AK was carrying me out of the van, but I would not let go of Sapphira’s hand. I could not. She needed me. “I am her mother,” I said as we entered the clubhouse. But my hand fell from hers when AK pulled it away. “I am her mother,” I repeated numbly.
“She needs to go, Red. Rider needs to get the fucking bullet from her stomach.”
Cain and some of the men took her into a room. I let AK lead me to the room to wait at the doorway. But as I watched her hand fall to the side of the bed, her life draining from her veins, as I watched her face grow paler, and as I watched Cain try . . . try but fail to save my girl, I knew it was too late.
She was gone. I felt it within me. She had gone. My daughter . . . she had died. I did not save her. When the time came, I had failed . . . I tried, but like everything else, I could not save her . . . when it mattered most . . .
. . . I failed.
I was going to lose her when I had just gotten her back. When she had just called me “Mother”. When we had our chance at a better life.
My feet backed away. And away again.
“AK, I need your help,” Cain said from beside Sapphira.
AK brushed past me. But I kept backing away. I saw AK taking a bag and pushing a needle into her arm. The potion. They were giving her potion. She was never coming back. They needed the potion to take the pain away, because her pain would never go.
She was never coming back to me. To be in my arms. To be in my heart.
I came to a door, and needing to be alone, needing to be away from the blood and the pain and the evidence of my failure pushed it open. I staggered into the room, using the countertop as a guide. I did not know where to go. I did not know what to do. I needed this pain in my heart to go away. I needed the image of Sapphira, bleeding in my arms, to go away.
My hand knocked something over. I looked down. I had spilled a bottle of pills. Pills. I knew pills took the pain away. I cleared the fog from my eyes and looked around. A bottle of alcohol was on the opposite countertop.
That took away the pain too.
Taking the bottle, trying to see through the tears, I pulled off the cap and grabbed a handful of the pills. I swallowed one, then took a drink. I did it again. I did it again and again until the pain began to fade. I did it again and again until my eyes closed and I woke up in a familiar forest.
I wiped my eyes as I drank in the beauty of the bright green trees. The grass was soft under my bare feet. My arms were clean of bruises and . . . there was no pain.
“Mama?” I closed my eyes at the idyllic sound of a softly spoken voice. Mama. “Mama, you are here.” There was no pain in her voice, no fear. There was just . . . happiness.
Opening my eyes, I looked toward the river. Sapphira was sitting on the grass. She was dressed in white, her long blond hair falling to her back in soft waves. And she was smiling. “Sapphira,” I said and ran to where she sat. I dropped down beside her and took her in my arms. She fit so perfectly, like it always should have been.
“Are you at peace now?” I kissed her forehead.
“I am now you are here,” she said and placed her head on my lap. She sighed as I stared at the glistening water of the river. “Can we stay here, Mama?” She looked up at me with her beautiful brown gaze. I leaned down and kissed the freckle on the side of her eye that I adored.
“We can stay,” I said, knowing we would be happy here.
“Good.” She drifted off to sleep.
And I smiled again. Because all was good.
At last.
Chapter Twenty-One
AK
“You think she’s gonna get through this?” I asked Rider quietly, so Phebe wouldn’t hear me.
Rider dropped the bullet into a tin beside him and looked up. Had to give it to the ex-prophet, fucker had gotten his head down and dealt with this shit without complaint. Turned out he took down a few Klansmen in the process too. We hadn’t seen another truck come up late in the shootout. Rider took out the driver and another before one got away.
The one Ash took out before he could kill me.
He nodded. “Stopped the bleeding early enough. She needs more blood, waiting on her type, but she should be okay. Bullet hit to the left of her stomach—no vital organs were touched. Luckily. She should be okay.”
Relief ran through me. I rocked on my feet as he began stitching her up. “Thanks,” I mumbled. Rider’s head snapped up in surprise. I reluctantly met his eyes, and he nodded his head.
“After what Phebe has done for me, for Bella, and after finding out Judah did all . . . this.” He looked at Sapphira and gritted his teeth. He’d been told the whole story of his brother’s trafficking side dealings. Fucker took it hard. Most of the shit had been going on for months, all behind his back while he was still prophet.
I actually felt something close to sympathy for the asshole.
I turned to look at Phebe at the back of the room. She wasn’t there. “Phebe?” I walked closer to the door. I stuck my head out into the hallway. “Phebe?” I tried again. I ran to the bar, wondering where the fuck she was.
Vike was sitting at the bar. “Have you seen Phebe?” I asked.
“She ain’t been in here,” he said.
I ran out into the hallway again and started checking the brothers’ club rooms. Most of the brothers were sleeping or gone the fuck home. I burst out of the doors and into the evening air. Hush and Cowboy sat in the yard, drinking and smoking. “You all right, mon frère?”
“Phebe?” I repeated her name again, starting to really fucking panic.
“Not come out this way,” Hush answered. “Been here since we got back.”
I tried to think. Tried to imagine where the fuck she could have gone. I darted back into the clubhouse and just started checking doors, one after the other—storage, armory, fucking bathrooms. Then I got to the door that led to a break room behind the bar, where whoever was working could catch a smoke or drink. I slammed through and froze in my tracks. An overturned bottle of Tylenol was on the counter. There were only a couple of pills left. My pulse raced. Then my motherfucking heart dropped when I saw a pair of feet sticking out from around the corner. Pale, dirty and covered in dried blood.
“Phebe!” I turned the corner. “No,” I said. I dropped to my knees. “Phebe.” I picked her lifeless body up in my arms. Her head flopped back, and a stab of pain sliced through my stomach. “No!” I looked to her left. An empty bottle of Jack lay beside her, one that I knew would have been full or nearly full when she’d picked it up.
I pulled her closer to my chest and looked at her face. She was still covered in blood, still fucking broken and bruised, and I couldn’t fucking take it. Not again. Not another fucking one.
“Phebe!” I shouted, and heard someone come in behind me. I turned, not giving a fuck about the tears running down my face as I held her lifeless body in my arms. “She’s hardly got a fucking pulse,” I said to Vike.
“What was it?” He got on his knees beside me.
“Pills and Jack.”