Come Out Swinging (Reach for the Moon Book 2), Sam Hall [leveled readers .TXT] 📗

“Paige!” Declan cried, snapping me out of it, my knees giving out as I dropped down beside them.

“Mason…” I said his name tentatively, knowing he wouldn’t answer but wishing he would. Dec and I rolled him over, brushing the dirt from his face, then Declan put his ear to Mason’s chest.

“He’s still breathing. Just,” he announced. “We need to get him in the car, both of them.”

“You guys take him in the 4WD, we’ll take Bridget in the Toyota, assuming it runs,” Micah said.

“He…” Zack had the same shell-shocked expression as mine, his eyes wide and unseeing as he looked down at us. He blinked, obviously yanking his focus back. “He needs a hospital.”

“We’ll get him to Lupindorf Hos—” Declan started with some irritation, nodding to Lorcan and Micah to help him pick up Mason.

“No.” Everyone froze at my word. “We’re as close to Berkefeld as we are home, and I trust the humans there more than I do my own people. We head to Berkefeld.”

“Then let’s go.”

More interminably long road trips. I sat in the backseat with Zack, Mason spread across our bodies, and cradled my arms around his head, hating the loose way it rolled with the car’s movement. I stroked my fingers through his hair, dislodging sandy soil and twigs, watching the air go in and out of his lungs much too slowly, hanging on every breath.

“We fucked up,” Zack said in a tone so perfectly flat. There was no inflection, no emphasis, just endless fucking pain. “We were never going to be able to force Bridget. Her own bloody mother couldn’t. We committed to something…”

“And she nearly pulled everything we are out of us fighting it,” I agreed grimly. “I didn’t even know we could do that.” I shook my head. “So why did this happen? He broke her hold.”

“No, he didn’t,” Zack said softly. “If I had to take a guess, he broke our connections, but not his.”

“Why?”

“Because he knew someone was going to go under for our mistake,” Declan said, looking into the rear vision mirror as he drove. “And he didn’t want it to be all of us.”

I smoothed a shaking hand down the side of Mason’s face, over and over, until we reached the hospital.

“Mrs Klein?”

I jumped up as the doctor pushed through the somehow forbidding swinging doors that led into the treatment rooms. I’d passed myself off as Mason’s wife to make sure all information came to me.

“We’ve done some scans on your husband, and it appears he’s in a coma. He injured his head when you were rescuing your cousin?”

“Yeah,” I croaked out, finding it too hard to squeeze anything else past my swollen throat.

“We’re in the process of examining her as well. I…” The man stiffened, as if bracing himself for what he was about to ask. “I have to ask—should we conduct a rape kit?”

Just a few words, but oh so powerful. They hit me in my midsection more effectively than if he’d wound up a fist and drove it in. I nodded, feeling the tears I’d been holding back start to well. My tear ducts burned like acid with the effort of stopping them from falling. The doctor’s eyes softened, a hand moving to reach out and—

“Yes,” I said, clearly and concisely. “I think you should.”

“Very well. Your husband is stabilised for now while we do some more tests.” He saw my lips part, ready to ask, but preempted me by saying, “You’ll be able to see him soon. I’ll need to make a report to the police.”

“Of course. And we need to talk to them.”

“So I’m gonna drive out to one of the pine plantations and find three dead men savaged by dogs?” the police officer asked.

We were still sitting in the hospital waiting room, quite a few other people seated in the long rows of connected chairs waiting to be seen. Two police officers had approached us, introduced themselves, then began their interrogation.

“Yes,” I replied. “I assume they were the Engel brothers’ dogs. Perhaps in the scuffle, they got fired up and attacked.”

“Their masters?”

“My mum is an Engel,” Lorcan said. “Trust me when I say those boys weren’t smart. Those dogs, they were half feral. Not proper trained attack dogs, just bad tempered, half-starved savage things that had a go at us first.” He showed the scratches and wounds he’d gotten, throwing himself into the fray. “And when the tide turned, they attacked their masters.”

“Right, well, we’ll go out, use the mud map you’ve provided, and establish the crime scene. You’re staying in the area?” the officer asked.

“Lupindorf,” I replied.

The man stilled at that, casting an eye over the five of us, seeming to take in more details than he had when we told him our version of what had happened.

“Spehr…” The officer tapped his pen against his notebook. “Any relation to Adam Spehr?”

“He was… He was my father.”

Declan’s hand rubbed across my shoulders in slow sweeps.

“That right?” His eyes sharpened as he took me in. “Seems like from this map you were about halfway between home and here. Why not drive everyone back to Lupindorf? Hospital’s bigger.”

“I was told my cousin had left for the city to study full time. Instead, some of the local thugs took her to the old shack to rape and kill her. I need justice.”

“I’ll have to make contact with your local police as a courtesy.”

“You do that, officer.”

And so we sat, waiting and waiting and waiting, until finally, we could go and see them.

“I’ve put Ms Spher up in a private room, but she’s…” the doctor said as we paused in front of a closed door. The echoing halls and the hard reflective surfaces bounced back every sound. “She’s obviously traumatised by what happened. I would suggest only family at this stage, Mrs Klein.”

“But not my aunt. If she gets wind of this, if she comes here…” I said, forcing dominance into my words. It worked on humans as well, if required. That…hurt somehow, like the feeling