Page 5

I’m not too worried about the cuts and scrapes on her arms and chest—there’s one on her shoulder and across her collarbone that might need stitches and that bruising on her face is concerning.

“What’s her name?” I ask the operator as I reach down, muttering an apology for the invasion of privacy as I slowly lift up the pink satin, the sight of her swollen stomach like a sucker punch to the face.

“Rumi. Rumi Matthews.”

“Rumi,” I repeat, the name feeling familiar on my lips, as if I was used to saying it in another life.

Why the hell is she out driving this late?

She’s pregnant for fuck’s sake, and it’s the middle of the night.

Where’s her husband or boyfriend or whoever the fuck knocked her up.

He should be here making sure she’s okay, protecting her, driving this damn car.

She shouldn’t be out here right now.

She’s growing a fucking a life in her right now, bringing some fucker’s child into the world, and yet she’s out here.

Alone.

I pray to all the gods I don’t believe in that she makes it out of this, and that her baby is okay, and that the son of the bitch who isn’t here to protect her gets his ass beat.

She can’t lose this baby.

She won’t.

No one deserves to live with the weight of a loss like that.

She’ll feel guilty.

She’ll blame herself.

I would know.

“Ambulance should be arriving any minute,” the operator says, but it sounds like she’s underwater with the pounding beginning to grow in my ears.

Why the hell is she barefoot?

Pajamas, no shoes, and nothing but a car seat in the car—aside from the crash, what the hell happened to her tonight?

With no obvious evidence of internal injuries, I carefully bring Rumi’s nightgown back down. That sense of protectiveness over her is back with vengeance at how exposed she is, how fragile she looks, how scared she must have been.

The sudden urge to shield her from anything and everything surprises me, considering I don’t even know the girl’s last name, yet looking at her in this state—bloodied and hurt, pregnant and alone—makes a foreign possessiveness take hold.

I look down at my bloodied hands against the softness of her . The contrast is jarring, yet it stirs something inside of me.

Suddenly, I hear the sound of distant sirens, and they bring me back to the last time I was in a situation like this, waiting for an ambulance.

Only this time, the life can be saved.

I feel my lungs constrict with every breath, each coming quicker, trying to get any ounce of oxygen I can, but it’s like my body forgot how to breathe.

My chest tightens, and a ringing sounds in my ears, my heart pounding so hard it feels like it might explode. My mind spins in a fog of overwhelming fear—fear that I’m going to lose him.

No, her .

Everything around me blurs—the dark forest beyond the car, the pink material of Rumi’s nightgown, the red lights coming from around the corner. All of it distorts my reality, and my mind warps the scene in front of me to the one that’s haunted my dreams for the last six months.

A screaming mother, looking for her daughter.

A daughter she thinks is still in the house.

The house that is up in some of the biggest flames I’ve seen in my career.

I see Bennett.

He’s running.

Running toward the fire.

I’m shouting his name, but he doesn’t turn around.

I’m trying to go in after him, but my body is stuck in place.

I drop my phone, the small thud in the gravel barely registering in my mind as I feel my body falling to the side, catching myself on the car door before my knees hit the gravel.

I can’t feel my limbs, my body aching from the lack of oxygen, my skin prickling like I have a fever.

My eyes are wide open, but I can’t see straight.

Ambulance sirens, the rush of the hoses trying to put out the fire.

Screaming.

And if it wasn’t for the burn in my throat, I wouldn’t know it was coming from me.

The house crumbling on top of Bennett.

His body buried.

Hours—minutes?—passing before we find him under the debris.

More ambulance sirens, the squeaking wheels of the gurney, the chatter from the paramedics.

They can’t find a pulse. His right arm is twisted, his left leg crushed.

He’s unresponsive. Severe head trauma. Multiple contusions.

Third-degree burns. They need to get him in the rig. They’re hooking him up. Flatline.

“Ow.” A calm voice registers in my ear, but that doesn’t make sense. Bennett is dead. I couldn’t save him.

He didn’t make it.

The scene in front of me fades, but I can’t take in a full breath. The sirens are louder, and I see the white exterior of the car in front of me, a red hue falling over it as the ambulance stops on the road in front of us, three people jumping out and coming toward me.

I think I’m having a heart attack.

Can you have a heart attack at 35 years old?

That has to be what this is.

I scramble to my feet, holding on to the car door for support, ready to tell them to save him. Save Bennett. Save my best friend. He’s not dead. He’s alive.

I bend down, almost losing my balance again, my hands catching myself as I feel around for my phone in the gravel. With the flashlight still on, I shine the light into the car just as a calm, firm voice tells me to step back.

“We got her,” another voice says, and I feel a hand on my shoulder, my eyes still adjusting.

Her? No. It’s Bennett. But I can’t form the words. I let the paramedic walk me a few steps backward while someone else wheels a gurney over, two of them carefully moving the figure out of the car.

No, I want to say. It’s him. They have to save him.

“Are you hurt?” the paramedic asks me, and I shake my head once, my eyes looking past him as they lay the body on the gurney.

“We heard you found her. You did a great job. Let us take it from here.” Her?

What is he talking about?

I push past the man in front of me, closing the space between me and the gurney.

I need to see him .

“Sir!” I hear, but I don’t care. I grab the side of the gurney, and I freeze.

Looking down, expecting to see the shaggy blonde hair and the navy eyes of my best friend, I see the lake at sunrise.

I see the reflection on the top of the water as it splashes against the side of my boat.

I see the calmness of the waves and the peacefulness of the small ripples when I cast my line.

And they’re looking right at me.

Her eyes bring me back.

The accident. The woman.

The pregnant woman.

“We have to get her to the hospital,” one of them says, but I can’t bring myself to let go of the gurney. I hear something about distress and baby and labor as the gurney starts to slip from my grasp.

My lungs are finally filling with air again, and my vision clears.

She needs to be okay .

“She will be,” I hear, and I realize I said the words out loud. “Are you riding with us?” the paramedic I ran past asks from behind, and I shake my head, feeling like I just completed a marathon then got hit by a bus at the finish line.

A sense of numbness washes over me as I watch the paramedics load the gurney in the ambulance, closing the doors, and heading back the way they came.

I don’t know how long I stand out there on the side of the road before my body moves in autopilot, walking back to my truck and starting the engine—heading back the way I came, straight to my grandfather’s cabin.