Flawed Heart: House Of Obsidian - Bella Jewel Page 0,42

and pain stabs my heart over and over, like a thousand tiny needles. “Thrown. I found her here. She’s alive . . . breathing . . . I could feel her pulse in her wrist.”

The officer looks at his teammates, and one of them nods weakly.

“She’s gone.”

I shake my head rapidly as they pull her from my arms. “She was alive!” I yell, clenching my fists. “She was.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but she has passed. It’s nothing you did; the injuries she has sustained were far too severe.”

“She was alive!” I roar.

I killed her. I moved her when I probably shouldn’t have. I shouldn’t have touched her. I didn’t do CPR. I didn’t call the ambulance quickly enough. Dammit, why didn’t I call them as soon as I got out of the car? Why did I leave it a few minutes? They might have been able to save her.

“There’s nothing anyone could have done. Please believe that. Let me help you up; you’re in shock.”

Arms curl around mine and I’m pulled up and to the top of the bank.

I don’t remember what happens after that, because I black out.

I let her down. I could have saved her.

I as good as killed her.

~*~*~*~

“Right this way, madam.”

The sound of running feet makes me lift my head. I’m sitting in the waiting room of the hospital, ready to go home. The police told me that I did everything I could, that I couldn’t have saved those people, that little girl, but they’re wrong. I could have saved her. I shouldn’t have touched her. I should have bandaged her wounds. I should have gotten to her more quickly. It’s my fault she didn’t make it.

They told me the father was drunk. Drunk. Drunk. Drunk. With his little girl in the car. With his wife in the car. They used the words ‘difficult, damaged family.’ Because that makes it any better. Because that makes putting your child and wife in your car with you drunk so much fucking better. They said he was a problem of theirs, and had been for months. A bad seed, a dangerous man.

He still put his child in that car.

She didn’t have a seatbelt on.

“Max?”

I jerk and see Belle enter the room, her face pale, her eyes filling with tears. She rushes over, throwing her arms around my neck.

“Oh God, you’re okay. My beautiful Max.”

I’m not okay.

“What happened?” she whispers, pulling back and cupping my cheeks. “They told me you witnessed a car accident. Are you hurt, Max?”

I stare at her. Really stare. I look into her beautiful blue eyes and I can see the fear there. I can see how hard this is for her. I’ve never looked into her eyes and seen so much terror. If I tell her what I saw, it’ll make her chest feel the same way mine is feeling. It’ll crush her. God, what if she blames me too? What if she thinks I didn’t do everything I could?

What if she thinks I failed?

“I’m not hurt,” I say, my voice thick.

“I’m so sorry, Max. They didn’t tell me much, just that the people all died. Are you okay? Did you...did you see anything? Oh Max.”

Those eyes again. The ones that are wide and filled with tears, desperate for me to say it’s okay. She’s so scared for me. So broken for me. Her eyes are almost pleading for me to say it’s fine, that everything is fine. That I’m not broken or damaged from this, that our lives aren’t going to sink into fucking despair over this, that we’re going to be o-fucking-kay.

We’re not.

But she doesn’t need to know that.

I lock down, pushing the images of the little girl into the depths of my soul. I’ll find a way to deal. I’ll find a way that doesn’t damage the beautiful, blue eyes of my wife. A way that doesn’t cause them to drown, and be any less vibrant. A way that lets her sleep at night, the way she deserves . . . horror-free.

So I do the only thing I can.

I lie.

“Everything is fine, Blue Belle. It was just a shock. I didn’t see anything. I’m going to be fine.”

I’ll never be fine again.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

NOW – ANABELLE

“Hey,” a voice calls and a hand gently taps my cheek. “Wake up. Come on.”

My eyes flutter open and a sharp pain pounds through my head as I try to focus on the form leaning over me. It’s a man, a man with a patched face full of stitches