35. Sadie
Thirty-Five
Sadie
“Fight me, it makes it more fun,” the man whispers in my ear, as he licks the side of my face, his hand moving between my legs, and I can't move to stop him.
My body is shutting down on me, I can feel everything around me fading away. Maybe if I go to a happy place, this might not be as horrible as it is.
Miles, Miles is my happy place. He makes me smile, he makes me feel things I’ve never felt before, he makes me feel safe and loved. Miles, my mind goes to Miles.
The weight on top of me vanishes.
Shouting fills the room, they’re sharp, urgent voices overlapping in Romanian and English. Footsteps pound the corridor. The woman is yelling something about leaving. A door slams. More voices. Then the air changes.
I can’t move. My arms are still locked above my head. My chest is exposed to the cold. Everything feels distant and too close at the same time. My throat is raw from screaming. Tears keep coming even though I can’t make a sound anymore.
Fabric drops over me, it’s warm, large, and smells of clean laundry and cold air. I realize it’s someone’s jacket. It covers my chest and stomach. Hands work quickly at the restraints on my wrists, and the metal releases. My arms fall, heavy and useless.
I sit up too fast. The room tilts. A man is crouched in front of me. It’s Hayden.
I reach for him without thinking. My fingers twist into the front of his shirt.
I pull myself forward until my face is pressed against his shoulder.
The sobs come hard and silent, then broken and loud.
My whole body shakes against him. He keeps one arm steady around my back and doesn’t try to stop me.
I don’t see anything else. I don’t hear the other men moving through the room or the low voices exchanging information. There’re only the solid wall of his chest and the sounds of me crying.
“Take your hoodie off.”
Hayden’s voice, is quiet but clear.
I open my eyes. Mason is already pulling his sweatshirt over his head. Hayden lifts the jacket just enough for me to slip my arms into the soft, oversized sleeves. The fabric swallows me. Mason’s sweatshirt follows, still warm from his body. Hayden tugs the front closed.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
I shake my head once. The tears start again, harder this time and I can’t stop them.
Mason moves in, his arms slide under my knees and around my back.
He lifts me like I weigh nothing. I turn my face into his shoulder and keep crying as he carries me out of the room, down the cold corridor, and toward the exit.
Every step jostles the ache in my shoulders and the raw skin on my wrists, but I don’t lift my head.
I just hold on to Mason as he walks out of the building and out into cold night air. The sudden change in temperature makes me shiver hard against him.
Somewhere nearby engines are running. Voices move around us, low and controlled. I keep my face buried in his shoulder until he stops and carefully sets me down on the open back of a vehicle.
My legs don’t want to hold me. I grip the edge of the seat.
“Wh… whe… Miles?” The words scrape out of my throat, raw and barely audible.
Mason’s face changes. Something tightens around his eyes and mouth, too quick to hide. My stomach drops.
“No.” The sound that leaves me is broken. Fresh tears spill over before I can stop them.
Mason steps in close and wraps both arms around me, pulling me against his chest. One hand cups the back of my head, steady and firm, like he’s trying to keep me from falling apart completely.
“He’s still here,” he says against my hair, voice low.
My fingers twist into the front of his shirt. I shake my head against him, and the sobs come harder, silent and shaking, because I already know what he’s not telling me.
***
The car stops with Declan slamming the brake hard.
Blue lights flash across the front of the house, an ambulance is already parked at an angle on the drive, with its back doors open, one paramedic is standing beside it with a kit in his hands. Another is talking rapidly into a radio.
Mason is out of the vehicle before it fully stops. Hayden helps me out, as my legs are still too weak to stand up alone. My legs almost give up, but he steadies me with a hand under my elbow. I take two steps toward the house and then freeze.
Cain comes out of the front door up on the gurney, he’s straddling Miles, giving him CPR, both hands are locked together, and he’s driving down into his chest in hard compressions. Miles’s head is turned to the side. His skin looks wrong, he’s too pale, and almost grey.
My body goes completely still.
I can’t hear the paramedics anymore. I can’t hear Hayden beside me. There’s only the harsh, rhythmic sound of Cain counting under his breath and the way Miles’s body moves under each push, lifeless, wrong.
“Come on,” Cain is saying, voice rough and urgent. “Come on, Miles. Breathe.”
I can’t move.
Hayden’s hand tightens on my arm. Someone is speaking to me, but the words don’t reach my ears. All I can see is Miles’s face.
Then the paramedics push past us. One of them drops beside Cain with a defibrillator. Cain doesn’t look up. He keeps going until they’re ready, then sits back on his heels, his chest heaving, and his eyes locked on Miles’s face like he can will him back.
They put wires on Miles, then an oxygen mask. Mason stays right beside the stretcher as they carry him to the ambulance. His hand never leaves the metal rail.
I’m guided back into the car. I don’t remember walking. The whole way to the hospital the only sound I can hear is the memory of those compressions.
***
As we get to the hospital, they try to take me somewhere to be checked out.
I shake my head and stay where I can still see the corridor they wheeled Miles down.
Eventually someone stops arguing and lets me sit in the corner of a small waiting area just outside the trauma bay.
I pull Mason’s hoodie tighter around myself and draw my knees up, making my body as small as possible.
I want to be invisible, I want to just cry from my pain and Miles.
People move in and out of the room Miles is in. Mason paces. Hayden stands with his arms crossed, his jaw locked. Declan arrives at some point with the rest of the family. No one has any answers yet.
I keep my eyes on the floor. Every time the trauma doors open my heart stops, then starts again too fast when there’s isn’t any news.
Cain comes out eventually. His shirt still has Miles's blood on it. He speaks quietly to Mason first, then his eyes find me in the corner.
He walks over and sits down beside me without asking. For a moment neither of us speaks.
“I think we should get you checked out,” he says eventually, voice low. “Lileah brought some clothes for you.”
I shake my head. The movement is small, tears come before I can stop them, spilling down my face and dripping onto the sleeve of the hoodie.
“I don’t know what Miles told you about me…” My voice breaks completely. Cain is quiet for a second.
“Everything,” he whispers.
The single word lands harder than anything else tonight. I cover my face with both hands and sob, the sound muffled and raw, because if Miles told him everything then he knows exactly what I am to him… and he still might not wake up.
“You should let the doctor look at you,” he says quietly. “Not just for evidence, but for you. You’re hurt, you’re cold and you’ve been through more than anyone should. Letting them check you over doesn’t take anything away from Miles. It might actually help you stay strong when he wakes up.”
I stare at the floor. My hands are still shaking inside the sleeves of Mason’s hoodie.
“You don’t have to do it alone,” Cain adds. “Lileah brought clothes. She can stay in the room with you if you want. Whatever makes it easier.”
He starts to rise. Before he can fully stand, my hand shoots out and catches his wrist. He looks down at my fingers, then back at my face. After a second, he sits again.
I wipe at my cheeks with the heel of my free hand, but the tears keep coming.
“Will you stay with me?” I whisper.
Cain is quiet for a moment, then he nods once.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
Miles told me once that Cain would protect anyone he considered family. Sitting here with his wrist still loosely in my grip, I finally understand what that means.
***
They give us a private room, and I have a feeling Cain made them give us one.
Cain stands with his back to the examination table, his arms folded, and he’s staring at the far wall so he can’t see anything, Lileah is just outside the door. The doctor is a woman, she’s calm and efficient. She explains every step before she does it in a low, even voice.
She checks the bruises on my face and the raw skin around my wrists.
She takes photographs. When she reaches for the small kits to collect evidence, she tells me exactly what she’s doing, scraping under my nails, taking swabs, drawing blood.
The motions are clinical and impersonal.
I keep my eyes on the back of Cain’s shoulders the entire time.
“Does it hurt?” Cain asks without turning around. His voice is quieter than usual.
“A little,” I admit.
While the doctor works, I find myself talking, mostly to fill the silence.
“Miles told me about The Pit,” I say. “Not everything. Just that it exists. That you… were there.”
“I don't like talking about it,” he says. “But it might be the best thing that ever happened to me. The system lets too many people walk free. I get to make sure some of them don’t.” He pauses.
“My family is the most important thing in my life. I would die for them without thinking twice. You’re part of that family now.
And I promise you, we will find the man and the woman who did this. If it’s the last thing I do.”
My throat tightens.
“Will they go to the Pit?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“There… there was a girl with me…” I try to remember her name, but everything is still all over the place in my head. “Do you know if she’s okay?”
Cain is quiet for a moment, and I wait there scared he’s going to say something I don’t want to hear.
“She is, she’s the one we were looking for. She means something to someone close to me. A man I would do anything for. She’s safe, I’ll let her know you asked about her.”
His phone rings, and he stops it, it rings again, and again he stops it. “You can answer the phone, maybe listening to your conversation will help me not think about what is happening to me right now.”
“Hello…how is she?” There’s silence and I see the tense in his back relax slightly.
“Lincoln, that’s good… Thank him yourself when he wakes up…
They’re still working on him. Tell Renee that Sadie asked about her.
” He lets out a small laugh; well I think it was a laugh.
“I’ll let her know she asked about Sadie. ”
“Ouch,” I snap at the doctor.
“What happened?” Cain demands.
“Sorry, this might be a little painful,” she says, and I look over at Cain who still has his back to me.
“Hurt her and I will make sure…”
“It’s okay,” I say quickly, and he nods.
“How many do we have? No leave them for a moment, Mason is back on the job now, he can work on it… Call me once you’re back.” He ends the call, and the doctor tells me to get dressed.
Once dressed I walk over to Cain and give him a small smile. “You might look scary, but you have a soft heart for the ones you love.”
He smiles, and it's a genuine one. “Don’t say that too loudly, I still need people to fear me. Have a shower and feel a little back to normal.” He watches me for a moment and then looks over at the door.
‘I’ll get Lileah to bring in the clothes, and just so you know your brother's debt, and the clinic stay is all cleared. Miles took care of it, welcome to the Crawford family.” He leans in slowly and gives me a soft kiss on the cheek.
***
The water is hot enough to sting, I stand under it for a long time, watching the dirt and dried blood swirl down the drain. My shoulders ache, my wrists burn, but the heat slowly works its way into my bones and makes it easier to breathe.
I close my eyes and think about Miles, holding on to the memory of him breathing against my neck, alive, solid, and mine.
He has to wake up. I don’t know how to exist in a world where he doesn’t.
I get out of the shower, dry off, and pull on the clothes Lileah left for me.
Soft black leggings, and an oversized sweater that smells faintly of clean laundry.
I stand in front of the small mirror for a second longer than I need to, staring at the bruise darkening across my cheek and the raw marks on my wrists.
Then I take a slow breath, open the door, and step back out into the corridor.
The air is colder out here, I keep one hand on the wall as I walk, not fully trusting my legs yet mostly because I can still feel they’re weak.
Mason is the first person I see. He’s leaning against the opposite wall, his head tipped back, and his eyes are closed. The moment he hears my footsteps he straightens. Relief flashes across his face so quickly it almost looks like pain.
“Hey,” he says, his voice rough. He quickly moves to me and helps me walk. I must look worse than I feel. “How are you feeling? Mom brought some food.”
“Like death, I don’t think I can eat anything.”
Before he can fight me and say I need to eat, the trauma bay doors open at the end of the hall. Cain steps out and looks directly at me, then at Mason, and gives a small nod.
My heart stutters.
“He’s stable,” Cain says when he reaches us. “They got the bleeding under control. He’s not awake yet, but he’s not crashing anymore.”
The words should feel like relief. Instead, they land somewhere between hope and terror. Stable is not the same as safe, stable is not the same as going to open his eyes and look at me.
I nod once because my voice doesn’t seem to work.
Cain studies my face for a second. “You did good,” he says quietly.
I swallow hard and look past him toward the doors they wheeled Miles through.
“Can I see him?”
Cain hesitates. “Soon,” he says. “They’re still working. The second they clear it, you’re first in. I promise.”
I nod again. The corridor feels too long and too quiet. Somewhere behind the double doors, machines are beeping, and keeping the only person I want to see alive.
I lean my shoulder against the wall beside Mason and close my eyes for a moment, listening to the distant sounds of the hospital, and waiting for the moment they finally let me in.