Safe (29 page)

“Help …”

They were so close to me. I got blinded by their flashlights every once and a while. I kept trying. “He … lp.”

“Oh my God! Over here!” This came from a male voice I didn’t recognize.

“Sadie! Sadie! Oh my God! What happened?” I heard my mom’s frantic voice, but I couldn’t move.

“Mom,” I whispered.

“Yeah, baby. Mama’s here. Jackson, call 9-1-1 now.”

“Mom,” I said again. I just needed to make sure she was there.

“I’m here, baby.” I felt her touch my hair.

Relief filled me, and then everything went black.

Nine fucking hours I’d been in this living room losing my ever-loving mind. No one had any answers. No one had called us. Nothing. So I paced. I sat. I paced again. I walked outside and paced. I sat. No one dared talk to me.

Renzo tried and I nearly bit his head off. I didn’t mean to, but damn it. After that, everyone steered clear of me. I just needed to know she made it home safe. That was it. Anything else, we’d work out when she got back. I just needed the call.

Lauryn calmed down, and she fell asleep on the couch. Renzo and Lukas were watching some shit on TV. Maggie had been cooking up a storm. I guessed trying to stay busy, and Jim had been sitting at the island with her.

Me. I was waiting.

Maggie’s phone began to chirp and all eyes swung to her. “It’s Sarah.”

“Sarah.”

“Oh my God.” Maggie placed her hand over her mouth, gasping.

“What!” I yelled. Maggie held up one finger for me to wait. I didn’t want to wait. I’d been doing that the past ten hours.

“Is she okay?”

“What do you think happened?”

“Call me as soon as you talk to the doctors.”

Doctors. I felt the blood rush out of my body. Doctors mean she was hurt. Sadie was hurt.
Fuck
. Maggie hung up the phone. Her skin now pale, she didn’t say anything.

“What happened?” I yelled, causing her to jump.

“Sadie was in a really bad car accident. Her car hit a tree. But the weird part is she was found quite a ways away, and her injuries aren’t adding up.”

“What are you talking about ... not adding up?” I asked, getting closer to her.

“Well, when they found her, both of her eyes were swollen almost shut. She wasn’t able to move her body at all. She had bruises on every single part of her.” Maggie stopped and looked at me and whispered, “Some looked like boot prints.”

“Boot prints? What the fuck?” I yelled.

“Oh my God,” I heard Lauryn gasp behind me. “Mom, did he find her?”

“Wait ...” My patience was wearing extremely thin.

Maggie began to talk, not letting me finish. “He … is the reason she had to leave. Sadie has had lots of ‘accidents’ in the past few years. We all chalked them up to accidents.”

“But they weren’t,” I said, stunned. Sadie was getting away from an asshole that was hitting her, and he found her. “Fuck!” I yelled.

The blood that left my body was now back in full force, and it was boiling hot. I wanted to find this fucker and kill him with my bare hands. “You mean to tell me that some fucker was beating on Sadie?” I asked Maggie.

“Landon, she never came out and said that was what was happening. Sarah overheard Rob telling Sadie he would kill the people she loved if she talked. There’s something else you should know.”

“What?” I barked.

“He’s a cop.”

“A fucking cop was beating her? And no one did anything about it?” I was beyond irate. How could they not help her away from this creep?

“Landon, she never told any of us.”

“Bullshit. You see that shit, you take care of it.”

I grabbed my keys and phone from the counter and walked to the door.

“Where are you going, bro?” I heard Renzo ask.

“I’m getting on a plane. I’ll be there with her. It seems no one else gives a shit some asshole is beating her up.”

“I’m coming with you,” I heard Maggie say.

“I am, too,” Renzo added.

“Fine. Lauryn can I use your computer?” I needed a flight, and I needed it now.

Getting a flight and then actually getting to Michigan took for-fucking-ever. Not to mention the pain in the ass of renting a car with GPS so we could find our way around this place.

Maggie called Sarah as soon as we touched down. The doctors said Sadie had a concussion, several broken ribs, a partially collapsed lung, a broken nose, and something going on with her back; not to even mention that she was purple from head to toe in bruises.

She was in such a state that they put her in a drug-induced coma. The doctors still didn’t know when they were going to try to pull her out.

Her injuries were still too bad to judge, and they needed her to heal more first. There was still no change. Sadie had machines breathing for her.

The thought of this crushed me. I knew it would be hard to see her like this, but I needed to get there. And now we were here, and part of me was scared shitless to go inside the hospital.

“Come on, Landon. Let’s go.” Renzo’s voice was commanding. He knew that I needed it to get my ass moving.

I began to follow them in. Maggie was in the lead. Sarah had told her exactly where to go—the ICU. I needed to get to her.

Passing the elevator, we turned down a long corridor, turning into a large room. A petite woman with auburn hair jumped up and ran into Maggie’s arms, immediately crying. Maggie wrapped her arms tightly around her. “It’s okay Sarah. I’m here,” she said in her ear.

“Where is she?” I said, breaking it up.

Sarah’s eyes met mine. “You must be Landon,” she croaked through her tears.

“Yes. I don’t mean to be rude. But where is she?” I didn’t want to be a prick, but damn it, I needed to see her.

Sarah stared at me as if I had grown seven heads, but finally spoke, “Go through those doors there. They’ll ask you who you are, who you’re here to see, then they’ll take you back.”

I took off without another word. Turning the handle to the door, I slipped through. The room was U-shaped with a nurse’s station in the middle of it. I walked slowly up to the woman in the purple scrubs sitting and looking at her computer.

“Can I help you?” she asked in a very quiet tone.

“I’m here to see Sadie McKenny.”

“And you are?” she asked.

“Landon Ellison.”

“Hello Landon. Sadie’s mom said you’d be coming. She’s in room five on the left hand side. You’re welcome to go there.” The lady pointed in the direction I was supposed to go and I went.

This place was scarily eerie. Everyone was super quiet and talked all in hushed voices. I knew it was the ICU, but there seemed to be no life here. That thought alone scared the shit out of me.

I walked past doors slowly, but I didn’t dare look inside them. One, two, three, four, I finally turned to face five. Blowing out a deep breath, I reached for the handle on the door.

Turning it slowly, I felt a wave of fear crash through me. The uncertainty of what was behind the door tore my insides apart. Letting out a huge breath, I pushed the door open.

The first thing that assaulted me was the smell of alcohol, the rubbing kind that Mom used. It was strong and attempted to knock me on my ass. Beeps and buzzing filled the air of the room. I assumed those were the breathing machines and such.

Looking over at the bed, I saw someone. They told me this was Sadie’s room, but whoever was in that bed looked nothing like her.

This person was purple and black on every part of her skin—head, neck, face, hands. Eyes were swollen shut and bulging. Her entire neck and face had swollen up, and even with the large white bandage wrapped around her head, it looked twice the size it should.

The large tube down her throat was what made all of that noise. It was also keeping her alive.

Hair—Sadie’s hair.

Oh. My. God. It really was her.

Part of me was hoping I was in the wrong room. But I wasn’t. My beautiful Sadie was lying there, barely alive. I rushed over to the seat next to her and carefully took her bruised hand in mine. “Sadie?” I whispered. “I’m here, baby.”

I leaned down to her hand and placed a small kiss on her unusually hot skin. I needed to ask someone about this. I laid my head down on the bed next to her hand, looking at her beautiful face. Her beautiful face that someone hurt.

I held her hand tightly, and I felt an enormous amount of sadness wash over me. How could anyone lay their hands on a woman? How could anyone lay their hands on Sadie? Why would someone do this to her? How long had this been going on? Why hadn’t anyone put a stop to it?

Tears began to fall down my face and crash onto the white sheet of the bed. My entire body ached for Sadie’s pain. I wished it was me in that bed instead.

She did not deserve this. Sadie was such a beautiful person; no one should ever hurt like this.

I closed my eyes and let all these overwhelming emotions crash into me. My tears turned into sobs, but I was very careful not to squeeze her hand too tightly.

“Landon?” I heard my brother’s voice whispered from behind me.

I didn’t move a muscle. “Yeah,” I choked out between my tears.

Renzo muttered, “Fuck.” I could hear his boots clicking on the tiled floor.

He placed a hand on my shoulder, not saying a word, and I continued to sob.

“Who did this?” I barked at the room in front of me as I burst through the door. The earlier sadness I felt was still there, but something more powerful hit me full force—anger.

The entire room jumped at my words and began to all look at each other frantically. “Who. Did. This?” I barked again. Why was no one fucking answering me.

Sadie’s mom, Sarah, stood up from her chair and walked over to me. I really didn’t want her close to me because I was liable to blow at any given second. The fact that she wasn’t saying anything as she walked toward me was pissing me off more.

“Landon, I’m Sarah, Sadie’s mom,” she said in a very calm voice.

“Hi. Who did this?” My words were curt. There was no room for extra pleasantries.

“I understand you’re mad, we all are. Have a seat and we can talk.”

Anger felt as if it would burst out of my body at any second. “Are you going to tell me who did this?” My eyes glared at her.

Maggie grabbed my arm, giving me a stern look. “Landon, stop.”

I looked down at the ground and closed my eyes. I really didn’t want to be a fucking ass to these people. Sadie loved them. Finally getting myself to calm, I said, “I’m sorry, Sarah.”

“It’s okay, sweetheart. I can see you really care about Sadie. Come sit. Let’s talk.” I don’t know what it was at this point, but it felt like a hell of a lot more than care. I nodded, not trusting myself to say anything quite yet.

I followed her over to the large row of purple chairs and sat next to her. Renzo sat across from me, along with Maggie and two people I didn’t know.

I bent my elbows on my knees and placed my hands on my head. I stared at the ground and waited for someone to talk.

Sarah started, “Landon, I don’t believe that Sadie talked to you.”

I cut her off. “Oh, she talked to me, just not about getting the shit beat out of her.”

Sarah closed her eyes at my words, but continued, “Sadie’s been doing a really good job at hiding all this from us.”