Page 50 of The Fear (The Hillers of Barratt County #7)

Hala’s door stood open. Grady could see that as he ran up her small trio of steps to her little front porch. She’d put a wooden daisy cut-out sign that said Welcome on the front porch. It was so epically her.

“Hala!” He yelled her name, feeling like his heart was being ripped out. “Honey, where are you!”

“Grady! She has a knife!”

He burst through the front door, almost tripping over a stack of boxes.

That’s when he could see them, on her dining room floor. Hala. That damned Jessica Curtis from the diner. That woman who had always bullied and taunted Greer, just because she thought she could. She was on her knees— pulling at Hala’s arms.

There was blood everywhere. Grady slipped, almost going down to his knees.

Hala had her arm up—covering the dark-haired little girl in her arms. Trying to protect.

As the child’s mother brought the knife down.

Hala screamed.

Grady just lunged.

He hit Jessica so hard the two of them went straight into the thin drywall next to the dining room table.

Hala would never forget the sound Jessica made. The keening wail of a rabid animal was the closest way she could describe it.

Grady was there.

It was going to be okay.

She told the precious little girl in her arms that. “It’s okay. Grady’s here now. We’re okay. We’re safe.”

“My mommy hates me. My mommy hates me. I want Daddy. Mommy hurt Nana and I want my Daddy. My mommy hates me because I am bad.”

“We’ll find Daddy very soon.” Hala struggled to block Wynnie’s line of sight. Where was the knife? She didn’t see the knife. “You are not bad, baby. You are not ever bad.”

Jessica was writhing on the 1990s linoleum that Hala hadn’t exactly been too fond of. There was blood all over Jessica. There was blood everywhere.

The sight of all the red had Hala almost vomiting. She remembered blood. From the night she’d lost her parents. There had been so much blood—on her parents, her baby sister…her. She fought nausea.

She tried to pull herself to her knees, to hold Wynnie close. Her arms…they burned. Both of her arms burned.

Jessica had cut her. Had actually cut her with the butcher knife. And she was bleeding.

But there was a precious baby girl in her arms. Who deserved, needed, Hala to keep it together.

Hala had to keep it together now.

Then there was shouting, and she looked up.

Into a beautiful man’s face.

But…it wasn’t the man she was looking for.

“Grady!”