom and Dad ~
Thank you for teaching me that life isn’t about how you survive the storm, but rather how you dance in the rain.
And I’m finally dancing…
PROLOGUE
Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.
The resonating pain in my head pulses to the sound assaulting my ears.
Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.
There is so much sound—loud, buzzing white noise—and yet it’s eerily fucking quiet. Quiet except for that damn thwacking sound.
What the hell is that?
Why the fuck is it so damn hot—so hot I can see the heat coming in waves off of the asphalt—but all I feel is cold?
Motherfucker!
Something to the right of me catches my eye—mangled metal, blown tires, skins shredded to pieces—and all I can do is stare. Becks is going to throttle me for fucking up the car. Shred me to pieces just like my car strewn all over the track. What the fuck happened?
A trickle of unease dances at the base of my spine.
My heartbeat accelerates.
Confusion flickers at the far away edges of my subconscious. I close my eyes to try and push back the pounding that’s suddenly playing percussion to my thoughts. Thoughts I can’t quite grasp.They sift through my mind like sand through my fingers.
Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.
I open my eyes to try and find that goddamn sound that’s adding pressure to the pain …
… pleasure to bury the pain …
Those words whisper through my mind, and I shake my head to try to comprehend what’s going on when I see him: dark hair in need of a trim; tiny little hands holding a plastic helicopter; a Spiderman Band-Aid wrapped around his index finger that’s spinning the pretend rotors.
Spiderman. Batman. Superman. Ironman.
“Thwack. Thwack. Thwack,” he says in the softest of voices.
So why does it sound so loud then? Big eyes look up at me through thick lashes, innocence personified in that simple grace of green. His finger falters on the rotor as his eyes meet mine, cocking his head to study me intently.
“Hi there,” I say, the deafening silence reverberating through the space between us.
Something’s off.
Completely not fucking right.
Apprehension resurfaces.
Hints of the unknown whirl around my mind.
Confusion smothers.
His green eyes consume me.
Anxiety dissipates when a slow smile curls up the corner of his little mouth smudged with dirt, a lone dimple winking at its side.
“I’m not supposed to talk to strangers,” he says, straightening his back some, trying to act like the big kid he wants to be.
“That’s a good rule. Did your mom teach you that?”
Why does he seem so familiar?
He shrugs nonchalantly. His gaze runs over every inch of me and then comes back to meet mine. They flicker to something over my shoulder, but for some fucking reason I can’t seem to drag my eyes from him to look. It’s not just that he’s the cutest fucking kid I’ve ever seen … No, it’s like he has this pull on me that I can’t seem to break.
A little line creases his forehead as he looks down and picks at another superhero Band-Aid barely covering the large scrape on his knee.
Spiderman. Batman. Superman. Ironman.
Shut the fuck up! I want to yell at the demons in my head. They have no right to be here … no reason to swarm around this sweet looking little boy, and yet they keep swirling like a merry-go-round. Like my car should be around the track right now. So why am I taking a step toward this polarizing little boy instead of preparing for the ration of shit Becks is going to spew at me, and by the looks of my car, that I obviously deserve?
And yet I still can’t resist.
I take another step toward him, slow and deliberate in my motions, like I am with the boys at The House.
The boys.
Rylee.
I need to see her.
Don’t want to be alone anymore.
I need to feel her.
Don’t want to be broken anymore.
Why am I swimming in a sea of confusion? And yet I take another step through the fog toward this unexpected ray of light.
Be my spark.
“That’s a pretty bad owie you got there …”
He snorts. It’s so fucking adorable to see this little kid with such a serious face, nose scattered with freckles scrunched up, looking at me like I’m missing something.
“Thanks, Captain Obvious!”
And a smart-ass mouth on him too. My type of kid. I stifle a chuckle as he glances back over my shoulder again for the third time. I start to turn to see what he’s looking at when his voice stops me. “Are you okay?”
Huh? “What do you mean?”
“Are you okay?” he asks again. “You seem kind of broken.”
“What are you talking about?” I take another step toward him. My fleeting thoughts mixed with the somberness of his tone and the concern etched on his face is starting to unnerve me.
“Well, you look broken to me,” he whispers as his Band-Aid wrapped finger flips the propeller again—thwack, thwack, thwack—before motioning up and down my body.
Anxiety creeps up my spine until I look down at my race suit to find it intact, my hands patting up and down to calm the feeling. “No.” The words rush out. “I’m okay, buddy. See? Nothing’s wrong,” I say, sighing a quick breath of relief. The little fucker scared me for a second.
“No, silly,” he says with a roll of his eyes and a huff of breath before pointing over my shoulder. “Look. You’re broken.”
I turn, the calm simplicity of his tone puzzling me, and look behind me.
My heart stops.
Thwack.
My breath strangles in my chest.
Thwack.
My body freezes.
Thwack.
I blink my eyes over and over, trying to push away the images before me. The sights permeate through a viscous haze.
Spiderman. Batman. Superman. Ironman.
Fuck. No. No. No. No.
“See,” his angelic voice says beside me. “I told you.”
No. No. No. No.
The air finally punches from my lungs. I force a swallow down my throat that feels like sandpaper.
I know I see it—the chaos right before my eyes—but how is it possible? How am I here and there?
Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.
I try to move. To fucking run! To get their attention to tell them I’m right here—that I’m okay—but my feet won’t listen to the ricocheting panic in my brain.
No. I’m not there. Just here. I know I’m okay—know I’m alive—because I can feel my breath catch in my chest when I take a step forward to get a closer look. Fingertips of dread tickle over my scalp because what I see … that can’t be ... it’s just not fucking possible.
Spiderman. Batman. Superman. Ironman.
The gentle whir of the saw pulls me from my ready-to-rage state as the medical crew cuts the driver’s helmet down the center. The minute they split it apart, my head feels like it explodes. I drop to my knees, the pain so excruciating all I can do is raise my hands up to hold it. I have to look up. Have to see who was in my car. Whose motherfucking ass is mine, but I can’t. It hurts too goddamn much.
… I wonder if there’s pain when you die …
I jolt at the feel of his hand on my shoulder … but the minute it rests there, the pain ceases to exist.
What the …? I know I have to look. I have to see for myself who is in the car even though I ultimately know the truth. Disjointed memories fracture and flicker through my mind just like pieces of the splintered mirror in that fucking dive bar.
Humpty fucking Dumpty.
Fear snakes up my spine, takes hold, and reverberates through me. I just can’t do it. I can’t look up. Don’t be such a pussy, Donavan. Instead, I look to my right into his eyes, the unexpected calm in this storm. “Is that …? Am I …?” I ask the little boy as my breath clogs my throat, apprehension over the answer holds my voice hostage.
He just looks at me—eyes clear, face serious, lips pursed, freckles dancing—before he squeezes my shoulder. “What do you think?”
I want to shake a fucking answer out of him but know I won’t. Can’t. With him here at my side amidst this whirling chaos, I’ve never felt more at peace and yet at the same time more scared.
I force my eyes from his serene face to look back at the scene in front of me. I feel like I’m in a kaleidoscope of jagged images as I take in the face—my fucking face—on the gurney.
My heart crashes. Sputters. Stops. Dies.
Spiderman.
Grey skin. Eyes swollen, bruised, and closed. Lips lax and pale.
Batman.
Devastation surrenders, desperation consumes, life sputters, and yet my soul clings.
Superman.
“No!” I yell at the top of my lungs until my voice falls hoarse. No one turns. No one hears me. Every fucking person is unresponsive—my body and the medics.
Ironman.
The body on the gurney—my body—jolts as someone climbs on the stretcher and starts compressions on my chest. Someone fastens the neck brace. Lifts my eyelids and checks my pupils.
Thwack.
Wary faces. Defeated eyes. Routine movements.
Thwack.
“No!” I shout again, panic reigning within every ounce of me. “No! I’m right here! Right here! I’m okay.”
Thwack.
Tears fall. Disbelief stutters. Possibilities vanish. Hope implodes.
My life blurs.
My eyes focus on my hand hanging limp and lifeless off of the gurney—a single drip of blood slowly making its way down to the tip of my finger before another compression on my chest joggles it to drip on the ground beneath. I focus on that ribbon of blood, unable to look back at my face. I can’t take it anymore.
Can’t stand watching the life drain from me. Can’t stand the fear that creeps into my heart, the unknown that trickles into my subconscious, and the cold that starts to seep into my soul.
“Help me!” I turn to the little boy so familiar but so unknown. “Please,” I beg, an imploring whisper, with every ounce of life I have in me. “I’m not ready to …” I can’t finish the sentence. If I do then I’m accepting what is happening on the gurney before me—what his place beside me signifies.
“No?” he asks. A single word, but the most important one of my fucking life. I stare at him, consumed by what is in the depths of his eyes—understanding, acceptance, acknowledgment—and as much as I don’t want to leave the feeling I have with him, the question he’s asking me—to choose life or death—is the easiest decision I’ve ever had to make.
And yet, the decision to live—to go back and prove like fucking hell that I deserve to be given this choice—means that I’ll have to leave his angelic little face and the serenity his presence brings to my otherwise troubled soul.
“Will I ever see you again?” I’m not sure where the question comes from, but it falls out before I can stop it. I hold my breath waiting for his answer, wanting both a yes and a no.
He tilts his head to the side and smirks. “If it’s in the cards.”
Whose fucking cards? I want to yell at him. God’s? The Devil’s? Mine? Whose fucking cards? But all I can say is, “The cards?”
“Yup,” he responds with a little shake of his head as he looks down at his helicopter and back up to me.
Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.
The sound becomes louder now, drowning out all noise around me, and yet I can still hear the draw of his breath. Still hear the pounding of my heart in my eardrums. Can still feel the soft sigh of peace that wraps around my body like a whisper as he places his hand on my shoulder.
All of a sudden I see the helicopter—Life Flight—on the infield, the incessant sound of the rotors—thwack, thwack, thwack—as it waits for me. The gurney shunts forward as they start to move quickly toward it.
“Aren’t you going?” he asks me.
I work a swallow in my throat as I look back at him and give him a subtle, resigned nod of my head. “Yeah …” It’s almost a whisper, fear of the unknown heavy in my tone.
Spiderman. Batman. Superman. Ironman.
“Hey,” he says, and my eyes come back into focus on his perfect fucking face. He points back to the activity behind me. “It looks like your superheroes came this time after all.”
I whirl around, heart lodged in my throat and confusion meddling with my logic. I don’t see it at first, the pilot’s back is to me, helping load my stretcher in the medevac, but when he turns around to jump in the pilot’s seat and take the joystick, it’s clear as day.
My heart stops.
And starts.
A hesitant exhale of relief flickers through my soul.
The pilot’s helmet is painted.
Red.
With black lines.
The call sign of Spiderman emblazoned on the front of it.
The little boy in me cheers. The grown man in me sags with relief.
I turn back to say goodbye to the little boy, but he’s nowhere to be found. How in the hell did he know about the superheroes? I look all around for him—needing the answer—but he’s gone.
I’m all alone.
All alone except for the comfort of those I’ve waited a lifetime to arrive.
My decision’s been made.
The superheroes finally came.
CHAPTER 1
Numbness slowly seeps through my body. I can’t move, can’t think, can’t bear to pull my eyes from the mangled car on the track. If I look anywhere else, then this will all be real. The helicopter flying overhead will really be carrying the broken body of the man I love.
The man I need.
The man I can’t lose.
I close my eyes and just listen, but I can’t hear anything. The only thing in my ears is the thumping of my pulse. The only thing besides the blackness that my eyes see—that my heart feels—is the splintered images in my mind. Max melting into Colton and then Colton fading back to Max. Memories that cause the hope I’m grasping like a lifeline to flicker and flame before dying out, like the darkness smothering the light in my soul.
I race you, Ryles. His voice so strong and unwavering fills my head and then dissipates, glittering through my mind like ticker tape.
I double over, willing the strangling tears to come or a spark to fire within me, but nothing happens, just lead dropping through my soul and weighing me down.
I force myself to breathe while I try to fool my mind into believing the past twenty-two minutes never happened. That the car never cartwheeled and pirouetted through the smoke-filled air. That the metal of the car wasn’t cut apart by somber-faced medics to extricate Colton’s lifeless body.
We never made love. The single thought flits through my head. We never had the chance to race after he finally told me the words I’d needed to hear—and that he’d finally accepted, admitted to, and felt for himself.
I just want to rewind time and go back to the suite when we were wrapped in each other’s arms. When we were connected—overdressed and underdressed—but the horrific sights of the mangled car won’t allow it. They have scarred my memory so horribly for a second time that it’s not possible for my hope to escape unscathed.
“Ry, I’m not doing too good here.” They’re Max’s words seeping into my mind, but it’s Colton’s voice. It’s Colton warning me of what’s to come. What I’ve already lived through once in my life.
Oh God. Please no. Please no.
My heart wrings.
My resolve falters.
Images filter in slow motion.
“Rylee, I need you to concentrate. Look at me!” Max’s words again. I start to sag, my body giving out like my hope, but arms close around me and give me a shake.
“Look at me!” No, not Max. Not Colton. It’s Becks. I find it within myself to focus and meet his eyes—pools of blue fringed with the sudden appearance of lines at their corners. I see fear in them. “We need to go to the hospital now, okay?” His voice is gentle yet stern. He seems to think that if he talks to me like a child I won’t shatter into the million pieces my soul is already broken into.
I can’t swallow the sand in my throat to speak, so he gives me another shake. I’ve been robbed of every emotion but fear. I nod my head but don’t make any other movement. It’s utterly silent. There are tens of thousands of people in the grandstands around us, and yet no one is talking. Their eyes are focused on the clean-up crew and what’s left of the numerous cars on the track.
I strain to hear a sound. To sense a sign of life. Nothing but absolute silence.
I feel Becks’ arm go around me, supporting me as he directs us out of the tower on pit row, down the steps and toward the open door of a waiting van. He pushes gently on my backside to urge me in like I’m a child.
Beckett scoots in next to me on the seat and pushes my purse and my cell phone into my hands as he fastens his own belt and then says, “Go.”
The van revs forward, jostling me as it clears the infield. I look out as we start to descend down the tunnel, and all I see are Indy cars scattered over the track completely motionless. Colorful headstones in a quiet graveyard of asphalt.
“Crash, crash, burn …” The lyrics of the song float from the speakers and into the lethal silence of the van. My blank mind slowly processes them.
“Turn it off!” I shout with panicked composure as my hands fist and teeth grit, as the words embed themselves into the reality I’m unsuccessfully trying to block out.
Hysteria surfaces.
“Zander,” I whisper. “Zander has a dentist appointment on Tuesday. Ricky needs new cleats. Aiden has tutoring starting on Thursday and Jax didn’t put it on the calendar.” I look up to find Beckett’s eyes trained on mine. In my periphery I notice some of the other crew seated behind us but don’t know how they got there.
It bubbles up.
“Beckett, I need my phone. Dane is going to forget and Zander really needs to go to the dentist, and Scooter ne—”
“Rylee,” he says in an even tone, but I just shake my head.
“No!” I yell. “No! I need my phone.” I start to undo my seat belt, so flustered I don’t even realize it’s in my hand. I try to scamper over him to reach the sliding door of the moving van. Beckett struggles to wrap his arms around me to prevent me from opening it.
It boils over.
“Let go of me!” I fight against him. I writhe and buck but he successfully manages to restrain me.
“Rylee,” he says again, and the broken tone in his voice matches the feeling in my heart taking the fight out of me.
I collapse into the seat but Beckett keeps me pulled against him, our breathing labored. He grabs my hand and squeezes tightly, the only show of desperation in his stoic countenance, but I don’t even have the wherewithal to squeeze it back.
The world outside blurs, but mine has stopped. It’s lying on a gurney somewhere.
“I love him, Beckett,” I finally whisper.
I’m driven by fear…
“I know,” he says, exhaling a shaky breath and kisses the crown of my head. “I do too.”
… Fueled with desperation …
“I can’t lose him.” The words are barely audible, as if saying them will make it happen.
… Crashing into the unknown.
“Neither can I.”
* * *
The whoosh of the electric doors to the emergency room is paralyzing. I freeze at the noise.
Haunting memories flicker from the sound, and the angelic white of the hallways bring me anything but calming peace. It’s odd to me that the slideshow of fluorescent lights on the ceiling are what flash through my mind—my only possible focus as my gurney was rushed down the hallway—medical jargon sparred between doctors rapidly, incoherent thoughts jumbling, and the whole time my heart pleading for Max, for my baby, for hope.
“Ry?” Beckett’s voice pulls me from the panic strangling my throat, from the memories suffocating my progress. “Can you walk in?”
The gentleness in his tone washes over me, a balm to my open wound. All I want to do is cry at the comfort in his voice. The tears clog my throat and burn my eyes and yet they never well. Never fall.
I take a fortifying breath and will my feet to move. Beckett places an arm around my waist and helps me with the first step.
The doctor’s face flashes through my mind. Stoic. Unemotional. Head shaking back and forth. Apology in his eyes. Defeat in his posture. Remembering how I wanted to close my eyes and slip away forever too. The words “I’m sorry” falling from his lips.
No. No. No. I can’t hear those words again. I can’t listen to someone telling me I’ve lost Colton, especially when we’ve just found each other.
I keep my head down. I count the laminate tiles on the floor as Becks leads me toward the waiting room. I think he’s talking to me. Or to a nurse? I’m not sure because I can’t focus on anything but pushing the memories out. Pushing out the despair so maybe just a sliver of hope can weasel its way into its vacated spot.
I sit in a chair beside Beckett and numbly look down at the constantly vibrating phone in my hand. There are endless texts and calls from Haddie, ones I can’t even think to answer even though I know she’s worried sick. It’s just too much effort right now, too much everything.
I hear the squeak of shoes on linoleum as others file in behind us, but I focus on the children’s book on the table in front of me. The Amazing Spiderman. My mind wanders, obsesses, focuses. Was Colton scared? Did he know what was happening? Did he call out the chant he told Zander about?
The thought alone breaks me and yet the tears don’t come.
I see surgical booties in my periphery. Hear Beckett being addressed.
“The specialist needs to know exactly how impact was made so we best know the circumstances. We’ve tried to catch a replay but ABC stopped airing it.” No, no, no. Words scream and echo through my head and yet silence smothers me. “I was told you’d be the person who’d most likely know.”
Beckett shifts beside me. His voice is so thick with emotion when he begins to speak that I dig my fingers into my thighs. He clears his throat. “He hit the catch fence inverted … I think. I’m trying to picture it. Hold on.” He drops his head into his hands, rubs his fingers over his temple, and sighs as he tries to gather his thoughts. “Yes. The car was upside down. The spoiler hit the top of the catch fence with the nose closest to the ground. Midsection against the concrete barrier. The car disintegrated around his capsule.”
The collective gasp of the thousands of people in response still rings in my ears.
“Is there anything you can tell us?” Beckett asks the nurse.
The unmistakable noise of metal giving under force.
“Not right now. It’s still the early stages and we’re trying to assess everything—”
“Is he going to be …”
“We’ll give you an update as soon as we can.”
The smell of burned rubber on oiled asphalt.
Shoes squeak again. Voices murmur. Beckett sighs and scrubs his hands over his face before trembling fingers reach over and pull the hand gripping my leg free and clasps it in his.
The lone tire rolling across the grass and bouncing against the infield barrier.
Please just give me a sign, I beg silently. Something. Anything. A tiny little thing to tell me to hang on to the hope that’s slipping through my fingers.
Ringing cell phones echo off of the waiting room’s sterile walls. Over and over. Like the beeps on the life supporting machines that filter out into the waiting room. Each time one silences, a little part of me does too.
I hear the hitch of Becks’ breath a moment before he emits a strangled sob that hits me like a hurricane, shredding the paper bag I have preserving my resolve and faith. As hard as he tries to push away the onslaught of tears that threaten him, he’s unsuccessful. The grief escapes and runs down his cheeks in silence, and it kills me that the man who has been the strength for me is now crumbling. I squeeze my eyes shut and will myself to stay strong for Beckett, but all I keep hearing are his words to me last night.
I shake my head back and forth in a panicked disbelief. “I’m so sorry,” I whisper. “I’m so, so sorry. This is all my fault.”
Beckett hangs his head momentarily before wiping his eyes with the palms of his hands. And the gesture—pushing away tears like a little kid does when ashamed—wrings my heart even more.
I can’t help the panic that flutters as I realize that I’m the reason Colton’s here. I pushed him away and didn’t believe him—made him tired the night before a race—and all because I was stubborn and scared. “I did this to him.” The words kill me. Rip my soul apart.
Beckett lifts his red-rimmed eyes from his hands. “What are you talking about?” He leans in close, his conflicted blue eyes searching mine.
“Everything …” My breath hitches and I pause. “I messed with his head the last couple of days, and you told me that if I did, it was on me—”
“Ryl—”
“And I fought him and left him and we stayed up so late and I put him in that car tired and—”
“Rylee!” he finally manages in a harsh tone. I just keep shaking my head at him, eyes burning, emotions overloading. “This is not your fault.”
I jolt as he puts his arms around me and pulls me into him. I fist my hands into the front of his fire suit, the coarseness of its fabric rough against my cheek.
“It was a crash. He drove into it blind. That’s racing. It’s not your fault.” His voice breaks and falls on deaf ears. His arms are around me, trapping me, and claustrophobia threatens. Suffocation claws.
I stand abruptly, needing to move, to release the unease scavenging my soul. I pace to the far end of the waiting room and back. On my second pass the little boy in the corner chair scoots off his seat to pick up a crayon. The lights on his shoes flash red and grab my attention. I narrow my eyes to look closer, to take in the inverted triangle with the S in the center.
Superman.
The name feathers through my subconscious, but my attention is drawn to the television as someone changes the channel. I hear Colton’s name and I suck in a breath, afraid to look but wanting to see what they’re showing.
It seems like the whole room stands and moves collectively. A mass of red fire suits, faces conflicted with emotion, focus on the screen. The announcer says there was a crash that halted action for more than an hour. The screen flashes to the image of the cloud of smoke and cars careening off of each other. The angle is different than ours was on the track and we are able to see more, but as Colton’s car comes into the turn, the broadcast cuts the footage. All of the shoulders around the television sag as the crew realizes that what they were anxiously anticipating will not be shown. The segment ends with the announcer saying that he is currently being treated at Bayfront.
I see Colton’s lifeless body on the gurney, Max’s beside me in his seat. The similarities of the situation knock the wind out of me, pain without end. Memories colliding.
I turn to see the Westins walk into the waiting room. Colton’s regal and commanding mother looks pale and distraught. I swallow the lump in my throat, unable to tear my eyes from the sight of them. Andy supports her gently, guiding her to sit down as Quinlan grips her other hand.
Beckett’s at their side in a flash with his arms wrapped around Dorothea and then Quinlan in quick but meaningful embraces. Andy reaches out and grabs Beckett in a longer hug, teeming with heart-wrenching desperation. I overhear a choked sob and almost break from the sound of it.
Watching the whole scene unfold causes memories to flicker through my mind of Max’s funeral. A miniature pink casket laid atop a full-sized black casket, both blanketed with red roses, remind me of the words I can’t hear again: ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Makes me remember the hollow, empty hugs that do nothing to comfort. The ones that leave you feel over-sensitized, raw when you’ve already been scraped to the core.
I start to pace again amidst the hushed murmurs of “how long until there is an update?” Faces usually so strong and energetic are etched with lines of concern. And when my feet stop I’m looking into the eyes of Andy and Dorothea.
We just stare at each other, faces mirrors of each others’ disbelief and anguish, until Dorothea reaches a trembling hand out for mine. “I don’t know what … I’m so sorry …” I shake my head back and forth as words escape me.
“We know, sweetheart,” she says as she pulls me into her arms and clings to me, both of us holding each other up. “We know.”
“He’s strong,” is all Andy says as his hand rubs up and down my back to try and comfort me. But this—hugging his parents, all of us comforting each other, the tear-stained cheeks and muffled sobs—makes it all too real. My hope that this is all a really bad dream is now shattered.
I stagger back and try to focus on something, anything, to make me feel like I’m not losing it.
But I keep seeing Colton’s face. The look of absolute certainty as he stood amid all of the chaos of his crew—the same crew that sits around me, heads in hands, lips pulled tight, eyes closed in prayer—and admitted his feelings for me. I have to stop to try and catch my breath, the pain radiating through my chest, in my heart, just won’t stop.
The television pulls at me again. Something whispers through my mind and I turn to look. A trailer for the new Batman movie. Hope reawakens as my mind reaches into its depths—into the past hour.
The Spiderman book on the table. The Superman shoes. The Batman movie. I try to rationalize that this is all just a coincidence—that seeing three of the four superheroes is a random occurrence. I try to tell myself that I need the fourth to believe it. That I need Ironman to complete the circle—to be the sign that Colton will pull through.
That he will come back to me.
I start searching, eyes flitting around the waiting room as hope looms and readies itself to blossom, if I can just find the final sign. My hands tremble; my optimism lies beneath the surface cautious to raise its weary head.
There is sound toward the hallway and the noise—the voice—causes every emotion that pulses through me to ignite.
And I’m immediately ready to detonate.
Blonde hair and long legs breeze through the door and I don’t care that her face looks as devastated and worried as I feel. All of my heartache, all of my angst rears up and is like a rubber band snapping.
Or lightning striking.
I’m across the room within seconds, heads snapping at the growl I let loose in my fury-filled wake. “Get out!” I scream, so many emotions coursing through me that all I feel is a mass of overwhelming confusion. Tawny’s head whips up and her startled eyes meet mine, her enhanced lips set in a perfect O shape. “You conniving bit—”
The air is knocked out of me as Beckett’s strong arms grab me from behind and yank me back into his chest. “Let me go!” I struggle against him as he grips me tighter. “Let me go!”
“Save it, Ry!” He grunts as he restrains me, his reserved yet firm drawl hitting my ears. “You need to save all of that fire and energy because Colton’s going to need it from you. Every goddamn ounce of it.” His words hit me, punch through the holes in me, and sap my adrenaline. I stop struggling, his grip around me still iron clad, and the heat of his breath panting against my cheek. “She’s not worth it, okay?”
