Eight

EIGHT

Huck

My plan didn't work.

Josie's words echoed inside my head as my body became frozen to the spot. Time felt like it had stopped. As I gripped my phone in my hand, the room was spinning around me.

Since Brix and Kane were handling the classes this morning, I'd been working on some target practice with Greyson, doing that after I brought him up to speed on what was happening with Josie. I'd worn ear protection the entire time we were shooting, so I didn't think I'd done any damage to my ears. But surely, I had to have misheard her.

"Josie?" I called.

The sound of my voice was enough for Greyson to stop and stare.

"Please, Huck. Help me." I could just barely make out the words she whispered to me, and the moment they registered, I moved.

"I'm coming, honey," I told her. "Hang on."

Greyson heard, watching me move, and didn't hesitate to holster his gun and follow behind me.

I raced through the building, the phone still at my ear, and out into the parking lot. My best friend hopped in my truck with me, and the second I pulled out of the lot, I said, "I'm already driving to you. Are you alone?"

"Yes," she whispered.

"Do you need to go to the hospital?"

She groaned through her pain. "Yeah."

I took my eyes off the road for barely a second to look at Greyson, and I saw he already had his phone out. "I'm on it," he assured me.

"I know exactly where you are, and I'm coming. I have an ambulance on the way. What's the number of the house, so I can relay that to them?"

"646."

"646 Jefferson Street," I told Greyson.

"Are you still there, Josie?"

She groaned again. It was a wonder I didn't rip the steering wheel off; I was gripping it so tightly. Hearing her struggling so badly, I couldn't get there fast enough. And there was no question I was racing through the streets of Steel Ridge to get to her.

"I'm going to be there in just a few more minutes. You're going to be okay," I told her, hoping it offered her some comfort and reassurance, even when I felt as though I was coming out of my skin.

"I think… the door… is open." Her breaths were shallow, her voice just a touch over a whisper.

"Don't you worry about that. I'll get in. I'm about to turn onto your street."

"I'm so tired," she murmured.

"No. No, you stay with me, Josie. You hear me? You stay with me," I demanded, feeling myself losing control.

I raced down the street, slammed on the brakes, and sprinted to the front door with Greyson on my heels.

Just as she'd suspected, the front door was closed but unlocked. And when I opened it, I was sick at what I saw. My body ground to a halt. The broken and overturned furniture was enough of a shock, but the blood on the floor and the walls had me feeling a mix of devastation and anger.

"Fuck," Greyson hissed behind me, taking the scene and communicating my exact sentiment.

"Josie," I called out, stepping farther into the house to find her. The living room was a disaster, but she wasn't there, so I continued forward into the kitchen.

That's where I found her. She was twisted at an awkward angle, mostly on her side, her face pressed down on the floor, the phone by her head with splatters and streaks of blood everywhere. Her clothes, a matching pair of cotton pajama shorts and a top, were torn, askew, and speckled with blood.

I was going to kill the guy who did this to her.

I swallowed down the anger threatening to spill out of me and moved to her. Gently, I placed my hand on her arm and said, "Josie, I'm here. Can you hear me?"

"Huck," she moaned in pain.

Without knowing the extent of her injuries, I didn't want to move or jostle her. I brushed her hair back from her face and saw a nasty gash on her cheek. Her eye was swollen shut, and blood had trailed down from where her bottom lip was split.

Seeing what he'd done to her, I believed there was a special place in hell for him. And if anything happened to her, I'd make it my life's mission to be the one who sent him there.

"I know you're in pain. Can you move?"

"I crawled here."

Thank God she could move.

"It hurts everywhere."

"I know. I know it does. We're going to get you all fixed up."

"I'm tired, Huck."

"You've got to stay awake, Josie. Keep talking to me." She started to move her limbs, another promising sign. "What do you need?"

Gingerly, wincing as she did it, she twisted her neck and allowed her shoulder to roll back toward me. I scooted myself back to give her room, but her body suddenly tensed.

My eyes went to her face, where I was relieved to see her other eye was not swollen shut. She was looking straight ahead, beyond me.

Glancing in that direction, her reaction made sense. "That's Greyson, Josie. He's my best friend, and we work together. He came here with me. You don't have to be afraid. I'm not going to let anything happen to you ever again."

"I should have listened to you," she whispered.

I brought my hand to the top of her head and gently stroked the hair back. "Don't worry about that right now. Tell me what hurts the most."

She moved her head from side to side. "I don't know. Everything." She paused, took a breath, and added, "My shoulder is messed up. My face hurts. Breathing is painful. And I'm so tired."

At that moment, I heard the sirens in the distance.

"I'll flag them down," Greyson declared.

The second he took off, Josie whispered, "Thank you for coming. I feel safe now. You've always made me feel safe."

It was a good thing Josie had her eyes closed, because I didn't think it would have been good for her to see the regret etched into every feature on my face. Fuck, I never should have left her. Not all those years ago, and certainly not yesterday.

"I'm going to make sure you stay that way from now on," I promised her.

Silence fell over the room, the approaching sirens the only sound.

"Huck?"

"Right here, honey."

"Will you hold my hand?"

I couldn't explain it, but those five words pierced something in the center of my chest. It was suddenly difficult for me to breathe. Without hesitating, I reached down and took Josie's hand in mine. "I've got you."

"Please don't let go," she begged.

"I'm not going anywhere."

Greyson ushered the paramedics inside, and as they worked to get Josie ready to go on the gurney, I had to swallow down the frustration and anger I felt. It killed me to hear her whimpers and groans of pain.

I could have protected her from this. I should have done something more.

The guilt ate away at me.

"She's complaining of pain in her shoulder," I advised them. "She also said her face hurts, it's difficult to breathe, and she feels tired."

"Okay. And what's her name?"

"Josie Day."

The medic turned his attention to her as he put a collar around her neck and asked, "What shoulder hurts?"

"The right one."

"Alright, Josie. We're going to roll you slightly onto your left side so we can get you on the stretcher and up onto the gurney without doing any additional damage," he informed her.

Her hand remained firmly in my grasp as they turned her slightly and slid the stretcher beneath her body.

I felt so lost. I was attempting to pay attention to everything the medics were saying while keeping my focus entirely on Josie. All I wanted to do was pick her up in my arms, take her home, and fix everything for her. Protect her and keep her safe.

The next thing I knew, we were moving from the kitchen and toward the front of the house where the gurney was waiting. As soon as the stretcher was secured, they wheeled her out of the house.

I never let go of her hand.

But once we made it to the ambulance, one of the paramedics said, "Sir, we need to get her loaded."

"Please," Josie begged. "Can he stay with me?"

He hesitated for a few seconds before offering a slight nod and jerking his head toward the open doors of the ambulance. I reached my hand into the pocket of my jeans, pulled out my keys, and tossed them to Greyson.

"I'll follow you," he said.

Ten minutes later, we pulled up outside Steel Ridge General Hospital. Josie had gotten quieter and quieter on the ride, the exhaustion taking over. I walked beside her, continuing to hold her hand, as she was wheeled toward the emergency room doors.

I only got so far before a nurse stood in front of me and said, "Sir, we're going to need you to let go of her now."

"I can't."

"If you want us to help her, you have to let her go," she said, her voice firm.

I glanced at Josie one last time. She was breathing, but she'd drifted off. I didn't want to let her go; I promised her I wouldn't, but I had no choice. I needed them to help her.

The nurse placed a hand on my arm, held her other one out to the opposite side, and said, "If you'd like to wait, please head this way with Katrina."

Another woman in scrubs walked up to me and said, "Follow me."

I moved, but I did it in a daze. Somewhere along the way, Greyson caught up to me. And then it was just the two of us in the waiting room.

I shook my head with disgust. "I'm going to kill him, Grey. What he did to her, I'm going to kill him."

"Then what?"

"He'll be dead."

He cocked a brow. "You told me her father abused her."

"He did."

"Now, her fiancé."

"Yeah? What's your point?"

Greyson shot me a look of incredulity. "If you kill him, and I'm not saying he doesn't deserve it, where does that leave her?"

"Safe from him."

"And you'll be in jail. So, if she moves on and finds someone else, who keeps her safe if that person decides to do the same thing to her?" he questioned me.

A frustrated sigh escaped, and I tore my gaze away from my best friend. I strode over to a chair, sat down, and interlaced my hands behind my neck as I rested my elbows on my thighs.

I couldn't stop replaying the sight inside that house. The blood, the furniture, Josie. Fuck, Josie.

Greyson walked over and sat down beside me. He clapped a hand on my back and said, "After what I saw in that house, Huck, I can't say I don't understand what you feel. I get why you feel the way you do, but you can't take this too far, not if you want to make sure you keep that promise to her to keep her safe."

I knew Greyson was telling me what I needed to hear. He was doing exactly what I would have been doing for him if the roles had been reversed, what I would have done or had already done for other guys we worked with.

But now I understood what it was like to be on this side of it. I understood the utter terror they all must have felt in those moments. And the craziest thing of all was that Josie and I weren't even dating.

If ever there was something that would solidify what a person meant to someone, the fear of death could do that. The only thing that gave me hope right now was knowing she'd been awake nearly the entire time I was there.

She'd been through something unbelievably traumatic, and she had the battle wounds to prove it. I just hoped there wasn't something worse happening inside, something I couldn't see that threatened to take her away from me before I could fix this and show her what it was like to be treated right.

"Huck?"

At the sound of the familiar female voice, my head snapped up and landed on the only person who could make this situation better. "Mom?"

"What are you doing here? Did something happen to one of the guys from work?"

I stood and shook my head. "It's Josie."

Confusion washed over her expression as her eyes searched my face. "Josie? Are you talking about Josie from high school?"

"Yeah."

"What happened to her? I didn't even know you were still in contact with her."

"I saw her for the first time since high school about a week ago," I explained. "She's a waitress at Betty's diner. Then I saw her again yesterday, learned she was an in abusive relationship, and begged her to get out. She was going to call me this morning after he left for work, but she called sooner than expected."

My mom's expression turned horrified. "Oh, God. How long ago was she brought in?"

"Just a little bit ago. Maybe twenty minutes. You need to find out what's going on with her. I need to know she's going to be okay."

Her eyes were still stunned, but she gave me a nod. "Okay. Okay, sit tight, and let me see what I can find out."

"Thanks, Mom."

"You're welcome." She slid her eyes to the side. "Hi, Grey."

"Hey, Mrs. D."

With pleasantries out of the way, my mom gave me one final look before she turned and walked away. I started to pace.

Then I sat down.

Then I was up and pacing again.

Time just continued to tick by, and I had no clue what was happening to Josie.

Knowing my mom, she probably jumped in to help care for Josie. I could only assume that no news was good news, but that didn't mean it was any easier to wait around.

Needing to do something to occupy my mind, I pulled out my phone and called the office.

"Harper Security Ops, this is Avalon."

"Avalon, it's Huck. Is Landen around?"

"Uh, I think so. Hang tight, and I'll transfer you," she returned.

I waited while Avalon transferred me. Greyson was watching me curiously. I looked away from him as Landen's voice came through the line. "Hello?"

"Landen, it's Huck."

"Hey, what's going on?"

I inhaled deeply and blew it out before I asked, "If I give you an address, can you look up the owner and find out everything you can about him?"

"Sure. That's easy enough."

Relief swept through me. Landen was one of the private investigators at Harper Security Ops. I knew if I wanted to find out about the guy who did this to Josie, I could have done it on my own. But I didn't trust I wouldn't overlook something, and since this was Landen's area of expertise, I figured it was best to leave it up to him.

"The address is 646 Jefferson Street. Here in Steel Ridge."

"Okay. Is there anything specific I should be looking for?" he questioned me.

"I don't know yet. But I want anything and everything you can find."

"You've got it. I'll give you a call back once I have some information for you."

More relief. "Thanks, man."

"No problem. Talk to you later."

Landen and I disconnected our call. I went back to alternating between pacing and sitting, doing it all while fretting over Josie.

I felt like I was going out of my mind with worry.

Hours passed.

Hours.

It was agony, even if I knew it was nothing compared to whatever Josie had been through this morning. I tried so hard not to think about it, to not allow the visions of her beaten and battered body on the floor to flash in my mind.

But my efforts were futile.

I couldn't stop thinking about seeing her like that. And when those memories flooded my vision, it required superhuman strength not to walk out of the hospital to seek revenge before I knew the truth about Josie's injuries.

How horrible was it that I was standing in a hospital waiting room wanting her injuries to not be that bad? She shouldn't have been hurt at all. Nobody should have ever laid a hand on her.

Beyond knowing that hours had passed, I didn't know exactly how long it was when my mom finally came into the waiting room again.

"How is she?" I asked before the door even closed behind her.

The expression on my mom's face was solemn. I braced myself for the news. "It's not good, Huck. She's been very badly hurt."

My stomach roiled. It was only by a miracle that I didn't vomit. "She's going to survive, though, right?"

"Yes, she's alive and will survive. She'll recover, too. But after I saw what I did in there, Huck, I don't know how she's ever going to trust anyone not to hurt her again. The physical injuries are going to take some time to heal, but the emotional and psychological wounds are another story. She's been through something so unbelievably traumatic."

My lungs burned as a lump formed in my throat. "Can I see her?"

My mom shook her head. "Not yet. She's going to be transferred to a room soon, and once she's settled, I'll let you know where she is. It's going to be a while yet. Plus, I suspect with all that she's been through and the medication she's got in her body right now, she's going to be out of it for the next few hours anyway."

I nodded my understanding. "Please let me know as soon as I can see her."

"I will," she promised.

With that, my mom turned and left the room.

I waited a few beats, replaying the conversation I had with my mom in my mind. Then I pinned my gaze on Greyson and asked, "Are you coming with me?"

His brows drew together. "Where are you going?"

My voice had dropped to lethal levels when I answered, "To get some justice for Josie."

Without waiting for a response, I turned and walked out of the room.

Unsurprisingly, my best friend was right behind me.