Page 67 of White Hole

I took off in a sprint, but he was fast and caught me before I could get away. He snatched an arm, and I tried to pull away, but he gathered me up again, wrapping his hand around my neck and squeezing. Dropping to my knees, I let my body flail while attempting to pull his fingers off my carotids. It didn’t work. The light of the track was fading, darkness was replacing it.

Not again.

* * *

The first thing I was aware of was something tight wrapped around my torso and waist, preventing me from moving. Thrashing as much as I could, I knew I needed to escape. Strong arms grasped my shoulders.

“Shh, Sins. It’s okay. I got you.”

My eyes fluttered open, then shut. Then open again. A fuzzy George appeared with long blond locks falling in his face. He was staring intensely at me as if seeing me for the first time.

“You’re okay, princess.”

We were moving; the bumps of a road underneath us made my head hurt. Two paramedics were working an IV and checking my blood pressure next to me.

“Don’t move,” one of the uniformed women commanded.

I was strapped to a board and could barely turn my head.

“Wha-what happened?” I asked George. My voice was hoarse.

George brushed some hair off my forehead and my vision cleared more. His forehead furrowed and his jaw set.

“You were attacked. I was too late to stop it. You changed your evening running spot, and when I went looking for you, I couldn’t find you. Took me too long to figure out where you’d gone.” George’s large thumb stroked my cheek, then my hand lying on my belly. “I’m so sorry, princess. It’s my fault. I should have been there.”

“Why should you have been there?”

George glanced at the two workers and closed his mouth. He turned his head to look out the back windows until we arrived at the hospital. After running me through the CT scan for my head and an X-ray for broken bones, I was allowed to remove the collar around my neck and board on my back once the radiologist read the results. Stuck on a gurney in a curtained off section of the emergency room, George never left my side for a moment, except when he couldn’t come with me for imaging.

His large paw held my hand, while his head anxiously scanned the busy department. Continually making circles on my skin with his fingers and thumb, he looked lost, like my hand was the only thing grounding him.

“George.”

“Huh?” His distant look faded, and his crystal blue eyes focused on me.

“George, what did you mean you should have been there?”

“Do you need anything? Water? Can you have that? Is that okay? Should I get a nurse?”

“No, they should come over soon. Sit.” Snapping my fingers, I pointed to a small plastic chair next to the cart I laid on. He sat, but his body was so big, it was like a kid’s stool he squatted on. Dragging it next to the gurney with one hand, his other held mine the entire time. At this height, his face was right next to mine, and I caught his manly steel scent, which was a welcome reprieve from the bleach and burning smell surrounding the hospital atmosphere.

“Kinsley, I’ve been watching you, well, guarding you.”

“Why?”

His eyes darted left. “Someone slashed your tires. I thought… I figured you were in danger without me around.”

“What are you not telling me? And why are you here? Shouldn’t you be with that woman?”

His large shoulders heaved as he took a deep breath. “I know what it looked like, but it wasn’t what it seemed.” I wasn’t sure I even wanted to listen to him. “That woman was my stepmother. From when I was in high school. She was…” The Adam’s apple in his throat bobbed slowly as he swallowed, a look of sheer pain came over his face. He wasn’t going to finish his sentence.

Stepmother… My mind raced, trying to put everything together.

“She hurt you.”

His blond head of hair slowly nodded as his eyes shone with wetness.

“Did she beat you?”

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