Every single hotel room in a fifty-mile radius had been reserved.
There was standing only in the field.
“This field was the first place that your son was going to take me to learn to drive your tractor,” I said softly.
Yet another research topic.
Mercy laughed. “Miller did the same for me. And Blue and Sierra.”
I licked my lips. “I love it here.”
I felt like I could breathe here.
All the memories of Sammy were fresh here. I didn’t feel suffocated.
I looked to my right and spotted Patman walking up out of the trees and coming to a stop with a few other people from the police academy.
The first signs of anything besides numbness started to filter through my veins.
And it was white hot anger.
“What is he doing here?” I hissed.
Mercy squeezed my hand as she turned to see what I was looking at. Patman was entering the field from the area that was being used as parking.
“Honey…” she started.
I looked away from Patman and gritted my teeth.
I was so numb that I couldn’t even find it in me to dislike him.
I glanced back at him then looked away when he saw me and smiled.
“I’m going to go use the bathroom before the funeral,” I muttered darkly.
Suzanne moved to get up from the chair that Miller had found her, thanks to her knee hurting, but I waved her off.
“Don’t,” I said. “I’ll get it done on my own.”
She frowned. “Are you sure?”
I nodded once and scooted out from between the small group of people that had gathered around me to offer me support.
I felt Rowen pat my side as I passed, and I squeezed Dax’s hand as he offered to help me over a large patch of grass that was to my knees.
“Thank you,” I said as I let it go.
He nodded without saying a word.
Thinking I was alone, I made my way through the crowd of people, thankful when everyone gave me a wide berth.
I made it to the porta-potties that had been set off toward the front gate and locked myself inside.
I wanted to sit there all day and hide, but the smell was hideous and the moment I got inside, my belly started to somersault.
Taking care of business as fast as I could, I decided to run out to my car where I had some hand sanitizer.
Hopefully that would give it enough time for Sammy’s funeral to get started.
Maybe I would miss it completely.
A tear streaked down my cheek and I sniffled as I wiped it away with my shoulder.
A familiar green truck came into view behind my small car, and I glowered at it.
Patman.
It was the same vehicle that I’d seen him drive away in on the news.
Walking to my car, I opened it and reached into the middle console for my hand sanitizer when a shirt on the Patman’s truck dash caught my attention.
It was a blue flannel printed shirt.
It was thrown into the spot between the dash and the windshield, and it looked hauntingly familiar.
The blue was a weird colored blue.
A light sky blue that I’d hinted to Sammy that I would be stealing since I liked it so much.
He’d told me he had to special order it from a big and tall store.
What were the coincidences that Patman had that?
And hell, hadn’t Sammy been wearing that same freakin’ shirt the day that he’d left?
I’d thought he’d looked absolutely hilarious in it because he’d been wearing black shorts, tall black socks, a black t-shirt, a black hat, black shoes, and then the sky blue flannel shirt over it all.
I’d teased him mercilessly as he’d walked out the door about it, and he’d teased me right back saying the only reason I was suggesting he change it was so I could steal his shirt.
And he’d been absolutely right.
What were the chances?
I walked over to the window of Patman’s truck and peered into it as I stared at the shirt.
There was no way.
None.
I glanced backward to see if anyone was paying attention.
Then I tried the door to his truck.
It opened with a soft click.
I just about had the entire thing open all the way when I was about barreled over.
One second I was standing beside the truck, and the next I had two hundred and thirty pounds of pissed off muscle on top of me.
I stared in shocked silence as Sammy stared down at me, his face a mask of horror.
We stared at each other in stunned silence for long, drawn out seconds before I lost it.
My eyes filled with tears, I took a deep breath, and then I promptly passed out.
When I next came to, it was to hear shouting.
Loud, pissed off voices were bellowing at each other.
And as I looked around, I realized that I was in someone’s arms.
I struggled to get free, but it only earned me a grunt from the man holding me.
“Easy, darlin’,” I heard said.
I looked up at the man holding me to see that it was Saint.
I didn’t know him all that well.
The few times that I’d met him with Sammy, and once when he’d rented the duplex from me, he’d been quite subdued and quiet.
Now? He looked like a person hellbent on revenge.
I looked back at where I could hear the fighting and cursing now, only to see a mirage standing in front of me.
The mirage pulled his hand back and swung, hitting Patman square in the jaw and knocking him down onto his ass.
Patman tried to get back up, but the mirage followed him down and pressed his bright pink casted arm into Patman’s throat.
“Stay,” the mirage ordered.
That’s when I passed out again.
Chapter 24
Kinda have baby fever. Kinda have too many kids already.
-Text from Mom to Sammy
Sammy
Everything hurt. And when I say everything, I meant everything. My fucking fingernails hurt from trying to pry myself free. My arms hurt from having them restrained behind my back for so long.
My eyes hurt because I hadn’t gotten much sleep over the last however fucking long.
My head hurt because of the fucking hit I’d taken upside my head when Patman had first grabbed me.
Goddammit, this needed to end.
I needed to get out of this.
I had no clue where I was, I could barely pick my head up off the floorboard of Patman’s truck, but I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I’d be getting away today. Or die trying.
My mind flashed back to the last time I’d tried to escape when he’d locked me in his shed.
Blood running down the back of my throat. My head hurt so bad that every single time I blinked, pain would explode behind my eyeballs. My left side hurt every time I breathed, indicating that I had a bruised or broken rib.
I slipped my hand free of the rope tying it behind my back.
I breathed out a shaky breath and forced myself to open my eyes.
Pain exploded in my head, but I forced down the nausea and stood up anyway, causing my entire body to sway to the left before I caught myself and took a step forward.
I was three steps from the door when it opened.
Patman was standing there, looking at his phone, unaware that I was a foot in front of him.
I moved quickly, trying to get the upper hand while I still could, but Patman did learn a few things during his time as a cop. He had the honed instincts needed to make himself a good cop—at least, a good cop in the sense that he knew his stuff. He didn’t have the personality or the temperament to be one, however.
My fist struck out, as fast as I could make it move, but Patman sensed it and stepped out of the way.
>
His unimpaired self was quite simply more functional than my body was.
Even with all the years he had on me, he still could handle himself better in that moment.
All it took was a shot to the knees for me to fall.
My balance, already compromised thanks to the head injury, took a nosedive.
My body hit the floor so hard that I couldn’t stop my head from following suit.
Right before I passed out, I heard Patman laughing.
“Try to escape again, and I’ll find a way to bring Hastings over here. I’ll make her cry, boy. Have you ever seen a girl cry?”
I waited, patiently, for the door to open, praying that this time I would be able to get out. Get free. All the while keeping my girl safe while I did it.
I would only get one shot.
That was literally all the energy that I had.
One. Shot.
The moment I heard the soft brush of footsteps, I started to ready myself.
My hands were once again tied in front of me, though I’d managed to pull my legs over them and get them out from behind my back.
All that movement had caused a fine sheen of sweat to dot my chilled form.
The footsteps paused, then I heard the snick of the truck door opening.
With the limited space that I had to maneuver, I launched myself outward the moment that the door opened all the way.
I hit the body like a clumsy Great Dane taking his first steps.
The form underneath me fell with my combined body weight, and we both hit the grass hard.
The gasp of surprise had me opening my eyes despite the pain, and what I saw made my heart thunder in my chest.
I was dragged off of Hastings—thank God.
It’d only taken a half of a second after I’d taken her down to realize who it was that I’d hit.
And seeing her burst into tears at the sight of me? That was a blow that I would never recover from.
The someone that’d dragged me off of Hastings sat me down on the ground next to her, but I was seriously too weak to even make my way back to her without falling straight on my face. Something I did moments later.
My brain swam with the sudden movement.
A wave of nausea rolled over me, and it took everything I had not to dry heave. Again.
I’d been doing that a lot lately.
I probably had a traumatic brain injury, and each time I moved my head, I caused even more damage.
“Hastings,” I croaked, trying to get to my girl.
Someone untied my hands.
I wasn’t sure who.
All I knew was that for the first time in days I could move them freely.
So how did I choose to utilize my suddenly newfound freedom?
By punching Patman in the face.
Seconds later, all the energy that I’d been able to produce to hit that stupid motherfucker left the building. As did my consciousness.
***
“Blood pressure is low. I started him on IV fluids,” I heard said.
I blinked my eyes open to see that I was in a white hospital room with quite a few doctors and nurses floating around me.
My eyes scanned the room for a familiar face, and I paused when I saw my sister.
Sierra was standing in the corner of the room, her hand over her mouth, as silent tears tracked down over her face.
She saw me staring and moved forward, her steps hesitant, as if she blinked, I might disappear.
I held out my hand, surprised that I could make it move, and grinned as best as I could when she placed her small hand in mine.
“I can’t believe you did this to me,” she accused. “We were at your funeral, you asshole.”
I frowned. “I’m sorry, Sie.”
Sierra wiped a tear off of her cheek, and then took a long, shaky breath.
“What happened?” she asked.
What happened?
“I was in an accident, Patman hit me upside the head so badly that I knew that I had a brain injury, and then he took pleasure in starving me over the next couple of days so that I was too weak to fight back.” I gave her the condensed version. “Then the asshole wanted me to witness my own funeral. The funny thing was he was going to try to bury me there in the same damn field.”
At least, that’d been what he said.
Who knew if he actually meant it.
Patman had been playing a heavy mental game with me over the last few days.
Honestly, I wasn’t sure what he said was true or not true at this point.
“He in cuffs?” I asked hopefully, interrupting her when she would’ve replied to my explanation.
“In cuffs, under about eight officer’s supervision. Everyone assures me he’ll be denied bond.”
God, one could only hope.
“And Hastings?” I asked.
She backed away and moved a curtain that separated my bed from Hastings.
“She’s right here. Still passed out cold from the shock.”
Chapter 25
Live fast and eat trash.
-T-shirt
Hastings
“…hasn’t been sleeping well,” I heard Suzanne say. “We couldn’t give her sleeping meds because of the baby. She hasn’t been eating. I think I saw her take a few sips of tea today at lunch.”
I tried to open my eyes but couldn’t.
I didn’t want to.
“Baby,” the most beautiful voice I’d ever heard said. “Wake up, baby. I’m dying here without your eyes.”
Dying.
Dying.
I opened my eyes and knew that something had happened.
I was dead.
Because if I was seeing Sammy, then that only could mean one thing.
“I died?” I cried.
Sammy’s frown was ferocious.
“No,” he said. “You’re alive. So is our baby.”
I looked around the room.
It was unfamiliar to me.
We weren’t at a hospital, but we were in a room of some sort with quite a few people around us.
The men of the SWAT team.
Suzanne.
Miller and Mercy.
Sierra.
I looked back at Sammy.
God, even dirty and wild looking, he was beautiful.
“Did we go to heaven?”
He laughed then and dropped a kiss to my mouth.
“No, sweetheart.” He smoothed my hair back from my face. “We’re not in heaven. I’m alive.”
That’s when I realized that he was telling the truth. He was very much alive and looked like absolute shit.
He was dressed in a hospital gown just like me. He had an IV going into the back of one of his hands, and a big bag of something was pouring into his body that was now half-full.
His eyes had deep, dark circles underneath of them, and he had cuts and bruises on his face that looked to vary from days old to only hours.
My head hurt something fierce, and my mouth was so dry that I couldn’t even lick my lips.
“How?” I whispered, tears now starting to leak into my hair.
Sammy wiped them away with shaky palms, but more followed in their predecessors’ path.
“He said, ‘Won’t it be funny for you to die here where they have your funeral.’” Sammy’s voice cracked as he spoke. “And so he left me in the truck. I managed to work my hand free. I just thought he would be the one to open that door. So I used every last bit of my energy to launch myself out of the truck. I’m sorry I hit you. I just didn’t expect it to be you opening the door.”
I shook my head.
“Most pitiful punch I’ve ever seen him throw,” who I thought was Louis said. “I fixed it for him, though. Made him look not so bad.”
“Why didn’t you come? Why?” I asked, voice barely above a whisper.
“I couldn’t,” he admitted. “Patman knocked me out with some
thing. I could barely stand to pick my head up off the ground for days.”
“Traumatic brain injury,” someone supplied from behind us.
I didn’t bother looking up.
“Every time I lifted my head, it would swim. I would barf, dry heave, or both. Then it would start a chain reaction that caused me to pass out. I was a mess for a long time.” He winced. “By the time I was shoved in his truck all over again this morning, it was the first time in days that I’ve been able to do more than roll over. But I haven’t been able to eat or sleep since he’s had me. Nothing to drink, either.”
“He’s severely dehydrated,” someone else said. “And he should really be eating.”
I gave him a stern look. “I’ll eat in a minute.”
That’s when I realized that of course Sammy wouldn’t be able to eat if he was dead.
I was dreaming!
“You’re dead.” I started to sob. “So are my parents and sister.”
“Your dad and Aurora,” Sammy confirmed, squeezing my hand between his. “They were in the car behind me. The truck landed on their car. I’m so sorry, baby.”
Somebody said something behind me, but I was crying too hard to hear.
It was only when Sammy groaned with renewed pain that I realized what had been said.
“You… she had a heart attack?” Sammy asked.
“Yes.” I heard that part. A woman.
“Fuck,” Sammy whispered. “Oh, baby.”
I cried so hard that I fell asleep all over again.
Luckily, this time, it was to Sammy’s sweet voice telling me he would make everything okay.
Chapter 26
Fuck off. Fuck off. Fuck off. Fuck off. Go fuck yourself.
-T-shirt
Suzanne
I looked at my best friend in her man’s arms and felt the belt around my heart start to loosen.
She wasn’t going to be alone anymore.
Thank. God.
There’d been a few times over the last couple of days that I’d worried that she might try to harm herself, and I’d already started making plans with my husband and son to stay here for a while.
Thankfully, now that Sammy was there, I wouldn’t have to worry about her.
She would be okay.
“What happened?” a tall, sexy Greek god of a man asked as he barged his way inside.
Sammy’s father, Miller.
Say It Ain't So (SWAT Generation 2.0 Book 9) Page 19
