Page 96 of What I Should Have Known

“She’s headed to the hospital right now, but I need you to do something so important for me.” I carefully set his butt down on the seat behind Levi but kept him pressed into my body.

“What’s that?” he asked with a crack in his muffled words.

“You’re going to go with Levi and Emma to get your parents and Sawyer. Tell them that Kat is headed to the hospital because she’s been shot. Can you do that for me? For her?” I cupped his cheeks and gingerly peeled him away from my body but directed his face a mere couple inches from mine to cloud any possibility of seeing more of the gore around us.

His bottom lip trembled as he slowly nodded up and down. “You protected Kat,” he muttered.

I offered him a tight-lipped smile but said nothing.

“So, you’re a hero,” he continued as the tense lines on his face loosened. “You and Ford are superheroes.” A grin stretched on his lips as he straightened his back, keeping his eyes locked intensely on mine.

I was no superhero. Hell, I was no hero at all, but the comfort it offered the young boy kept my mouth shut as my heart pattered heavily in my chest. To be a hero one day…

He placed a hand against his little brother’s back and slowly swung a leg around to the other side of him.

“I’ll see you at the hospital, but I’ve got to go be a hero too,” he finished and wrapped his arms around Levi. “Just like Kat’s boyfriend.” He rammed his eyes closed tightly as mine flew wide.

Emma gunned the four-wheeler before I had a chance to say anything and flew off in a frenzy of mud and rain. The moment those two innocent souls left the valley of violence Ford and I had created, adrenaline ripped through me again.

I spun around to find Ford waiting on the other ATV.

Sprinting to the empty, wet seat, I threw myself behind him, and we ripped out of the meadow.

And it hit me.

As we raced toward the woman who had consumed all of me, I realized just how selfish I’d been this entire time. Only concerned about my feelings, and how guilty I felt over Duncan’s death. I’d never once asked my best friend how he was doing. Other than the damn group text the entire team was in, I’d never vocally expressed any condolences or comfort to the man who now drove us through the muddy field with no regard for his own life, his own feelings, all because of me.

“Hey, asshat,” I shouted above the roar of the wind and leaned closer to Ford.

“What?” he loudly asked over his shoulder.

“How are you doing? I’ve been so wrapped up in my own guilt, blaming myself, I haven’t asked you. Duncan…” I stopped yelling, unsure how to actually ask him.

His shoulders tensed as we raced around another bend. My grip on the cold metal handlebars tightened, yet he remained quiet. Nothing but the rain washing away what little blood and muck that remained as evidence against our skin danced around us.

“Like you,” he finally muttered.

I twisted my hand around the rod, holding me steady as Ford pushed the ATV as fast as it could go.

“I blame myself every fucking day for it. Just like you.” He was barely audible over the roar of the storm and rush of the wind.

I blew out and closed my eyes. “Thank you for coming home, man. I don’t think I’d have made it without you.”

His chest rumbled with a chuckle. “You need me as much as you need sex and Kat.”

I smacked his shoulder. “You need me as much as I need you, admit it.”

His head bobbed with a nod as we burst onto pavement and shot down the road, barreling straight toward Main Street and the hospital. “Yeah, I do.”

“So, when are you going to stop running?”

“I showed up here, didn’t I?” He raised a hand and flashed me the bird.

“You know that’s not what I meant.” I bopped him against the back of his head.

“I can’t hear you!” Ford shouted, louder than necessary.

“I said, fuck you!”

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