I lifted my gun higher, striding that direction.
Numb except for the fact I’d fight to the death for these girls.
My finger on the trigger, I started shouting, deranged anger bleeding from my mouth, “Come on, motherfucker. Come at me. You want to hurt an innocent woman? A little girl, you sick fucks? Come at me.”
Their engine revved, and I kept marching that direction.
Two seconds of a silent war.
Me facing down the front of that battle-ram car. Trembling finger on the trigger.
Then the car suddenly whipped around and peeled out, flying down the street. The only trail of it the taillights that bloomed in the distance before it screeched as it careened around a corner, disappearing from sight.
A scream echoed from behind me. Faith’s torment coming from the front seat of my car where she stumbled out onto the road.
“Oh my God, are you okay?” There was another voice coming from the outskirts of my consciousness, a woman running to help me from across the intersection.
I dropped my gun to my side. The shock sliding through me and draining like a pool of tar onto the ground when I turned back around to see the wreckage.
“Oh, God,” the woman whispered, rearing back.
No doubt, she was terrified when she saw my state, the blood that streaked from the wound on my head.
Or maybe she just saw the violence shining in my eyes.
I didn’t care. Didn’t give a fuck what I looked like.
“Call 9-1-1,” I told the woman as I sidestepped her, going right for Faith, who was shaking, barely able to stand as she struggled with the bashed-in door to get to Bailey in the backseat.
By the time I got there, she’d managed to wrench it open, her screams hitting the stifled air. “Bailey . . . oh God, Bailey, my baby, my baby. No. No.”
Bailey’s cries echoed from the backseat.
I looped an arm around Faith’s waist, glancing again over my shoulder, making sure the fuckers were gone.
This time, I sure as hell wasn’t going to be unprepared if they rounded for another attack. I’d already let emotions cloud my mind.
There was nothing. Just the hiss and whirr of the engine, the woman in the intersection on her cell, begging for the ambulance and police to hurry.
And Faith . . .
Faith who wailed against me, this frantic terror bleeding from her lips. “Bailey. Oh, God, Bailey. How could they do this? How could they?”
“Shh,” I whispered, desperate to give her solace. Refuge while every cell in my body screamed for retribution.
To silence the threat.
“I’ve got you, Faith. I’ve got you.”
I’ve got you.
She writhed and cried out, “Why’s this happening to us? Why? Oh, God . . . someone help us. Please.”
Torment rang from her mouth.
Filled the air.
Tortured my heart.
“Shh . . .”
I struggled to get myself together. Focus on that second. What was happening and what needed to be done. I tightened my hold on Faith while I edged her to the side so I could look at her kid.
Her kid.
Her sweet, sweet kid.
And I realized right then that there were no longer any reservations. There was no longer trying to stop myself from falling completely for this child.
Because I felt the snap.
Every hard, bitter idea I’d had of Joseph’s child cracking beneath the crater of devotion that sank into my spirit.
Bailey.
Faith crumbled a bit, letting me hold her, and I angled her to the side as I stuffed the gun under the front passenger seat. I kept her close while I set my knee on the floor in the back so I could get a better look at Bailey.
Fear and fury ripped a hole through the center of me.
Blood dripped down her chin and soaked her shirt.
Oh God.
But her eyes, they were open wide, her chocolate gaze filled with all her trust.
“Jacie . . . I’s need you. My mouf hurts.” She said it in that little drawl of hers, her voice scared but strong.
Relief hit me, harder than that fucking car, and I tried to keep my cool. To keep it together and not break down in a fucking heap of tears that would be nothing but relief.
I needed to be strong. For them.
Possession spun a web around me.
My heart and my soul.
It took every ounce of control I had not to pull her from her car seat, every warning I’d ever been given about never moving someone in a crash up against the all-consuming need to wrap the little girl up.
Hold her.
“You’ve got me, Unicorn Girl. You’ve got me.”
And I wasn’t about to let her go.
I eased back out and pulled Faith closer, praying my voice would break through her fear. “She’s okay, baby. She’s okay. You’re okay. I’ve got you. I’ve got you. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
It was the brutal fucking truth.
I could hear the sirens strike up from the fire station just two streets over, the whir of them coming closer and closer.
I just stood there, a rock between my girls while we waited, an arm around Faith’s waist and my hand holding Bailey’s tiny one.
A cruiser flew up the street and skidded to a stop at the intersection. The officer stepped out, eyes quick to assess the situation.
Two seconds later, an ambulance came to a stop beside him. Paramedics piled out, their heavy footsteps pounding on the pavement.
Was it fucked up I didn’t want to let go when they approached? That I wanted to stand in front of them?
A shield.
A guard.
But I relented, feeling as if a physical piece of me was being pried away. Four paramedics enclosed the space.
I didn’t go far. Hovering right there, my feet pacing, my body unable to sit still as my insides began to boil.
As anger grew.
As retaliation became a living, thriving being that beat through my blood.
It only amplified when I thought of the possibility that Bailey had been hurt worse than she appeared, when she cried out when they cut her free from the seat, when Faith quietly wept at her side.
My spirit trembled and hate screamed.
A paramedic touched my arm, jerking me out of my frantic thoughts. “Sir . . . we need to take a look at that cut on your head.”
“I’m fine,” I growled at him.
The guy had the nerve to grin. “Don’t look so fine to me. You’re gonna need a couple of stitches, and we need to check for a concussion.”
Shit.
The last thing I wanted was to worry about myself.
But I let him sit me on the curb, his gloved fingers poking and prodding, a light shined into my eyes.
During the exam, there was no missing the eyes of the officer penetrating me. Clearly, he had been calculating the disaster.
Coming to realization that nothing was right.
This wasn’t an accident.
It was an attack.
His shadow fell over me as the paramedic dabbed a cotton ball on my cut.
I winced. Took that sting and buried it with the bitterness that was building into something that should be impossible.
So intense that I could taste the bitterness of it on my tongue.
My stomach nothing but fists and knots of aggression as violence replaced the blood in my veins.
I knew these people were disgusting.
Out for themselves.
Money the almighty end.
Nothing else mattering but lining their pockets and protecting themselves from the consequences of their corruption.
I’d just not expected the depravity. The type of wickedness they could sink to.
The officer stepped forward, and I looked up at him. “I need you to call Mack Chambers. Get someone here to get what evidence they can. This was intentional.”
Premeditated.
A warning I wasn’t going to leave unanswered.
“I can’t believe this fucking bullshit. Right in our town? In broad fucking daylight? No different from with Joseph. Like they can’t be fucking touched.”
Mack ranted outside of the emergency room door where I silently raged.
I’d just had a line of stitches placed in my head, but it was my guts that were raw and bleeding.
Faith was with Bailey, who was having additional scans done to make sure she didn’t have any hidden injuries, covering all the bases.
As far as they could tell, her only injury was a cut to her lip, which accounted for the blood on her shirt.