I leave the passenger side and check the back. There’s nothing in there, but a scatter of toys on the seat has me filling with fear. I run back to the front of the car, where I saw the blood and see it trails down past the car. I move my legs as hard as I can take them until I see another body lying beside a cluster of trees. That body isn’t of an adult, but a young child, maybe ten. I rush over, dropping to my knees and lifting the small child into my arms.

It’s a little girl. She’s still alive.

There are wounds all over her body, so many I can’t pinpoint which ones are causing the most bleeding. She’s breathing, but unconscious. Her body is a mess. Pain tears through my chest and fire burns in my heart as I look down at her, holding her in my arms, completely at a loss. Why wasn’t she wearing a seatbelt? I don’t understand. She’s just a child.

“You’re going to be okay,” I croak, even though she can’t hear me. “Help is coming.”

She’s still in my arms, and her breathing is becoming shallower. Tears burst forth and start rolling down my cheeks as I stare down at her face. She has black hair, beautiful, thick. Such a precious gift. She shouldn’t be here, lying, injured in the dirt. She’s just a child. What were her parents thinking? Why the hell didn’t she have a seatbelt on? Did she take it off?

“Why didn’t you have a seatbelt on?” I croak. “Why, sweetheart?”

I hold her close, trying not to move her, trying not to make anything worse.

“Help is coming. Hang on.”

The sound of blaring sirens cuts through the horror, and before I know it flashlights are shining in my direction. “Hello?” someone calls.

“Here,” I croak out, holding the girl close.

Footsteps sound out and then the area lights up as the officers arrive with re-enforcement. I can see the car now, and it’s more mangled than I first thought. I turn away, vomit rising in my throat. I just keep holding the girl, keeping her warm in my arms, willing her to just hang on.

“Sir,” an ambulance officer says. “Can you tell me what happened?”

I look up at him, and see he has four people with him. Two kneel down and start pulling the girl from my arms.

“I just . . .” My voice is so thick, so broken. “I was driving home and I heard their tires screeching. I looked over and they just launched off the road. There was no one else. I don’t know why the hell something like this happened.”

“So you didn’t see any other vehicles around?”

I shake my head.

“We need to assess this young girl. Can you tell me if you pulled her out of the car?”

“She was . . .” My voice hitches and pain stabs my heart over and over, like a thousand tiny needles. “Thrown. I found her here. She’s alive . . . breathing . . . I could feel her pulse in her wrist.”

The officer looks at his teammates, and one of them nods weakly.

“She’s gone.”

I shake my head rapidly as they pull her from my arms. “She was alive!” I yell, clenching my fists. “She was.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but she has passed. It’s nothing you did; the injuries she has sustained were far too severe.”

“She was alive!” I roar.

I killed her. I moved her when I probably shouldn’t have. I shouldn’t have touched her. I didn’t do CPR. I didn’t call the ambulance quickly enough. Dammit, why didn’t I call them as soon as I got out of the car? Why did I leave it a few minutes? They might have been able to save her.

“There’s nothing anyone could have done. Please believe that. Let me help you up; you’re in shock.”

Arms curl around mine and I’m pulled up and to the top of the bank.

I don’t remember what happens after that, because I black out.

I let her down. I could have saved her.

I as good as killed her.

“Right this way, madam.”

The sound of running feet makes me lift my head. I’m sitting in the waiting room of the hospital, ready to go home. The police told me that I did everything I could, that I couldn’t have saved those people, that little girl, but they’re wrong. I could have saved her. I shouldn’t have touched her. I should have bandaged her wounds. I should have gotten to her more quickly. It’s my fault she didn’t make it.

They told me the father was drunk. Drunk. Drunk. Drunk. With his little girl in the car. With his wife in the car. They used the words ‘difficult, damaged family.’ Because that makes it any better. Because that makes putting your child and wife in your car with you drunk so much fucking better. They said he was a problem of theirs, and had been for months. A bad seed, a dangerous man.

He still put his child in that car.

She didn’t have a seatbelt on.

“Max?”

I jerk and see Belle enter the room, her face pale, her eyes filling with tears. She rushes over, throwing her arms around my neck.

“Oh God, you’re okay. My beautiful Max.”

I’m not okay.

“What happened?” she whispers, pulling back and cupping my cheeks. “They told me you witnessed a car accident. Are you hurt, Max?”

I stare at her. Really stare. I look into her beautiful blue eyes and I can see the fear there. I can see how hard this is for her. I’ve never looked into her eyes and seen so much terror. If I tell her what I saw, it’ll make her chest feel the same way mine is feeling. It’ll crush her. God, what if she blames me too? What if she thinks I didn’t do everything I could?

What if she thinks I failed?

“I’m not hurt,” I say, my voice thick.

“I’m so sorry, Max. They didn’t tell me much, just that the people all died. Are you okay? Did you...did you see anything? Oh Max.”

Those eyes again. The ones that are wide and filled with tears, desperate for me to say it’s okay. She’s so scared for me. So broken for me. Her eyes are almost pleading for me to say it’s fine, that everything is fine. That I’m not broken or damaged from this, that our lives aren’t going to sink into fucking despair over this, that we’re going to be o-fucking-kay.

We’re not.

But she doesn’t need to know that.

I lock down, pushing the images of the little girl into the depths of my soul. I’ll find a way to deal. I’ll find a way that doesn’t damage the beautiful, blue eyes of my wife. A way that doesn’t cause them to drown, and be any less vibrant. A way that lets her sleep at night, the way she deserves . . . horror-free.

So I do the only thing I can.

I lie.

“Everything is fine, Blue Belle. It was just a shock. I didn’t see anything. I’m going to be fine.”

I’ll never be fine again.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

NOW – ANABELLE

“Hey,” a voice calls and a hand gently taps my cheek. “Wake up. Come on.”

My eyes flutter open and a sharp pain pounds through my head as I try to focus on the form leaning over me. It’s a man, a man with a patched face full of stitches and gauze to cover his wounds. It’s not Max, and as my vision gets clearer, I realize it’s Raide. The man Max was fighting. I go to sit up, fury washing through me, but he takes my shoulders gently and pushes them down.