Chapter One

Isaac

Take that, wind it back. Lil Jon got the beat to make your booty go clap!

The song replayed in my head over and over again like a damn broken record. My eyes were fixated on the perfect apple-shaped bottom bouncing in front of me. It was obvious she worked out, that she worked out a lot. Damn!

I kept pace with her, only a few feet behind, but I was beginning to show signs of distress that I hoped she wouldn’t turn around to see. One year after retiring from the Navy, this private detective SEAL was tired as hell. I didn’t realize how soft I’d gotten; to look at me, I was in great shape. Fuck.

Time to get serious again, Isaac. Women like this don’t like soft men; they like em’ hard, strong, and ready to serve.

And I wanted her.

Damn, I’d like to serve her any way she wanted.

Thank God, a light. I stopped, resting my hands on my knees, bent over like an old man, not the twenty-seven-year-old ex-Navy SEAL that I was. My chest lifted and fell hard a few times until I caught my breath. I looked up, still hoping she hadn’t turned to watch my disgrace. My eyes lifted to her round ass, bouncing as her legs began to run across the street, giving me the strength to go on.

Suck it up, Isaac; you used to run forty miles in a day. You seriously gonna let this city girl show you up?

A growl rolled out of my throat, pushing past my lips with a tickling vibration. My right foot came off the curb, landing on the street where all the cars seemed content to wait for such a beautiful ass bounce by.

A couple large strides and I was behind her, almost beside her, and then the sound, the awful sound of screeching tires filled the air.

My heart beat hard in my chest, not only from being overworked the last four miles, but from the fear of knowing the thud that followed the screech would be her as I looked up.

Long, beautiful, strawberry-blonde hair spread across the ground, and the beautiful figure that had been my inspiration to get back in shape was lifeless just a few feet from a black Nissan.

A man jumped from the car, a few pedestrians rushed towards her, but I just stood there, frozen, and in disbelief for seconds that felt like an eternity. My feet finally broke free from their spot, and I ran towards her, hoping to see her smile, to say, ‘How silly of me,' or something, anything.

“Someone call for help!” the tall, gray-haired driver from the Nissan screamed.

I knelt down, touching her silky hair, begging her to please get up, to say something, to smile. Nothing.

Someone from the crowd must’ve listened to the man, because red lights filled the street, causing cars to move to the side, creating a path for the ambulance.

This wasn’t happening; this couldn’t be happening.

I stood from her side, glaring at the driver of the Nissan. My blood boiled, and all the training I received rushed through my mind. I knew twenty ways to kill him with my bare hands, and as I contemplated which way would bring him the most suffering, his eyes welled with tears. “I’m so sorry,” he pleaded. “Is this your wife?”

My wife? A police car pulled up from the north block, beating the ambulance driver by a few seconds. My heart pounded hard again, this time with pure panic. My eyes scanned the scene, stopping on a little black wallet and part of a pink phone. I moved away from the man I knew I couldn’t kill with so many witnesses, and quickly scooped up the items, sliding them into my shorts pocket.

The ambulance stopped, unloading two EMT’s who rushed to her side. I watched, hopeful, but scared, as they worked to bring her lifeless body back to life.

“Is she dead?” the gray-haired man sobbed as some stranger put her arm around him, consoling him. Consoling him? What about me?

“Can you tell me what happened?” a strong male voice caused me to turn. It was an officer, young, maybe twenty-two, still with pimples on his freckled cheeks. “Sir, can you tell me what caused the accident?”

“She-we, were running. The traffic was stopped, he ran the red light and slammed into her,” I pointed angrily at the sobbing man.

“You were running together?” the officer inquired.

I nodded, finally feeling the overwhelming pain of possibly losing her hit my gut. She wasn’t moving. If she was dead, it was all my fault. Why didn’t I stop her?

My body took over, lunging me towards the gray-haired man, ready to kill him, witnesses or not. “You fuckin’ dumbass,” I snarled as my fingers clenched around his scrawny neck. I could feel his veins bulging from his loose flesh as I squeezed a little tighter.

Zing! “Fuck!” I growled at the incredible tingle rolling through my spine. Someone fucking tazed me.

Everything went black, and then bright colors danced from the inside of my eyelids. This wasn’t my first time being tazed, so I knew not to fight it, to just fall. Someone caught me, saving my head from bashing into the ground; for that, I was thankful. Whoever it was, wasn’t strong enough to hold me. Their grip loosened, and my body slowly slid to the asphalt.

Commotion was all around me: chatter, sirens, honking horns from commuters with no empathy for the woman lying lifeless in the street. Fuck. They have dinner to get to, shuffleboard tournaments, affairs. Assholes!

“I got a pulse,” I heard a voice not far from me say.

I opened my eyes. Damn, they still burnt like hell. No change. She was still lifeless, but alive.

The nerves in my body began to slowly unravel, allowing me to regain some control. The officer that questioned me earlier extended a hand, helping me to my feet. As I stood, a fucking tazer rested in his holster where his gun would be if he were a real fucking man. Seriously? This little douche-bag tazed me?

“They have her stable. If you want to ride along, I’ll meet you at the hospital,” the officer offered with a weakly apologetic tone.

“Yes,” I blurted, eager to be by her side.

“I’ll get all her information then,” he nudged me towards the EMTs, who were already loading the beautiful, lifeless body into the ambulance.

One of the EMTs stayed in the back of the ambulance, while the other took his position at the driver’s seat. The sirens sounded loudly, and without hesitation, we were off, full blast towards the hospital.

“Your girlfriend?” the EMT asked as he started an IV in her hand.

My eyes glared at the diamond ring on her finger, “Fiancée.”

His eyes saddened, as if to apologize for her condition. She is going to make it. She is going to be fine, right?

“I’m so sorry,” I sobbed, gripping her hand in mine.

They were tiny, and cold, but so beautiful. “What’s her name?”  The EMT asked.

“Maddie,” I blurted before I was able to come up with anything else. I didn’t want them to know her name. I didn’t want anyone to know her name.

The ambulance pulled into the hospital, stopping at a wide set of white doors. Doctor’s rushed to the entrance, holding the doors open wide as the EMT unloaded Maddie from the truck. Her long hair hung over the bed, her eyes remained shut with such relaxation she looked as if she were simply taking a nap. If not for the blood, the dirt, and the scrapes, I could imagine her resting, not struggling to stay alive.

“Female, twenties, jogger hit by a car, vitals are weak, but present, Maddie is her name,” the EMT spouted as he handed her off to the doctors at the door. “This is her fiancé,” he added, looking at me with question.

“Isaac,” I gave him my name, and then he patted my back, smiled, and moved towards the passenger side of the truck.

I followed behind the stretcher that carried her, praying that she’d be okay. “You’ll need to wait here,” a tall,t blonde, female doctor instructed. Her finger pointed to a small waiting room next to a nurses’ station and soda machine. I didn’t want to wait there. I wanted to be by her side.

The female doctor and two others wheeled her away as I stood frozen on the white tiled floor of the emergency room. Nurses quickly followed, pushing carts into a small room, where if I stretched, I could still see inside. “She’s in good hands,” an older woman wearing purple scrubs assured me. Her chunky hand gripped my forearm, pulling me towards the waiting area as the curtain closed.

I sat down in one of the blue leather chairs as instructed by the older nurse. The leather was obviously fake, squeaking as I pushed back into the seat to find comfort. My neck stretched outward, trying to see or hear what was going on in the small room, but not quite far enough.

Nurses and doctors rushed in and out of the curtain Maddie was hidden behind, none with faces that offered reassurance. “Sir,” one of the doctors, a stubby man with no hair and thick eyeglasses, said as he walked towards me. I quickly stood, fearful of the news he planned to deliver.

“You’re the fiancé?” he asked. I nodded. Brace yourself, Isaac. “Are there any family members we can contact?” he questioned.

My chest tightened, and my knees began to buckle beneath me. “No,” I sighed.

“No parents, children?” he questioned.

No, fuckin’ no; just tell me!

“She has swelling on the brain. We’d like to take her to surgery right away, but would need consent if at all possible,” he explained.

Relief fell over me like rain on a hot summer’s day. “Yes. Will that fix her?” I asked.

“There is no guarantee it will. But, if we don’t perform the surgery soon, she will not survive,” he instructed.

I nodded, unable to speak. He pushed a clipboard towards me with a form attached. “Sign here,” he pointed to the authorization. I scribbled my name and then watched as his stubby finger pointed towards the top line on the page. “We just need you to put her full name and birthdate at the top.”

My hand shook as I gripped the pen, slowly lifting it to the space at the top of the page. I ignored the fact that her ID said she was Maddie Stewart, born on December thirtieth, nineteen ninety-two, and wrote down Maddie Grubbs, born November eleventh, nineteen ninety-three. I didn’t want anyone looking for her, or worse, finding her. Especially the one guy that didn’t deserve her. I would keep her safe and make sure she had everything she needed until she woke up.

The scribblings satisfied the doctor enough for him to nod, and then turn back towards the small room. I followed behind him, determined to see her once more. “Sir, you can’t come in here,” the female doctor ordered as soon as she noticed me enter the curtain.

“I want to see her before surgery,” I insisted, not stopping until I reached the side of her bed.

Her body looked so frail, so tiny under the white hospital sheets. They’d stripped her out of her clothes, which they’d bundled up beside her on a small chair covered with plastic.

“It’s a good thing you were with her. She didn’t have any ID on her,” one of the nurses informed me.

I leaned in, brushing Maddie’s strawberry-blonde hair from her forehead and letting my finger graze across the small scar just between her eyebrows. It was a characteristic that most would’ve missed, but not me.

“I love you, Maddie,” I whispered in her ear, and kissed the scar.

“We have to go,” the blonde doctor demanded, pushing the bed away from me as I stood there, tearing up, scared, hopeful, and unsure if I was doing the right thing.