No.
“You’ll wish you were never fucki—”
A loud bang echoes through the room, and suddenly my head is released and York’s body slumps over mine. Something warm travels over my back, and I know even before I hear the voice that it’s blood.
“Baylee?”
Jack.
Oh. God.
“Get him off her, fuckin’ now.”
Maddox.
Oh. God.
“Someone get an ambulance, there’s a baby in here!”
Krypt.
The body is lifted off me, and tears burst forth, rolling down my cheeks in waves. I sob so hard it hurts. Big arms curl around my body, lifting me off the ground and pulling me close.
“I’ve got you. It’s okay, I’m here. I’m here, baby. You’re safe. You’re okay.”
I clutch Jack, crying so hard I can no longer make any noise, my body just shakes.
“I’ve got you. No one will ever hurt you again. I’m so sorry.”
I nuzzle in closer, pressing my face as hard into him as I can, thanking God they made it in time. I don’t open my eyes, even when the ambulance arrives and I’m loaded in the back with the baby. I just keep my head down and my eyes squeezed shut. I don’t feel relief, I just feel ... Well, nothing right now. It’s all just too much, and my body can’t take it anymore.
So, I hang onto Jack, and I just let it all come out.
But there’s one thing I do know for certain, and I can finally feel it deep, deep into my soul.
I’m free.
CHAPTER 29
NOW – BAYLEE
“Rae?” I croak.
Jack enters the hospital room, and before he’s even had the chance to speak, I have demanded to know an answer. He’s been trying to find out what happened to Rae. I asked the second I was checked over and given the all clear. Nobody seemed to know a good deal, so Jack went out and tried to find out more for me.
“Hey.”
Jack’s voice is soft.
Too soft.
I meet his eyes, and I can see it even before he opens his mouth again.
“No,” I croak, pressing a hand to my chest. “No. Jack.”
Jack moves closer, cupping my face gently in his hands. “I’m so sorry. I’m so incredibly sorry. She was dropped off, but she bled out. There was nothing they could do.”
My body starts shaking. “She was just a girl, she had her whole life ahead of her.”
“I’m sorry.”
Jack pulls me into his arms and holds onto me as I cry for the girl lost. She might have been a lot of things, and a giant pain in the ass, but she was just a troubled young girl who never had a good chance to make anything of herself. She didn’t deserve this. She deserved to live a full life. At the very least to be free.
Maybe she is free now.
I’d like to hope she is.
“What’s going to happen to her baby?” I sob, looking up at Jack.
“He’s doing well in the nursery. He’s a little small, but healthy. The doctors don’t think the drugs bothered him, considering she only started using them in the last few weeks of her pregnancy. So it’s looking positive. I have asked Molly to find out more. She’s doing that.”
I nod, taking a shaky breath in. “She didn’t deserve to go out like that, Jack. She never even got to hold him.”
“I know, baby. Life is a fucking ugly thing sometimes.”
“W-w-w-was it my fault? Should I have done more?”
“Hey,” Jack demands, cupping my face in his hands. “Look at me.”
I look up at him, holding his eyes. “Don’t ever let me hear you say that again. You did everything you knew how for that girl. Right up until the end, you fought for her. You know it, deep down, that you did everything you could.”
“It wasn’t something I did when I delivered the baby?”
“No. I spoke to the doctor myself. He assured me even if she had delivered the baby here, she would have had the same complication.”
“But she might have lived,” I whisper.
“We can’t change that, honey. It fuckin’ sucks, but we can’t change it. You did the best you could.”
My heart starts racing. “Am I going to get into trouble?”
“Fuck no. Of course not.”
“Jack?” I croak.
“Yeah?”
“Hold onto me, okay?”
“Okay, baby.”
He wraps his arms around me, and he holds onto me. So tightly I can barely breathe.
Exactly how I need it.
~*~*~*~
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Shania asks, adjusting my pillow yet again.
“Shan, I swear, I’ll scream if you don’t stop doing that,” I mutter to her.
“Don’t you start on me, woman. You had a hard time a few days ago, I’m just making sure you’re okay.”
I smile gratefully. “I’m okay.”
She narrows her eyes at me, just as Molly walks into the room followed by Matilda.
“I agree with her,” Molly says. “You had a hard time, stop arguing and let us help you.”
“I’m not even injured,” I point out to the three girls now staring down at me.
“Woman,” Matilda wiggles her finger in my direction. “Don’t start your arguing.”
I roll my eyes.
I don’t know what I’d do without them, even if I do fuss. They’ve been here every single day, helping me out, making sure I’m fed and getting enough rest. I don’t know where I’d be without them. If they’re not here, Jack is, by my side a hundred percent. I also don’t know what I’d do without him.
“Have you heard anything more about the baby?” I ask Molly.
“Yeah, as far as I know, he’ll go into the adoption system or the foster system. There is no more direct family.”
That poor baby.
My heart breaks for him.
“I wish I could do more,” I say, feeling my heart sink.
I may never be able to have children, and the idea of an innocent baby having to go into the system, waiting for someone to love him, makes me want to cry. My scars ache at the very thought of it.
I’d do anything for a baby of my own someday. Anything.
“Yeah,” Molly agrees. “It’s so sad.”