Total pages in book: 179
Estimated words: 170878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 854(@200wpm)___ 684(@250wpm)___ 570(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 170878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 854(@200wpm)___ 684(@250wpm)___ 570(@300wpm)
Again, it pained me to even think of being under a different roof than Clara, but she’d want me to be with Hannah, that much I knew. She’d wailed the house down, thrashing and screaming because I’d told her we couldn’t be with her at the hospital.
I’d questioned my choice. I still questioned it now. But I couldn’t have her back in that place, not if it might be the last place she saw Hannah.
Not that seeing Hannah bleeding out in the snow was better. What was the better option? What would hurt Clara less? I didn’t know. I prayed I’d made the right decision.
“Thank you,” I croaked at my brother. It was all I could manage.
He gave me a sharp nod, squeezed my shoulder again, then quietly entered my room.
If Clara woke, he’d be there for her. Hopefully able to calm her. My chest ached leaving her, even in the presence of someone she loved.
My father stopped me in the living room before I left. He was holding a mug of tea, his eyes shiny as he took me in. He placed the tea on the coffee table, moving in two quick strides to bring me into his arms.
I didn’t want the contact, the comfort. But reflexively, my body relaxed into his, and I quietly cried in my father’s arms for thirty seconds. It was what I allowed myself before pulling back.
My father’s eyes shone with unshed tears. “She’ll come back to you, son. Have hope.”
I didn’t dismiss my father’s words because he was the kindest man I knew, and his face was painted with hurt.
I merely nodded then left to be with Hannah.
She was out of surgery by the time I arrived, Calliope relaying all the facts to me with brutal precision. She didn’t offer hugs, thank fuck.
Critical.
Her condition was critical.
She was in the ICU. It was past visiting hours, apparently. But Calliope had taken care of that. I didn’t ask her how, I just thanked her before beelining it for Hannah.
It was a cruel twist of fate that I’d lived to see both of my girls lying in hospital beds, unsure if they’d ever make it out.
Hannah looked so small in that bed.
She was connected to so many things. Heart rate monitors. An IV. A tube down her throat. Because she couldn’t breathe on her own.
I made myself look at her. I made myself take in every single detail. The shade of white of her bedsheets. The smell of cleaning products and faint whiff of someone else’s perfume. The pallor of her skin. Her hair splayed over the pillow.
Every detail, I etched in my mind, to revisit, to punish myself with. To show myself what happened when I made choices for Hannah about what was best for her. Two men took her choice away from her. One with a gun, the other with words.
Then I sat. I grasped her too-cold hand, I shouted at nurses.
And I waited.
For life to give me another miracle.
One I didn’t deserve.
But Hannah sure as fuck did.
Clara sure as fuck did.
So I hoped.
Hoped that that was enough.
Finn arrived in the middle of the night.
The chief of police didn’t need to abide by visiting hours.
I barely glanced at him as he stood at the other side of the bed. He was silent for a handful of moments, watching Hannah.
“She’ll make it through,” he said to himself, maybe to me.
I didn’t reply.
“I’d put out a BOLO for Waylon’s plates.” Finn sounded tired. He had no idea… “I pulled every string I could so I could track his movements. I’d been driving around town searching for his truck all morning until I saw it at the park.”
His voice was wracked with guilt. A good man wouldn’t pile on him.
I wasn’t a good man.
“And yet he managed to follow her,” I grumbled, my eyes never leaving Hannah’s face. “He still managed to stand in front of Hannah and my daughter. He managed to shoot Hannah in the chest after she refused to let him have Clara.”
Clara had recounted the story in between sobs, telling me that if she’d gone with the “bad man” Hannah would’ve been okay.
Clara was blaming herself. My daughter. My five-year-old daughter not only witnessed Hannah get shot but blamed herself for it.
“She protected my daughter with her body,” I spoke quietly, staring at the monitors, the one telling me Hannah’s heart was still beating.
“Brother—”
“She used herself as a HUMAN SHIELD for my daughter!” Hannah would’ve jumped at the sound of my yell if she weren’t in an induced fucking coma.
Since learning about her past, what she’d gone through, and punishing myself every day for unknowingly activating triggers, I hadn’t raised my voice with her. Tried to ensure I didn’t do anything that would make loud, sudden movements. Never in my life did I want Hannah to flinch with fear as a result of something I did.