“You think this is what Sarah would want? You think she would be proud her old man was refusing to treat someone—a girl who had been through the same hell she had?”
Breakneck refused to look at me. Instead, he was staring at something on the girl’s hand. He brushed past me to go over to her. He took her hand in his and then brought it closer to his face. “This was Sarah’s.”
My brows rose in surprise. “Maybe this girl and Sarah were friends.”
Breakneck gently laid the girl’s hand on her chest. He exhaled an anguished breath. Glancing over his shoulder at Chulo, he said, “We need the closest hospital or clinic. Withthat bleeding, coupled with whatever internal injuries she’s sustained, she’s got maybe an hour. I need to get in and stop the bleeding.”
Chulo glanced from Breakneck to me. “Thirty miles up the road there’s a hospital. It ain’t much, and it sure as hell ain’t no trauma center.”
“I’ll make do,” Breakneck replied.
“One good thing is most of the staff can be bribed, and we’re going to need that for sure,” Chulo said.
“Fine. Let’s go,” I replied.
As we started the van, I surveyed Breakneck one last time. With muscles taut throughout his body, the heart-wrenching agony was written over Breakneck’s face as well. His baby girl was dead. Murdered. It was likely the finality of Sarah’s death would leave him a broken man. For our mission not to have been completely in vain, Annabel had to live.
With a swift nod in his direction, I tried to convey to Breakneck all my unsaid sympathy along with my thanks.
He shook his head. “Don’t thank me yet. She’s got a helluva long way to go to survive.” Although there was doubt in his voice, there was also a hint of firm resolve.
CHAPTER FIVE: ANNABEL
As I floated back into consciousness, a sigh escaped my lips. The excruciating pain that had cloaked me was gone. While I was appreciating the blessed relief, a sudden panic seeped into my pores. Did the newfound peace mean I was dead?
Prickly fear crept from the top of my head down to my feet, and I shivered. My groggy mind whirled with questions. Where was I? What had happened to me? When I tried desperately to widen my eyes to see where I was, they would only open halfway. They felt too swollen to fully open.
Just as I struggled to remember what had caused my eyes to swell, the events of the last few hours came racing back to me. Mendoza’s face masked in rage, his fists flying in fury, and his harsh words, “I’ll kill you for letting another man’s name come off your lips.”
When a bright, blinding light snapped on above me, a hoarse scream broke across my busted lips. Any peace I had felt was fleeting as I realized I wasn’t in Heaven. Instead, I was surely back in hell. But as I started thrashing around, I realized I wasn’t in Mendoza’s quarters. Instead, I was laid out on a hardtable. Once an antiseptic smell entered my nose, I couldn’t help wondering if I was in a hospital.
“It’s okay, sweetheart. No one is going to hurt you.”
I froze at the kind words which were spoken with such care. Fluttering my eyelids, I managed to open them enough to see someone I didn’t recognize in front of me. He didn’t wear a Diablo’s cut. Instead, he was outfitted in medical scrubs. As if he could sense my fear and the questions I had racing through my mind, he said in a low, kind, voice, “My name is Dr. Edgeway. One of my men found you back at the compound. You were hurt badly, and you needed surgery to save your life.”
Vaguely I remembered men arriving at the compound. Even though I had been in such agony, I remembered the chaos around me—the screaming, the explosions, the loud, threatening voices. But Mendoza had beaten me so badly I couldn’t do anything but lie on the floor and await my fate. Just as I felt myself fading, I had seen Jesus. He had gotten me out of Mendoza’s quarters. My savior had given me a name. I wracked my brain to try to remember it. Finally, it came to me.
“Rev?” I questioned.
The doctor’s brows shot up in surprise. “He’s just outside. If you want him, I’ll have him come in.”
For reasons I couldn’t understand, I wanted the stranger with me. “Please.”
He nodded. As he turned to the door, the room began to grow darker. I fought hard to stay awake to see my savior. When I saw him framed in the doorway, I couldn’t fight any longer, and I once again fell under the harsh tide.
***
When I once again resurfaced, I found myself in a darkened room. Relief flooded me as I imagined I must’ve made it out of surgery. After shifting in bed, pain tore through my abdomen, causing me to gasp. A warm hand met mine, and immediately, Ijerked away, recoiling from the touch. I could hear the panic in the muffled cry of apprehension that escaped my lips. Who was touching me? Where was Dr. Edgeway? I didn’t like the nearly constant uncertainty I now found myself in.
“Shh, Annabel, it’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you.”
That voice. It didn’t belong to the doctor from before, but somehow it was still familiar to me. Slowly, I turned my head on the pillow, searching through the darkness for him. A light flicked on over my head, and I was finally able to see him. His kind blue eyes met mine, and instantly, they eased some of the fear. The striking color seemed such a contrast to his mahogany hair. He sat in an uncomfortable looking chair pulled flush against the bed. In the silence, I drank in his comforting appearance—his long, jean encased legs, the T-shirt that appeared to be covered in blood or dirt, his shoulder length hair, which was swept back from the face that gave me a reassuring smile, his broad chest.
When I realized we were alone in the room, sharp jabs of fear pricked their way over my skin. My rational mind told me to be frightened of him. He was a stranger—a strange man at that. He towered over me with muscles that could inflict great harm. But everything I needed to know about him was in his eyes. Searching them showed me that he was a gentle giant and he seemed like someone who I could trust.
At what must’ve been my continued apprehension, Rev held his hands up. “I’m not going to hurt you, I swear. As long as I have a breath in me, no one is ever going to hurt you again. You’re safe.”
I stared at him, weighing his words. “Y-You saved me,” I whispered.
