Page 188 of Finding Hope

I’ve spent weeks obsessing over her, wondering what she’s doing, who she’s talking to, if she’s sad or glad or even hungry.

I thought for sure we could talk it out and make things better, but now she’s with someone else.

I never once considered she’d be with someone else.

I shouldn’t be surprised.

She’s beautiful and smart and funny. Luc knows what she is. Hell, he’s already had a taste.Of coursehe knows how amazing she is!

I thought… Ihopedshe might feel something for me. Even half of what I feel for her would be enough.

WhatIfeel doesn’t even entertain the idea of someone else. There is no one else. There’s only her; in my dreams, while I’m awake, in my home, between my sheets that still sometimes smell of her. I love her so fucking much it hurts, but not nearly as much as the knowledge she’s moved on.

Done, tapping out, I turn to leave, to maybe go and sit in my car and cry the way I haven’t done in a really long time, but the sound of running children has me slowing. Stragglers that missed the initial wave of sprinting children, I move aside to allow their escape, but stop when I realize they’re not justanychildren.

They’re mine.

I’ll save Tina and Iz the trouble of picking them up. Stepping toward Laine on a sigh, I pass the rag-tag bunch of flowers, some that still have dirt clumped at the bottom, and nod. “You can have these. Or chuck them in the bin. Whatever. If Luc ever fucks up, if Britt’s ever single, give me a call, yeah? I’ll always be here to–”

Skidding along the hall, Evie’s piercing cry has my eyes wheeling around and the adrenaline firing through my blood. “Jack! Go! Go get Miss T!”

“Smalls–”

“Go get Miss T. He’s hurting her!” She pushes at my back. “Go get her, Uncle Jack.”

My eyes snap up to the otherwise empty hall, then the sound of her cries echo and bounce off the walls.

I sprint toward the sound. “Call the cops! Laine! Call the cops.”

I run past door after door.

I don’t fucking know which room is hers, and there are so many, I have to check them all for fear of racing right past her. As her cries grow louder, my heart beats wilder and tears away from the wall of my chest.

Another classroom, empty, then another, empty, then another… I freeze for just the smallest second and watch him straddle her and whale on her face.

Snapping out of my disbelief with a roar, I run the twenty feet between us and tackle him with so much force, we fly at least ten feet away from Bambie’s lifeless body.

I straddle him just like he did her and send my fists raining down on his manic face. My broken arm goes unfelt, my cast shatters with each strike.

His nose explodes, and blood and gunk fly like shrapnel in an active battlefield. But I don’t stop. His eye socket crumbles inward and his teeth move and bite into my knuckles.

But I won’t stop.

His jaw shatters with a satisfying crunch, and his head slumps to the side and lies limp.

And still, I don’t stop.

My fist – like the fight name I’ve adopted – jackhammers, slamming into his face over and over and over again until, flying through the air a second time, someone tackles me the way I tackled Brad.

Like a wild animal caught in a trap, I thrash and fight for my freedom. Desperate to finish what I started, desperate to avenge Britt, I throw my fists at my captor’s face, and when I make contact and snap his head around, he lets out an almighty roar and works to pin me.

I won’t be pinned. I won’t be stopped.

The whoosh of my thrumming blood deafens me, but the panicked cries of a woman – a woman I barely know – brings me back to focus.

Snapping my gaze toward the cries, my heart stops at the sight of Laine kneeling over Brittany, as she runs her hands over Britt’s hair, her face, her shoulder and chest.

Looking back to my still grappling captor – Alex – I push him off as easily as if he weighed nothing more than a dog. “Get the fuck off me!”

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