“Evie!”
Yes. He knows my name. And I’d recognize that voice anywhere. Could it be? I blink against the blood that’s oozing into my eyes, making it difficult to see clearly—much less make sense of what’s going on around me.
“Evie! Oh, God, please tell me she’s alright. Evie?” Polished brown leather loafers crunch over ice and glass shards as they approach my busted window. I’d recognize those shoes anywhere, too, along with their obscenely immaculate shine.
It really is Brandon. How?
An ambulance siren blares in the distance.
“Evie,” Brandon breathes, crouching down next to my smashed door, his indigo eyes instantly making me feel safe. He inhales sharply when he sees the state I’m in. “Thank God you’re alright.”
“Relative.”
He lets out a humorless laugh. “Don’t move.”
“Won’t.Can’t.”
Alarm registers on his face. “You can’t move?” He glances up. “Can you feel your toes? Wiggle them?”
I wiggle my toes, but he can’t see them in my boots, so I nod. “I can feel them.”
“Good. That’s good.”
“Obviously.”
“I’ve called an ambulance. It’s on its way.”
“Yeah, I still have my sense of hearing,” I deadpan.
Bemused, he shakes his head. “And your dry sense of humor.” He smooths a strand of wet, dark hair out of my face. When he pulls his hand away, his fingers are coated in blood.
My blood.
Blood and other bodily fluids have never bothered me. They can’t in my line of work. But there’s something about knowing that’smyblood coating his fingertips that makes my stomach twist.
Oh, no.Before I can blink, I’m vomiting. Projectile vomiting, to be more specific. My Thanksgiving dinner splatters all over the hood of the car, coating the curtain of my hair hanging limply around me.
Brandon doesn’t even flinch as my puke coats his shoes like gloss. It smells putrid. Acidic. It triggers another wave of vomiting. I cry and sputter, spitting the residual chunks of sickness from my mouth and trying not to wretch.
“Shh, shh, shh,” Brandon soothes, enunciating each shush like a syllable. “Try not to move if you can help it.”
The wailing sirens come to a peak, and then I hear doors slamming and calm voices approaching us.
“Hang tight,” he says, kissing my knuckles before leaving me hanging. Literally.
I hadn’t even noticed he was holding my hand.
I snort. “Was that a joke?”
Chapter 5
Brandon
TherhythmicbeepingofEvie’s heart rate monitor fills the sterile silence as her chest gently rises and falls. She fell asleep so quickly. Almost as soon as she closed her eyes, her breathing evened out, and the permanent scowl fixed to her face whenever I’m around disappeared.
She needed this rest.
Sighing, my gaze follows the delicate curve of her cheek, tracing the wound on her temple that will inevitably scar, before it falls to her full lips. She looks so young and soft like this. When she’s awake, she looks every bit the stubborn, twenty-something Spitfire she really is. But right now . . . this sleeping beauty’s guard is down, and I’m getting a rare glimpse of the girl I miss.
