Page 116 of The Forbidden
“Jarrod. Anais…” Lana trails off hysterically, crying. “Oh god. She said she got a weird vibe from him, but we played it down.”
“That’s the last fucking time you’ll do that,” Evan fumes, before hovering his face close to mine. “Open your eyes, baby,” he whispers, brushing his lips all over my face. “Please just open your eyes. I can’t lose you. Not when I just got you back.”
I want to. I really do. But everything’s slipping. My eyes feel heavy, and my body feels numb, as if I’m floating.
The last thing I hear before everything goes black is Evan’s voice, rasping three little words.
“I love you.”
Chapter 49
Evan
There are no words strong enough to describe the fear, the panic, the absolute dread of watching the person you love most in the world bleed out in front of you.
Anais was covered in blood…
I’m covered in her blood.
Not that I give a fuck.
All I care about right now is that my little brat is going to be okay.
But because I’m not family, the doctors won’t tell me much. Doesn’t matter how much I throw my name or weight around, no one will tell me a damn thing. I’m met with silence. No updates. No answers. Fucking nothing.
“Oh my god, Evan?” a familiar panicked female voice cries, cutting through my dark thoughts.
Glancing over my shoulder, I see Anais’s parents and Harrison rushing toward me. They look wrecked, their faces drawn and filled with worry.
“What’s going on? How is she?” Mr. Lauder demands.
I swallow down the thick lump in my throat. “All they’ve told me is that she’s in surgery.”
Without a word, Mr. Lauder pushes past me to the front desk. “Where is my daughter?” he snaps. And I know he’d never usually be so hostile toward the receptionist, but his panic is taking over his senses.
“What the hell happened?” Harrison asks, eyeing my blood-soaked clothes warily.
“Please tell me she’s going to be, okay? I can’t lose my baby,” Mrs. Lauder sobs, clutching onto her son.
“She’ll be okay,” I assure her. Because she will. She has to be. I turn my attention to my best friend and answer his question. “It was some guy she goes to school with. From what I’ve gathered, he’s obsessed with her. Lana,” I look over my shoulder to the waiting area where Lana sits in shock, staring at nothing. “Lana,” I call, snapping her out of her daze. Her head whips up, and she wipes at the tears leaking down her cheeks. She stands, her arms crossed over her stomach as if she’s trying to keep herself from falling apart. I can relate. I feel the same. “Tell them what you know.”
Lana relays everything she knows to Anais’s family. She barely gets through it before Mr. Lauder returns, his jaw clenched and his voice clipped. “She’s stable.” My nerves settle a little with those two words. “She’s out of surgery and in recovery,” he continues. “They had to remove a twelve-inch butcher knife from her damn thigh.” He chokes out the words, shaking his head. Mrs. Lauder cries harder. My chest tightens, as pain radiates through me. A fucking twelve-inch butcher knife, meant for me. She fucking put herself in harm’s way to protect me. He clears his throat, pulling me from my turmoil and composing himself as much as he can. “They had to repair the femoral artery.” He sighs, running a hand across his mouth. I think this is the first time in my life I’ve seen Mr. Lauder look scared. “The doctor believes she’ll make a full recovery.”
In that moment, all the adrenaline leaves my body. I collapse to my knees for the second time today, but this time it’s from relief. My hands lock behind my head, my eyes squeezed shut, as a wave of emotion washes over me.
Anais will make a full recovery.
She is going to be okay.
I’m not a man who cries, but in this moment, it is taking everything in me not to break down and sob like a damn baby.
“You good, man?” My eyes pop open, to find Harrison frowning down at me.
“Yeah,” I breathe out.
“Well, if you’re ready to get off that dirty floor, they said we can see her.” His lips twitch with sardonic amusement.
Glaring, I climb to my feet, ready to go see my woman, when I pause at the sound of my father’s voice. “Son, how is she?”
