Fear and fury ripped a hole through the center of me.
Blood dripped down her chin and soaked her shirt.
Oh God.
But her eyes, they were open wide, her chocolate gaze filled with all her trust.
“Jacie . . . I’s need you. My mouf hurts.” She said it in that little drawl of hers, her voice scared but strong.
Relief hit me, harder than that fucking car, and I tried to keep my cool. To keep it together and not break down in a fucking heap of tears that would be nothing but relief.
I needed to be strong. For them.
Possession spun a web around me.
My heart and my soul.
It took every ounce of control I had not to pull her from her car seat, every warning I’d ever been given about never moving someone in a crash up against the all-consuming need to wrap the little girl up.
Hold her.
“You’ve got me, Unicorn Girl. You’ve got me.”
And I wasn’t about to let her go.
I eased back out and pulled Faith closer, praying my voice would break through her fear. “She’s okay, baby. She’s okay. You’re okay. I’ve got you. I’ve got you. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
It was the brutal fucking truth.
I could hear the sirens strike up from the fire station just two streets over, the whir of them coming closer and closer.
I just stood there, a rock between my girls while we waited, an arm around Faith’s waist and my hand holding Bailey’s tiny one.
A cruiser flew up the street and skidded to a stop at the intersection. The officer stepped out, eyes quick to assess the situation.
Two seconds later, an ambulance came to a stop beside him. Paramedics piled out, their heavy footsteps pounding on the pavement.
Was it fucked up I didn’t want to let go when they approached? That I wanted to stand in front of them?
A shield.
A guard.
But I relented, feeling as if a physical piece of me was being pried away. Four paramedics enclosed the space.
I didn’t go far. Hovering right there, my feet pacing, my body unable to sit still as my insides began to boil.
As anger grew.
As retaliation became a living, thriving being that beat through my blood.
It only amplified when I thought of the possibility that Bailey had been hurt worse than she appeared, when she cried out when they cut her free from the seat, when Faith quietly wept at her side.
My spirit trembled and hate screamed.
A paramedic touched my arm, jerking me out of my frantic thoughts. “Sir . . . we need to take a look at that cut on your head.”
“I’m fine,” I growled at him.
The guy had the nerve to grin. “Don’t look so fine to me. You’re gonna need a couple of stitches, and we need to check for a concussion.”
Shit.
The last thing I wanted was to worry about myself.
But I let him sit me on the curb, his gloved fingers poking and prodding, a light shined into my eyes.
During the exam, there was no missing the eyes of the officer penetrating me. Clearly, he had been calculating the disaster.
Coming to realization that nothing was right.
This wasn’t an accident.
It was an attack.
His shadow fell over me as the paramedic dabbed a cotton ball on my cut.
I winced. Took that sting and buried it with the bitterness that was building into something that should be impossible.
So intense that I could taste the bitterness of it on my tongue.
My stomach nothing but fists and knots of aggression as violence replaced the blood in my veins.
I knew these people were disgusting.
Out for themselves.
Money the almighty end.
Nothing else mattering but lining their pockets and protecting themselves from the consequences of their corruption.
I’d just not expected the depravity. The type of wickedness they could sink to.
The officer stepped forward, and I looked up at him. “I need you to call Mack Chambers. Get someone here to get what evidence they can. This was intentional.”
Premeditated.
A warning I wasn’t going to leave unanswered.
“I can’t believe this fucking bullshit. Right in our town? In broad fucking daylight? No different from with Joseph. Like they can’t be fucking touched.”
Mack ranted outside of the emergency room door where I silently raged.
I’d just had a line of stitches placed in my head, but it was my guts that were raw and bleeding.
Faith was with Bailey, who was having additional scans done to make sure she didn’t have any hidden injuries, covering all the bases.
As far as they could tell, her only injury was a cut to her lip, which accounted for the blood on her shirt.
Faith had been unharmed other than the damage that was steadily being done to her psyche. These bastards wearing her down. Carving her out. Looking for something that wasn’t even there.
Her parents had rushed over as soon as they’d heard, terrified, her father’s jaw clenched shut. I wasn’t sure what to expect when he’d approached me, my insides lined with steel as I’d prepared for his anger.