“You sure you don’t want to ride in the ambulance to the hospital?”
“I’d rather have Jay drive me,” I admitted. “If that’s okay.”
“Of course. You can follow behind us.”
I slid off the back of the ambulance, and they shut the doors. Jay placed a steady hand on my back as he guided me toward his truck.
“I don’t think anything’s wrong with me,” I said as I climbed into the passenger seat.
“It’s best to check, just in case. Internal bleeding isn’t something to mess with,” he replied, rounding the hood and getting behind the wheel.
We pulled out and followed the ambulance down the road.
As we left the scene, a strange sense of relief washed over me. The sun was casting streaks of yellow and soft purple across the forest. Just hours ago, those trees had felt like something out of a nightmare.
Now they looked… almost peaceful.
I was safe.
And as terrifying as the entire ordeal had been, there was a strange comfort in knowing Pike wasn’t out there anymore.
He couldn’t hurt anyone else.
And he couldn’t hurt me.
“I should call my mom and dad,” I said suddenly, letting out a long sigh. “And Mason too…”
I didn’t particularly want to reach out, but I knew it was important that they know what had happened.
Jay nodded. “I think that’s a good idea.”
I pulled out my phone and pressed on my mom’s contact. It rang twice before her voice came through the receiver.
“Hope?”
An intense wave of emotion rose so fast that it made a lump form in my throat, and my eyes burned with tears.
“Mom,” I whispered, my voice thick. “It’s so good to hear your voice.”
We pulled up to the hospital parking lot just as I finished telling my mom everything that had happened. My mom cried when I told her, and I couldn't remember the last time I’d heard my mom sob.
“Hope, I’m so sorry.” Her voice cracked. “You told us.”
I closed my eyes. “It’s okay.”
“No it’s not. And you know it’s not. You told us what happened, and we downplayed it.”
I didn’t respond. I didn’t know how to answer.
She started crying again—a quiet, horrified kind of crying.
“I should have listened,” she whispered. “I should have believed you. Your father is just so intense, and he convinced me that Conrad couldn’t possibly do something like that.”
My throat tightened painfully. I hadn’t realized how much I needed to hear that.
“I am so sorry,” she said. “I failed you.”
“I needed you to stand by me,” I admitted quietly.
