Page 34 of Unexpected

Sadie let out another low whine from just outside of their bathroom door. She pawed at the closed door and stuck her nose into the small crack at the bottom. I could hear the exhaust fan whirring behind the door and light seeped around the doorframe.

“Hazel?” I said at the same time I rapped my knuckles softly on the door. The house was silent, and I didn’t hear anything behind the door. Unless she hadn’t been in the house this entire time or was outside, she had to be in the bathroom.

I took one breath, trying to steady my shaking hand and my hammering heart before I opened the door. I was terrified of what state I’d find her in.

I tried to turn the knob, but it was locked. I tried once more, but the knob stuck.

No. No, this couldn’t be happening again.

“Hazel, can you hear me? Can you open the door?”

Nothing.

“Angel, I know you’re in there. Michael’s gone; can you please open the door?”

Nothing but the sound of the whirring fan came from inside the bathroom. I pulled out my phone and dialed her number. The vibrating came from the bed, and I found her phone abandoned underneath the bloody comforter.

Fuck.I was going to have to kick the door down because picking the lock was going to take too damn long. I wasn’t going to wait any longer.

I prayed that she wasn’t near the door. It had been years, approximately fifteen years since I’d kicked down a door. The similarities of the two situations were too much for my mind to handle. If I let myself go there, I wasn’t going to make it through getting her help.

I shook off the memories and cleared the chaos they created in my head. I took one step back, lined up, and remembered where I needed to hit. I stepped and kicked my leg out just as the door swung open.

SIXTEEN

Luke

On the other side,Hazel stood on shaking legs, blood covering her face and her hands. Behind the blood staining her skin, I could tell she was weak and pale. The blue beneath her eyes was almost black. Her eyes were heavy, but they were opened wide as she swayed.

“He’s gone?” she asked softly. Pain: that’s what was in her eyes and appeared in the unshed tears.

“Angel,” I gasped as I walked to her and said, “Yes, he’s gone.” Her relief was immediate as her legs gave out and a strangled sob escaped her lips. I caught her before she hit the ground, hoping she didn’t have any major injuries as I scooped her up into my arms. In a fireman’s carry, I whistled for Sadie to follow, walked out of her fucking hell of a house, across the yard and into my own.

She wasn’t wearing very many clothes, but she didn’t even shiver against the cold early morning air. She was tiny and limp in my arms. I jostled her to make sure she stayed awake when I got to my front door. In the kitchen, I pushed away the dirty dishes, and as they fell into the sink, I set Hazel on the counter.

“Hazel, can you tell me what hurts?”

She moaned when I ran my thumbs over her cheeks, careful not to pull at her skin. Her eyes were only half open, but she was conscious. “Can you sit up on your own?”

She gave a weak nod that I took as a maybe. With one hand, I held her to keep her upright and with the other, I grabbed the closest clean dish towel, ran it under lukewarm water and began to clean the blood from her neck and lower half of her face. Quickly I realized most of the blood had come from her nose, but the active bleeding had stopped.

She winced when I cleaned around her nose, but I kept my touch light around the sensitive area. The blood stained her porcelain skin, but she looked less like Carrie after I was done. The entire time she sat still and only sucked in a breath when I got too close to her nose.

As I cleaned her, I whispered assurances.

“You’re safe.”

“He’s gone.”

“I’ve got you.”

“No one will ever hurt you again.”

I tossed the dish towel, now covered in blood and likely stained beyond repair, in the sink. I ran my hands down her arms and when I gripped her hands in mine, I realized they also needed to be washed. The fingers were painted in her blood. More memories surged forward of my younger, less worn hands covered in blood. I grabbed the towel and turned on the water to wet it again.

“I can do it,” she said. I didn’t argue when she slowly squirted the soap in her hands and meticulously scrubbed every inch of her hands—under her nails, her palms, between her fingers, her cuticles—and her wrists. She rinsed the pink soap and let her wet hands fall back into her lap. She was wearing only a big T-shirt with small boy shorts underneath. In my rush to get her out of the house, I hadn’t noticed how little she was wearing.

I pulled another dish towel from the drawer to our right and dried her hands.

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