5. Michael
CHAPTER 5
Rain hammers my windshield as I head home from dropping Matty off with Margot. It was a fun evening, even if I hadn’t been able to get Reyna out of my head. The feel of her as I’d held her up from the ground earlier…the scent of her delicate perfume…she’s haunting my every moment.
The school comes up, and like I always do, I turn toward the parking lot. Will she be working tonight? Tucked away in her office prepping for another school year?
Lightning shoots across the sky as I pass, illuminating the school’s parking lot. My heart stops beating and my stomach plummets.
A large figure has a smaller one pinned to the ground.
Right beside Reyna’s car.
Without hesitation, I jerk my truck into the lot. As soon as my headlights shine on the fight and I get a clear view of who is being attacked, all rational thought leaves my mind. The masked attacker hauls Reyna up and tries to drag her toward her car.
I throw my truck into park and grab my gun. Flinging my door open, I jump out and rush forward. Rain slams into me, soaking me instantly, but it doesn’t matter.
Nothing matters but her.
“Let her go or I’ll drop you where you stand,” I snarl.
She’s drenched in rainwater, eyes barely open, face bloody. It takes every bit of training for me to keep my head level when all I want to do is rip him apart where he stands. Doing so, though, could put Reyna in even more danger.
So I leash my feral temper.
“Let. Her. Go,” I repeat. “This is your final warning.”
The man pulls her in tighter, and the sleeve of his sweatshirt climbs up, revealing a tattoo that dips down into his glove before climbing up past his sleeve. It’s the only mark I see. Everything else is covered.
He leans down closer to her, then shoves her forward. Reyna hits me hard, and I stumble back, though I’m able to remain on my feet. Even as I want to look her over, I shift my attention to the immediate danger—only to find he’s gone.
Another flash of lightning. The man is clear across the parking lot, so I grab Reyna and carry her to my truck, setting her in the passenger seat and buckling her in before getting back in. I leave the gun in my lap and assess her injuries.
“Talk to me,” I urge. “Where are you hurt?”
Her teeth chatter, eyes half closed.
“God, please. Stay with me, Rey.” I crank the heat up and throw the truck in gear.
My tires screech as I burn out, driving in the direction the man ran. I need to get Reyna help, but if I can take this man out on my way… I reach the other side and see nothing.
No sign of her attacker.
I slam both hands onto the steering wheel, then guide my truck back onto the road.
Doc.
We need Doc.
My heart pounds, adrenaline surging through me. “Talk to me, Rey,” I tell her. “Please.”
She mutters something, but I can’t understand it.
“Rey. I need you to stay awake.” I reach over and take her hand in mine, clinging to her in hopes that it will keep her alert and keep my heart from beating right out of my chest. With my hand on the steering wheel, I press and hold the Bluetooth button.
“You back in town?” Elijah answers.
“Someone attacked Reyna outside the school.”
“When?” he asks, tone morphing into business mode.
“Just now. I’m on my way to Doc.”
“I’ll get footage pulled up. Is she?—”
“She’s alive,” I tell him. “Have Lance and Jaxson canvas the area. Find him.”
“We’re on it. Keep us updated.”
Doc’s house is closer than the hospital, so I park my truck right in front of his place and don’t even bother turning it off before I jump out, rushing around to get Reyna from the passenger side. I gather her into my arms and rush up.
I’m not entirely sure he’ll be home, but I have to try.
“Doc!” I beat on his door. “Open up, please!” I look down at Reyna who is limp in my arms. “Please, Doc!”
A light comes on inside and seconds later, the door is pulled open by a wild-eyed Doc Harding. “Michael, what—” He sees Reyna and steps aside. “Get her on the couch. I’ll grab my bag.” He rushes out of the room wearing shorts and a sleep shirt, and I set Reyna on the couch.
My throat constricts, and I can’t tell if it’s tears or rainwater rolling down my cheeks. “Please, Reyna. You need to stay with me. Who’s going to tell me how much they hate me? I’ll get a big head about it without you humbling me.” I brush her wet hair from her face, noting the bruises already forming.
The rain washed some of the blood off, making it easier to see that it’s coming from a scrape on her chin and her split lip.
“Tell me what happened.” Doc takes a seat on his coffee table and reaches into his bag for a small pen light. He checks her pupils.
“I’m not sure. I was driving by the school and saw—” I don’t even want to repeat it. “She was being attacked. He was trying to drag her to the car.”
“You catch him?”
I shake my head. “He got away.”
“What’s going on?” Patricia Harding, Doc’s wife of thirty years, steps out wearing a long robe. “Oh, Reyna. Is she okay?”
“I think she’ll be fine,” Doc says. “Can you get Michael a towel? He’s dripping all over the rug. And can you grab one for Reyna too? I could use it to wipe some of this blood off.”
“Of course.” She rushes out of the room, and I run both hands over my face. Every muscle in my body is tense, my heart desperate for vengeance. I should have shot him where he stood. Put a bullet in his leg so he couldn’t run.
So I could?—
“Here you go, honey,” Patricia says as she hands me a green-and-white striped towel. Her interruption thankfully rips me from the darker thoughts trying to take root in my mind.
Vengeance belongs to God. I repeat it, over and over again, trying to ease my barely leashed temper—the side that’s urging me to get back into my truck and hunt her attacker down myself.
“Thank you.” I run the towel over my hair and body as best I can, and she uses the other to wipe some of the blood and rainwater from Reyna’s face.
My chest constricts, my stomach a gravelly pit of fear as I watch Doc look her over. Shouldn’t he be doing more? Shouldn’t we be getting her to the hospital?
Patricia steps away from Reyna and takes my towel with a tight smile. Someone knocks on the door.
I don’t tear my eyes away from Reyna. Is this really happening? Please tell me this isn’t happening. This can’t be happening.
“Hey,” someone touches my arm and I look down to see Eliza standing beside me. She wraps an arm around my waist, so I sling one around her shoulders, holding on to my friend if for no other reason than I need someone to ground me in reality. “She’s going to be okay,” Lance’s wife tells me.
I don’t even have the strength to respond.
“Okay,” Doc starts, “she probably has a concussion, though I won’t know for sure until she’s fully awake, and she could use some stitches on her chin.” He’s bandaged it up for now, and Reyna groans before opening her eyes.
“Reyna, can you hear me?” Doc asks.
She nods. “What is—” And then it must all come rushing back because she tries to shoot up off the couch. She groans, then presses a hand to her stomach as she lays back down. “My head. Why does my head hurt?”
“Easy,” he tells her. “Michael is going to help you to his truck and we’re going to take you to the hospital, okay?”
“I—no.” She looks at me, and the pain I caused her all those years ago slides over her expression, a protective mask she wears whenever I’m around. It guts me. “I need the police. I need to report what happened.”
Eliza smiles at her. “Sheriff Vick is aware. He’s over at the school now and can come by the hospital to get your statement.”
Reyna relaxes slightly.
“Let’s get you to the hospital, okay?” Doc asks again. “You need some tests run to make sure there’s no other damage.”
She takes a deep breath and nods. “I want to ride with you and Patricia,” Reyna says. “Please?”
Doc looks back at me, a sympathetic smile on his face. I nod, even as it’s a dagger twisting in my heart. “That’s fine, honey. Let’s get you up.” He tries to help her to her feet, but she falls.
Without waiting for an invitation, I step forward and lift her into my arms.
“I can walk,” she says, but leans against my shoulder anyway.
“I know you can,” I say. “But with me here, you don’t need to.”
“Anything?” I ask as Lance and Elijah cross through the waiting room to where Eliza and I have been sitting for the past few hours.
Doc had a full workup run on Reyna, but so far I haven’t gotten any news. Not that I will. I’m not technically family, and God knows she won’t talk to me. My only hope is her parents, who thankfully don’t seem to hate me. They may not like me much, but that’s a far cry from hate.
Elijah shakes his head. “We got her phone, but her purse is gone.”
“Mugging?” I ask. Though that seems highly unlikely. The man had been trying to take her, not just her purse.
“It’s possible. But based on what you said and what the cameras showed, we’re not convinced.” Lance wraps an arm around his wife’s shoulders as Eliza leans against him.
“Camera footage give you anything?”
“We have the whole attack recorded,” Elijah says. “But his face was covered, and he disappeared from view before getting into whatever vehicle he drove.”
I recall him trying to drag her to her car. “I believe he was on foot. He’d been planning on taking her in her car.”
“But why Reyna?” Elijah asks.
“Hey!” Andie, Elijah’s fiancée, comes rushing off the elevator with a tray full of coffees. She hands them out, starting with Elijah and ending with me. “From Lilly,” she says with a tight smile. “How’s our girl?” Since Andie grew up here, she’s known Reyna for quite some time. Though it wasn’t until they started their monthly women’s night out dinners with the church that they really started getting to know each other.
“I don’t?—”
I’m cut off when the doors open and Reyna’s father walks out. Henry looks beyond exhausted as he steps into the waiting room, baseball cap in hand. His greying hair is disheveled, and I know it’s likely because he’s been running his hands through it.
“How is she?” I ask.
“She’s okay. Concussion, some scrapes and bruises, but—” His bottom lip quivers. “It could have been so much worse. I—” His expression falls and his shoulders shake.
Eliza wraps her arms around him, and he hugs her back, holding on as he cries over the daughter he’d nearly lost tonight. “She’s okay,” she tells him.
“I know. Thank God, I know that.” After a few minutes, he straightens and crosses toward me. He holds out his hand, and I take it. "You saved my baby tonight, Anderson. You saved my little girl. And regardless of what’s happened in the past, you have my endless respect and gratitude.”
I don’t even get the chance to respond before the elevator doors open again. Reyna’s brother, a man who has made his dislike of me no secret, looks beyond stressed—and then he sees me and his expression turns murderous.
“What are you doing here?” he demands, charging toward me. He’s ready to knock my teeth in, has been since the day he tracked me down at an Army base in Georgia three months after I got out of basic training.
A buddy of mine had been the one who’d kept him from doing it then, and I’d been such a hothead that I would have fought back—and probably won. But now, I prepare for a fight, more than willing to take a few hits if that’s what will help him move on from his current view of me.
“Check your anger, Carter,” Henry tells him. “Michael is the only reason your little sister is alive.”
Carter stops in his tracks. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Michael saw her being attacked in the parking lot. He rescued her,” Lance tells him.
“You did?” His angry glare is pinned to me.
“I did.”
Carter nods, but his expression toward me doesn’t soften. “Is she okay?” he asks his father.
“She’s okay. Banged up. Scared. Sheriff Vick just left the room a few minutes ago. He’s talking to Doc now.” Henry turns to me. “Said he’s coming out to talk to you next.”
I cross my arms. “I’ll be here.”
“Can I see her?” Carter asks. “Is she awake?”
“Yes, of course. Come on.” Henry leads Carter out of the waiting area.
As soon as they’re through the doors, I take a seat in a chair and do my best to steady my breathing. I’ve loved Reyna Acker my entire life. From the moment I saw her in the fourth grade, I’d known she was someone special.
I hadn’t understood it then, but my life without Reyna just doesn’t make sense. While I don’t expect her to ever give me a second chance to be the man she loves, I would settle for being an acquaintance. Someone who gets to see her in passing.
But tonight, she’d nearly been ripped from this life.
From me.
God has a reason for everything, but why this? Why her?
“Are you okay?” Lance asks.
I nod. “Fine. I’m not the one in a hospital bed.”
“No, but you’ve taken some hits,” Elijah says, and I know he doesn’t mean physically.
The doors open yet again, and Sheriff Vick steps out, his expression angry. “Hey, boys,” he greets. Creeping up on sixty, he’s getting close to retirement, and lately things have been far more stressful here in Hope Springs than in the years before.
In the last three years, we’ve had a dangerous stalker, murder, kidnapping, vandalism…and now this. A violent attack at a school with an otherwise impeccable safety rating.
“Sheriff,” Elijah greets, shaking his hand.
Lance does the same, and then the sheriff turns to me. “How are you holding up?” he asks.
“Why does everyone keep asking me that? I’m not the one who was attacked tonight.” My throat is tight, emotions raw.
“You care about that girl,” he says. “And you’re the only reason she’s alive.”
I swallow hard. “I was in the right place at the right time.” I consider the fact that I had nearly stayed to play Halo with Matty but had the feeling I needed to get home before the storm hit.
If I had stayed, I wouldn’t have been anywhere near the school when Reyna was attacked. She would have been gone.
Thank you, God, for getting me there at the right time.
“Can you tell me what happened tonight?” the sheriff asks, reaching into his pocket.
“I was driving home from Margot’s. As I was passing by the school, some lightning flashed, and I saw her being attacked.”
“Build of the guy?”
“Tall. She was wearing heels, but he seemed to be quite a bit taller than she was. He was masked, though, so I didn’t see much.” But then I remember the tattoo. “He had a tattoo on his right arm. I didn’t see much of it, but it went down into his glove, and climbed up beneath the sleeve of his shirt.”
“That’s something.” The sheriff writes it down on his notepad. “Anything else?”
“He leaned in like he was whispering something to her, but I didn’t hear what it was and I couldn’t ask.”
The sheriff’s expression says it all.
“What did he say?” I demand, pushing to my feet.
“I’m only telling you this because I’m hoping you can help me find him.” He sighs.
“What did he say?”
His expression darkens, turning angry. “He said, ‘I’m coming back for you.’”