We made a baby. And Cal wanted to kill it. I want to ask her what happened, but fear has latched on to my vocal cords and is holding my words hostage. My imagination runs wild. I don’t want to hear this. I can’t. Bile rises up the back of my throat as I force myself to listen.

“He . . . oh, God.” She covers her face with her hands and begins to sob. I stand up and immediately wrap my arms around her. I know this is going to kill me. Destroy me. I sit next to her and continue holding her, rocking back and forth. I want to delay this as long as possible. As soon as she says it out loud, it becomes real. There’ll be no hiding from it. And I don’t know if I’ll be able to control myself.

“Shhh, it’s going to be okay, sweetheart.” Soon, her sobbing subsides.

“I should’ve told you all of this a while ago, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.” She pulls back from my arms. “Cal drugged me and had a crooked doctor come over and perform the abortion at our home,” she rushes out while tears stream down face. “I didn’t even know until I woke up the next morning. Cal was sitting next to my bed and told me he took care of the issue since I wouldn’t. I didn’t have to ask to know what he was talking about. I could feel it.” Her words are thick with emotion and she barely gets it all out before she crumbles in a fit of hysterics.

I’m stunned.

Heartbroken.

I can’t even console her right now.

If I thought I had experienced heartache before—my past relationships, losing my brothers in combat—it has nothing on what I’m feeling now. I feel like someone has cracked my ribs in two, reached in, and yanked my heart out with their bare hands. The wind has been knocked out of me and breathing becomes a challenge. My body is slowly shutting down as what she says sinks in.

“Our baby?” I ask just above a whisper. The ache in my chest is so deep I find it hard to speak as a single tear runs down my face. “He k-killed our baby?”

She nods as her body succumbs to the pain and she continues to sob uncontrollably. “It was like losing you all over again,” she says through her tears.

I sit motionless for I don’t know how long, staring at the wall. I don’t blink. I don’t speak. I let the enormity of the situation settle over me and fester like an infection. “Is that why you tried to kill yourself?” I finally ask.

“Yes,” she hiccups.

I feel like I’m in utter despair. Never in my life have I been so helpless. There’s not a goddamn thing I can do to change this and it’s killing me. He took away something that I—that we—can never get back. My heart breaks for Elizabeth at the thought of her going through this on her own. Once again I failed to save her, but this time I also failed my unborn child. A child I’ll never get to meet, hold, feed, or rock. My stomach turns violently, threatening to expel its contents with that realization.

It hurts. It’s a pain like no other. My jaw grinds as depression and rage fight a battle within me, competing for control. I have to swallow down the bile that rises in my throat as images of an innocent, green-eyed beauty flash through my head. I can’t do this. I can’t think about what we’ve lost and not do something about it. I get up and grab my car keys.

“Where are you going?” she asks alarmed. I don’t answer her and storm out the door. Jail is too nice of a place for Cal.

That motherfucker dies today.

ELIZABETH

HE LEFT ME.

I need him right now and he abandoned me.

I curl up into the fetal position on the bed while the sadness I feel on a daily basis overwhelms me. I get that it’s a lot to take in, and I’m sure that was the last thing he was expecting to hear. Now, I wish I didn’t tell him. I should’ve kept it to myself and hoped that time would finally heal me. Because I’m not whole. I haven’t been for quite some time. I thought I was on my way to putting myself back together when I met Alex, but I was shattered beyond repair when he was taken from me. But when Cal robbed me of the one thing tying me to Alex, I felt like someone threw all the pieces away.

I became vacant and withdrawn. I couldn’t get over what had happened to me and I didn’t know how to handle the pain. There was no one there for me to talk to. No one to comfort me and tell me I’d be okay. No one there to grieve with me. Looking around at the empty room, I realize I still don’t have those things.

My soul chips away a little as I relive that horrible day. If I thought hearing Alex die over the phone was awful, it’s nothing compared to how I felt when I woke up that morning after the abortion. Cal was sitting next to my bed waiting for me to wake up. He looked so smug, so proud of himself when I looked at him. It’s like he was happy to have done something so atrocious. He’s a sick and twisted man who takes joy in my pain and misery. But it wasn’t just the look on his face that gave it away. I felt it too. A darkness crawled up my body and blanketed me that day, holding me prisoner. I knew then there was no way out of the black, bottomless hole I was falling through. At that point, I lost all will to live—to survive.

I’m terrified just thinking of what Alex could be doing right now. I’ll never forgive myself if he does something that’ll take him away from me forever. My soul—my heart—needs him. He makes me feel less broken. He’s the glue holding me together right now, and I’m afraid of what will happen to me if he’s gone. Going back to Cal isn’t an option, but how will I keep outrunning him? He’ll find me. I know it.

God, please let Alex come back to me soon.

ALEX

MY FOOT PUSHES the accelerator to the floor as I speed down the road. I’m on a mission to hand out some justice, and God himself couldn’t stop me at this point. My hands grip the steering wheel so hard that my knuckles turn white, and I’m almost afraid I’ll snap it in half. Every ragged breath I take makes my nostrils flare out like a fucking dragon. And, that’s what I am right now. A horrible monster that’s been unleashed with so much fury that I’m going to burn the whole goddamn world down.

My phone vibrates in my pocket and I know exactly who it is since he’s the only one with this number. Perfect fucking timing. I have no choice but to answer it to keep him from sending the whole damn team in after me. I’ve got a plan for Mr. Fitzgerald, and I need time to carry it out before I’m ready for them to carry his mutilated, lifeless body away.

“Yeah,” I answer curtly.

“Where the hell are you going?” There’s an edge of irritation in his words, but his question damn near stops me dead in my tracks as realization hits.

“You’re having me tracked?” I don’t try to hide the disgust in my tone. He doesn’t trust me and feels the need to babysit me? Well, fuck him.

“Hell yeah I am. It was for your safety, but now I’m thinking—”

“Did you know?” I cut him off, not giving a shit why he did it.

“What?”

“Did you know about the baby?” I scream into the phone as loud as I can, making my throat raw. All of the emotions I couldn’t show in front of Elizabeth are coming to the surface and pouring out of me.

“Calm down, what the hell are you talking about?”

I swerve to the side of the road and slam on the breaks before throwing it into park. My vision starts to blur as new tears fill my eyes. “She was pregnant and that bastard took it from her—from us. Tell me, did you know?” I ask through clenched teeth.

“I knew he slapped her around once, but Tyler never said anything about him hitting her so hard she miscarried.” I hear the remorse over the phone, but he’s got it all wrong. What Cal did was much, much worse.

“She didn’t miscarry.” I rub my eyes with the heel of my hand to wipe away the tears. “He drugged her and had a doctor come in and abort it.” My head falls back against the headrest and my eyes shut as exhaustion hits. The tears I had been holding back leak out of the corners of my eyes and down my face.