“Renard Senior and Junior?” I ask, fear pulsing through my veins.
“No one except for the thugs,” Micah answers, exchanging a look with his twin.
“Dammit,” I hiss. They double-crossed Harlow, which means he’s even more desperate now.
I lean back on the stretcher as the ambulance wails through the city, pulling the blanket tighter around my shoulders. “Take me to Sawyer.”
Maddie
The next few days are a blur of police interviews and FBI officials questioning me. I tell them all the same story—the Renards have been running an operation as Daniel Harlow for a while. I was hot on their trail, so they decided to take me out, but Sawyer got in the way.
The Peaks are the only ones other than me who know the truth about that night, and we all agree that until we can figure out how high up this goes and who’s involved, we can’t trust anyone on the outside.
The Peak brothers band together to protect me, all while Sawyer’s life balances on a limb. Every so often, the machines he’s connected to start beeping alarmingly, causing the hospital staff to rush to his room. But his heart doesn’t stop again.
Whispers amongst the medical team of the inevitable drift to my ears more frequently with every passing day, but I have faith in my robo-tough-guy. If anyone can pull through, he can.
Jonah keeps pressing me for more information. He knows all the details on Daniel Harlow and what Sawyer and I discovered, how Sidney York made me believe Lee knew what I was doing. In reality, Sid had sent me alone and defenseless to hunt down Harlow, probably thinking I’d turn in the information I found and go on with my life. He never thought I’d go after Harlow alone, which I shouldn’t have.
But that isn’t what Jonah’s asking. What he wants to know, I can’t bring myself to say out loud.
“Maddie, please,” he pleads for the millionth time. “Too many things don’t add up. I need to know.”
“Jonah…”
“Andrew’s been asking as well,” Jonah whispers. “I keep telling him it’s nothing but he and Phoebe, they know you, they can tell something’s off.” Jonah looks at me with despair in his dark onyx eyes. “I don’t want them involved, Maddie.” His eyes turn to Sawyer, to all the tubes and machines that are keeping him just barely alive, and Jonah’s next words are a low whisper full of too much pain for a boy that’s barely seen the other side of his mid-twenties. “I can’t lose Andrew, too.”
That’s all it takes for me to break down, hearing Jonah admit that he’s all but given up on Sawyer.
“He can’t die,” I manage through sobs. “He promised me, Joe. He promised he’d never leave me.”
Jonah seems in complete disarray from my state, though in his defense, he still wobbles over and wraps me in an awkward hug.
“What happened with you two?”
I sniff and wipe the tears away with the back of my hand before looking up at Jonah. “He fell in love with me.”
Jonah turns to look at Sawyer in thought. “And you?”
“Apparently, I’m suffering fromPrince Charmingsyndrome.” I laugh through the painful clench in my chest, Jonah’s humorless smile matching my wry tone. “I never got to say it, Joe. He wouldn’t let me until it was over.” A sob wrenches out of my chest. “He deserves to be the first to hear those words.”
“He may not make it, Maddie.”
“He’s a tough son of a bitch.” I walk over to Sawyer, placing a hand on his chest. “And hesworehe’d always come back for me.”
Four days in, Sawyer stabilizes, and everyone except for me is shocked. A week later, they wean Sawyer off the venting machine, and by the nervous look on the medical staff’s faces, I know the odds are against him, just like I know he’s going to beat them.
“Two out of three dubbed a medical miracle,” Andy states dryly as he and Jonah look down at Sawyer, pale as a sheet and still in a coma.
“Let’s not make it a perfect score, okay, Double-A?” Jonah answers with a tired voice.
“Don’t plan to,” Andy answers, looking at Jonah in worry. Jonah hasn’t said as much, but the exhaustion is written all over his face, and I suspect the events of the past two weeks have been fueling his nightmares even more than they have mine.
Andy places a firm hand on Jonah’s shoulder before looking up at me. “You okay, Maddie?”
I nod, eyes fixed on the man I love, my mind running a million miles an hour.
“Any luck getting through to Sawyer’s mom?” Jonah asks Andy, who shakes his head.