Chapter 19 #2
“Sadie.” He called out to her, taking the lead before Race could.
He may have overstepped, but she looked like a scared animal fearing for its life.
Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Race motion for the men to fan out, but keep their distance.
“Sadie,” he called out again. She tightened her grip on the knife as her gaze shot down and to the right.
Shit. A gun. In the state she was in, she could hurt herself or one of them easily if she got her hands on that weapon.
It worried him that she wasn’t recognizing him.
Jackson tried to move in closer, presumably to take the knife away from her.
He saw her muscles tense and knew she was going to strike out at him.
“Sadie!” he shouted this time. She jumped and appeared to focus a little more on him. “It’s me. Darren. We’re here to help you, but you’ve gotta put down the knife.” He continued to hold his hands palm up in front of him.
She blinked several times, her brows dipping in confusion. “Darren?”
“Yeah, Sadie. It’s Darren. Can you give the knife to Jackson now? We’ve got Bacon and a couple of paramedics here. They need to take a look at Jed. You want Jed to get help, right?”
Jackson startled her as he grabbed onto her wrist and gently pried her fingers from the knife. He smiled at her as he tossed it to the side.
Darren could see the adrenaline crash coming on and rushed to catch her before she hit the floor.
She broke down in tears and started rocking back and forth as he held her.
While he comforted Sadie, the others went to work around him.
Trick and Jackson cut Jed free, then eased him to the floor, where Bacon and the paramedics went to work.
Dagger and Maverick checked out Tinker’s body, confirming he was dead.
“Sadie, how much of this blood is yours?” Darren asked, drawing her attention away from what was going on with Jed.
She stopped rocking and sat up straight.
She looked down at herself like she had no idea she was covered in blood.
Panic set in as she started trying to wipe it all off.
There was no way she could do that without a shower.
“Shhh. Shhh. Settled down, Sadie. I’m going to put you in the shower. Would you like that?”
She nodded her head, whimpering and looking lost.
“Come on. While Bacon works on Jed, you need to take a shower. You can’t go with him to the hospital looking like a vat of blood was poured over you.” He grabbed her behind her back and under her knees.
“My room is closest.” Race led the way to the room he used when he was here. He hurried to the shower and turned it on. Once it was ready, he stepped back and allowed Darren to set her inside. When she just stood there under the spray, Darren looked at him.
“Go ahead and help her. She’s more likely to trust you than anyone else,” Race told him.
Darren stripped down to his boxer briefs and then stepped in behind her. “Let me help you, Sadie.”
“I’ll be outside. I’ll find her some clothes.” Race stepped out, leaving the two of them alone.
He turned her around so that he could start by rinsing the blood from her hair. His breath caught in his chest when he saw a thin pink line running down the length of her body from chest to stomach. There was also a nick on her stomach that had bled a little but was now stopped.
A growl escaped him before he could stop it. “He cut you?”
She looked down as if she didn’t know what he was talking about. “Oh. Yeah. He did that when he cut off my shirt.”
“Motherfucker,” he growled. He had to gather himself before he scared her worse than she already was. “Did he hurt you anywhere else? Did he force himself on you?”
“No.” She shook her head. “He was going to, but I bit his neck.”
He supposed that explained the blood that had run down her chin and neck. “You bit him?
“Yes. He was going to rape me, so I went limp to let him think I was too tired to fight him anymore. Then, when he bent over me, I bit into his neck. He fought me until I let him go. That’s when he backhanded me so hard I almost fell off the couch. I saw the knife on the floor and grabbed it.”
Darren’s hands faltered at her admission as he gently worked the shampoo in her hair. His eyes clenched tight as he asked, “Then what happened?”
“While he was holding his neck, I stabbed him in the chest. He reached for the knife, then tried to climb off me, but he fell to the floor.”
He backed her into the stream of water to rinse the shampoo out.
He was picturing it all in his mind, and he had to fight to keep his hands from shaking.
God, so many things could have gone wrong.
What if she hadn’t gotten the knife? What if, in his anger, Tinker killed her?
What if the club hadn’t gotten there in time?
“Then what happened?” His voice sounded like he had gravel in his throat when he asked her to continue.
“I told him it ended now. Then I slit his throat, and I watched him die. And I don’t regret killing him.
” She spoke as if it happened to someone else, and she was just repeating what she’d seen.
Would it hit her later that she’d taken a life?
He hoped to God it didn’t. It was a fucking miracle she was alive when they found her.
She’d been through so damn much. How could one person endure so much and not lose their mind?
“You were just defending yourself, Sadie. I’m glad you killed him.” He reached for Bellamy’s conditioner and worked it into her hair. He hoped he didn’t sound callous to her ordeal, but he needed to know. “Do you think the baby’s okay?”
She broke down into great body-racking sobs this time. “I’m so sorry.”
“For what?”
“He stabbed Jed, and he was going to rape and kill me, and I couldn’t take it anymore. I fought back, knowing he might kill me and the, the,” she couldn’t finish.
“The baby,” Darren choked. “God, Sadie.” He pulled her into his chest, hugging her.
“You were faced with an untenable situation. Either way, Tinker was going to kill you. I’m just glad you fought back.
And if something happened to the baby, I wouldn’t blame you.
It would all be on Tinker. Do you hear me?
” He pulled her back and made her look him in the eye.
“I’m glad you’re okay. I would never want anything to happen to you, and neither would Jed. ”
As if hearing his name reminded her that he was in the other room fighting for his life, she collapsed into another fit of sobbing. He’d heard enough. If Tinker wasn’t already dead, he would burn him alive for making Sadie suffer.
Race slipped in and dropped some clothes for her on the counter and backed out, leaving them alone once again.
“Come on, honey. We need you to dry off and get dressed so we can take you to the hospital. Jed’s going to need you.”
She sniffled and nodded her head before pulling her shoulders back and stepping out of the shower to dress.
They returned to the living room just in time to see them loading Jed onto a backboard. “How is he?” He directed his question to Bacon. He was so fucking pale, the white bandage covering the stab wound stood out against his skin.
“Like I was telling Race, he’s stable, but he’s going to need surgery. And blood. He lost a lot. He came to for a minute, asking for Sadie. Is she okay? Do I need to look at her before we go?”
“No. I don’t think so. I’m good.” Sadie’s eyes filled with tears as she focused on Jed, but she didn’t cry again.
Bacon didn’t look convinced, but he didn’t argue with her. That was until Darren told him that she was pregnant.
“Let me do a quick assessment of your vitals before we load Jed up.” He watched the doctor check her blood pressure and pulse, then shine a light in her eyes.
“Your blood pressure and pulse are both elevated, but not dangerously so. Your pupils are dilated and you're in shock. You’re good to ride to the hospital, but once we get you there, I want you and the baby checked out. Okay?”
Darren squeezed her hand, silently pleading with her to listen to the doctor.
“Yes. Okay.” She slipped her arms into the flannel jacket Race held out for her.
“Are these your boots?” he asked, pointing to the chair across from where Jed had been.
“Yes.”
He grabbed the boots and guided her to a recliner across the room.
“Have a seat.” He helped her into one, and when he started to help with the other, she told him about the phone inside.
He pulled it out and smiled. "I’m proud of you.
That was smart thinking to put this phone in your boot.
It allowed Kylie to track you. It led us here. ”
A small smile tipped the corner of her mouth. “It was Jed’s idea.”
Darren didn’t care whose idea it was as long as they were able to make it to them in time.
They watched the paramedics load Jed into the back of Bacon’s Suburban after someone put the middle seat down.
He told them that because the road up to the cabin had been covered in deep snow, the ambulance couldn’t make the climb.
They would transport Jed down the road, then load him into the ambulance.
He escorted her to Tuck’s truck, where he helped her inside before going around and joining her in the backseat.
Tuck got behind the wheel, and Race climbed into the front passenger seat.
The rest of the crew split up into the remaining vehicles.
Lance and Chris would remain behind to dispose of Tinker’s body and to clean up the mess.
From the smoke coming out of the chimney of the building they used for interrogations, what they lovingly referred to as Hotel Pain, they’d already fired up the incinerator.
Pulling in behind Bacon’s Suburban, they followed him down the drive. At the bottom, as they discussed, Jed was transferred to the ambulance. Dagger and Maverick climbed into Bacon’s vehicle to drive it back to town.
They weren’t driving long when his gaze swung to Sadie.
She was staring out the side window, silent tears streaming unchecked down her cheeks.
He reached his hand across the space separating them and squeezed her hand.
She turned to face him, giving him a half-hearted smile before turning back to the scenery outside.
He held her hand all the way to Redemption, thinking she was one strong fucking woman.
And for her sake, Jed better pull through, or he was afraid losing him could be the one thing that could break her.