BRIELLE
Where are they? Where did they go?
“Brielle, sweetheart. Can you hear me?”
Pressure wrapped around my wrist as my gaze scanned the parking lot. The world around me fell silent, engulfing my head in a swimming feeling and my heart leapt into my mouth. I tried swallowing it back down, chasing the nerves with enough spit to drown a small animal. And yet, as I scanned the ground for any sign of them, I found nothing.
No bikes.
No leather jackets.
No men.
No, they couldn’t have. They’d never.
“Princess? Please say something.”
That turned my head. Even as the muffled words dawned upon my ears, it wasn’t until I turned my body to face the familiar voice that tears leaked down my cheeks. They had left me. Abandoned me. Ran away like cowards.
Had I ever meant anything to them?
“Oh, sweetheart,” Mom choked out as she enveloped me in a hug.
Her warm embrace yanked me back to the present. The sounds of people crying and asking a fuck ton of questions battered against the shell of my ears. An involuntary shiver worked its way down my spine. Her arms held me tightly as my soaked cheek descended upon her shoulder. And when those short, plump fingers of my father’s hand stroked through my hair, I couldn’t help myself.
I sobbed against her shoulder, releasing the demons I’d held at bay for oh so long.
“It’s okay,” she whispered, kissing my temple, “we’re right here. You’re safe now, honey. You’re safe.”
“Here, let’s get you home,” Dad said. “We need to get your clothes changed. You’re covered in blood.”
The idea of leaving without my boys yanked my head up from my mother’s shoulder. I pulled out of her grasp, studying the ghostly imprint of red I had left behind in my wake. I picked my hands up as the sound of tires squealing caught my ear. I yanked my head toward the sound, hoping and praying to see those bikes rolling into the parking lot, one by one.
But instead, I saw news vans rolling up as people with cameras spilled out of every orifice.
“Shit,” I hissed.
“Brielle,” Mom whispered, “language.”
I curled my nose up at her words. “Says the woman who kept the most important thing about my life from me.”
My voice sucked the air out of the spaces between us. Newscasters set up outside the façade of the hospital as Dad wrapped his arms around me. He held me close, stroking his hand up and down my back. I stared mindlessly at all the cameras. Maybe they had left because of those?
It wasn’t like they could necessarily be seen on television or anything like that.
Yeah, maybe that’s what happened.
“You can’t even give your old man a hug?” Dad asked with a nervous chuckle on the tip of his tongue.
I pulled away from his embrace. It felt too confining. It felt unreal, as if I were stuck in some nightmare I’d never shake.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked, locking my gaze with his.
Those icy blue eyes that everyone thought I had inherited stared back at me. “How do you tell someone like that, princess?”
“Easy,” I said flatly, taking another step backward. “With your mouth.”
“Sweetheart, it was so much more complicated than that,” Mom said, reaching out for my hand.
