Page 74 of Never Give Up

“She’s alive?”

Her nod releases something dark and damaged inside me. I slip forward, my chair rolling backward as I fall out of it and onto the ground.

“Birch County to BPD, be advised, we’re routing non-emergency calls to you, and emergency calls to the next county.” Poppy’s voice echoes into the mic and she drops to her knees with me, wrapping me in her arms.

“Shh.” Her warmth embraces me. “It’s going to be okay. They got him. They got him.”

Her words don’t sink in. Not immediately.

“They got him, Maya.”

Holy fuck.

“They got him,” I repeat. “Poppy.” I cry her name. “They got him.”

I can’t breathe through the relief. The shuddering, choking relief of knowing that they got him.

They got the man who hurt me.

And they saved a little girl from being hurt.

“The neighbor,” I gasp, crying even harder. “Did they get the neighbor?”

Poppy nods, looking at me with tears in her eyes. “Alive.”

“I’m safe, Poppy. They got him.”

Deep, bone-racking sobs come out, and I don’t know how long we’re like that on the floor. Long enough that our relief comes in, and I’m taken off duty. Long enough that Brian and Jake come into dispatch, and their shift is over.

“Maya.” Brian takes me from Poppy’s embrace, and I can’t even open my eyes anymore. The tears, the crying, the emotional wreck that I’ve become, is just too much.

“Take me home, Brian.” My voice is hoarse, and the words come out as nothing more than a pathetic attempt at a whisper.

“I got you.”

And he does. He carries me to his truck and the next thing I know, we’re pulling into his driveway. I can’t even protest because I didn’t want to go home. Not really. I wanted to come with him, and I’m glad he did it.

“Here.” I open my eyes to see him standing in front of me with one of his shirts in his hand. "Let’s get you changed into something else so you can rest.”

I let him get me undressed because I physically can’t. I’m so exhausted that I can barely move, let alone do anything to help get comfortable.

All I want to do is curl up in a ball and sleep.

So I do.

Sometime later, or maybe immediately, he joins me. Wrapping his arms around my body, he presses a soft kiss to my neck.

“It’s over, Maya.”

“I love you, Brian.”

Did I say that? Or dream it?

It doesn’t matter. It’s the truth.

Now that it’s over, Brian can move on… and I’ll go right back to my life. My lonely, miserable dumpster fire of a life.

He thinks I’m crying because it’s over.

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