I crouched down beside the car, bringing myself to her eye level. Her fingers were still wrapped around my wrist, and I could feel her pulse racing beneath her skin.
“I need to handle this first,” I explained, my free hand coming up to cup her face before I could stop myself. Her skin was cold—too cold. “I’ll meet you at the hospital. But, Faith, we have to find whoever this is and pray to God he’s still breathing.”
She leaned into my touch, just slightly, and that small gesture of need undid something inside me.
“Promise you’ll come?” she breathed, and there was something raw in her expression that made my heartbeat stop for a second because some part of her recognized me as safe. As hers.
“I promise.” I shouldn’t be makinganypromises yet. I needed to gather evidence, find out what the fuck happened.
Blake cleared his throat. “We need to go.”
“I’ll see you soon.” I stood and shut the door. My mind was already racing through the next steps: call 911, get to the scene, make sure forensics processed everything by the book. If this wentsideways, I needed every piece of evidence handled properly from minute one.
When Blake’s car pulled away, Faith turned in her seat, keeping her eyes on me through the back window. Even through the distance and glass and darkness, I could feel the pull of her gaze. She looked at me like I was her lighthouse in this storm.
As the taillights disappeared around the corner, I desperately hoped that two things were true.
One: the guy still had a pulse—hence, Faith wasn’t staring down murder charges.
Two: she was the victim here, not the aggressor. Because if Faith was actually guilty, how could I justify defending her when I’d vowed to never go down that road again?
But yet, how could I walk away fromher, no matter what?
5
FAITH
My brother entered the hospital room with a guarded look on his face, like he was about to deliver news that would rearrange my entire world.
Again.
I sat up slightly, the scratchy hospital sheets bunching beneath me like sandpaper against my skin. My heartbeat immediately kicked into overdrive as I scrutinized his features, searching for any clue in the tight line of his mouth, the way his shoulders held tension, like Atlas carrying the world.
“Any word?” My voice came out more hopeful than it should have. It was ridiculous to hope the guy might actually be alive, that I’d been wrong when I’d been in the forest. But desperation was all I had to hold on to.
Blake shook his head, and my stomach dropped straight through the floor, through the foundation, probably drilling a hole straight to hell. Which, let’s be honest, might be exactly where I belonged.
Defeated, I slumped back onto the bed.
“How’s your headache?” Blake walked over, his doctor persona sliding into place like a familiar mask. The fluorescentlights above made everything look harsh and unforgiving as he pulled out a small penlight and shone it in each of my eyes.
I squinted against the light. “My headache isn’t important right now.”
“As a medical professional, I call bullshit.” He tucked the penlight back into his lab coat pocket with a sharp click. “You have a concussion, Faith, and the bruising around your scalp suggests it could’ve been a lot worse. You’re lucky to be conscious.”
How could he worry about me right now when some guy out there might be dying?
I stretched the thin hospital sheet between my hands, pulling until my knuckles went white, needing something to hold on to. “A concussion and some stitches are nothing compared to whatever that guy in the woods is going through. Blake, I could’ve killed?—”
“Stop.” He held up his palm like a traffic cop directing cars away from a crash scene. “As much as I want to ask you a million questions, Ryker is one of the best criminal defense lawyers in the city. Not adhering to his advice would be like someone dismissing my medical advice. We need to trust him to guide us through this process, and if he says don’t talk about it, we don’t talk about it.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but what was the point? The words would just circle back to the same terrifying place.
“I just hope he’s alive,” I muttered, the words tasting like delusion and regret, like blood and bad decisions.He has to be alive.
I can’t have taken a life.
Blake’s expression softened into something that made my chest ache. “You’re strong, Faith. You’ll get through this either way.”
