Page 34 of Dark Side of the Cloth

“The ambulance is on route, and so are the police. What is your name?”

“My name is Yasmine Jacobs.”

The rest of the conversation was a blur. Yasmine couldn’t recall what she said after that. She was too focused on Mabel. Yasmine laced her fingers with Mable’s and refused to let her go when the paramedics arrived. Dean spoke to them. At least, she assumed he was. His lips were moving, but she couldn’t hear him.

“Yazzy, they need to take her to the hospital,” Dean said. His eyes lined up with hers.

“I don’t want to leave her. I don’t want her to be alone,” she whimpered.

“She won’t be. These paramedics are going to take good care of her, and we are going to follow right behind the ambulance. Come on, let them do their job.”

He wrapped his arm around her shoulders, and reluctantly she released Mabel’s hand. Tears streamed down her face as she watched them put her on a board and insert a line into her hand. The two men lifted Mabel onto a stretcher, and they headed out the door when Sheriff Daniels walked in.

“Yasmine, Dean, what happened?”

“The intruder and I fought, he ended up taking off out the back door, but I promised Yasmine we’d follow the ambulance. Can we talk later?”

“Here, come with me,” Sheriff Daniels said, leading them to his Sheriff’s car.

Yasmine didn’t care who took her to the hospital. They could fly for all she cared as she watched the ambulance pull away with its lights and sirens blaring. She rubbed over the sharp ache in her chest. The last time she watched an ambulance pull away like that was to take her mother to the hospital.

“Daddy!” Yasmine could hear his feet pounding down the stairs above her. She screamed for him again, the weight of her mother was too much, but she wasn’t going to give up. Her arms and legs shook with the effort to save her—this was all her fault. If Raquel had lived and she’d been taken, this wouldn’t be happening. She failed her family again.

Tears ran down her cheeks, the salty taste potent in her mouth.

“Oh dear god!” Her daddy stormed the rest of the way down the stairs, tripping on his housecoat and landing flat on his stomach.

“Daddy, help me.”

He scrambled to his feet and ran for the large cabinet that held all his tools for work. He pulled on the handle and cursed as it didn’t budge. He began throwing everything off the large work area until he found the key and ran back to the cabinet. Yasmine watched him out of the corner of her eye as he punched the cabinet.

“Come on, you stupid thing!”

The door finally gave way and pulled open. Her father produced a blade and ran for the end of the rope attached to the pulley he used to lift the bodies.

“Hurry, Daddy, I can’t hold her anymore.”

His arm moved back and forth over the rope, a strange growl-like sound coming from his mouth that scared her as much as her mother hanging over her head.

The rope suddenly gave way, and her mother fell toward the ground taking Yasmine with her. They landed hard in a heap, partially trapped under her mother’s weight. She was so exhausted, but she pulled herself out as her dad flipped her mother over, so she was face up.

Yasmine stared into the bulging eyes, her mother’s face a weird shade of blue, and knew it was too late. Her lower lip trembled as her father began pressing on her mother’s chest and blowing in her mouth.

“Yazzy, go call for help. Now!”

Yasmine was jerked out of the memory as they reached the front of the hospital, and the car came to a screeching halt.

Dean grabbed her hand and helped her out of the car.

Why was this happening again? Why did everyone she love, leave?

It had been hours, and Mabel was still in surgery. She held her head in her hands and stared at the dried brownish blood on her shoes. Her eyes burned, her throat was raw, and she couldn’t stop the shaking. Dean had given her his coat, but she continued to shake. The images of Mabel laying helpless on the floor, her mother hanging by her neck, and Raquel reaching for her and screaming her name kept repeating on a loop in her head.

“Hey there, take this.” Dean sat down beside her and pulled her into his side. He was holding a coffee, and she took it but didn’t take a sip. “She’s going to be okay.”

“You don’t know that. Everyone I love dies. I think I’m cursed.”

Dean squeezed her shoulder and laid his chin on her head. Any other time she would’ve been excited to have him this close. To share a sweet moment with the two of them holding onto one another, but not now, not here, and not like this.