The doctor regarded me for a moment. “You saved her life, Julian.”
I looked at her; pen paused on the paper in her hand. “You don’t know that. She wasn’t breathing.” My voice was hollow.
“She’s breathing now.” The doctor’s voice was soothing in some way, but it wasn’t the voice I wanted to hear the most.
I laughed, the sound lacking warmth. “Not without help,” I said while gesturing at the ventilator that was wrapped around her face.
“She’s in a medically induced coma. We need the swelling in her brain to go down to prevent brain damage.”
“The last doctor already told me that brain damage is likely. They just don’t know the extent.” It was something I tried not to think about
“‘Likely’ is not a word I like to use. It’s not very scientific, and I’m a scientist. I go on facts, not assumptions. So have some faith.”
“Faith is not very scientific either, Dr. Stephenson.”
That earned a small smile from her. “No, it’s not.” She stood up and tucked her notepad into her coat pocket. “But her chest x-rays look surprisingly good and her blood pressure is stabilized. The scientist in me feels optimistic at her recovery. You should too.” She walked to the door and stopped, spinning elegantly on her rubber soled shoes. “You should get some rest while you can. Take a walk. Clear your head,” she said meaningfully before leaving.
I heaved a sigh and brought my attention back to Andra. She looked peaceful, with her hands resting on her chest, her nail polish chipped. Her eyes were closed, her long lashes resting upon the pale skin that looked bruised under her eyes. There were true bruises elsewhere on her body, and I knew that under the blanket, her left knee was swollen triple its usual size.
I didn’t know what to do with the rage that simmered just under the surface. It bubbled and spilled over, made me think, act, feel irrationally. The energy rippled through me, over and over, but there was no way to let it out.
And that’s when the police came to speak with me.
CHAPTER ONE
June 2010
She was gone. I stood in the road and yelled her name until my throat was numb with cold and my lips ached. I was barefoot, in just a pair of shorts, in the middle of the woods.
I looked around me, trying to decide where she’d gone. I started walking up the road, the bite of the asphalt pricking my feet. The pain was mild, and I pushed it to the back of my head, looking for clues, for anything. I picked up a lot of trash, looking for a sign of Andra. I yelled, punched a tree just off the road, and fell right onto the piece of evidence I was looking for. I knew it was Andra’s phone, based on the custom Queen cover. The screen was shattered, the sides of the phone gouged from tumbling on the road.
I sank to my knees in the grass, helpless, and terrified at the implications of her shattered phone. It was that moment that I remembered, she’d left freely. Andra wouldn’t run from me into the hands of danger. I jogged back to the house, the adrenaline in my veins slowing down. I started to feel the pain in my feet and didn’t bother looking at them, more concerned with tracking Andra down. I set her phone down on my desk and tapped my mouse to wake up the computer screen.
I started making some calls.
She told me not to return to the ranch, but that wasn’t going to stop me. I waited until the following night, as long as I possibly could, and snuck onto the property through the trees, coming in from where Andra and I had ran together before. It was nearly pitchy black and the woods were eerily quiet. I didn’t think to carry any weaponry, which was probably a stupid idea, but I wasn’t thinking all that clearly after my restless night and day.
I was so completely focused on everything else running through my mind that I didn’t see the man in my path until it was nearly too late. I ducked just as he reached out to hit me, leaving me to fall onto a huge pile of pine needles. I rolled away and jumped back to my feet, on the defensive, when a beam of light hit me in the face, blinding me.
“Who are you?” the voice asked. It belonged to a man, and judging by his silhouette between the trees, he had a good seventy-five pounds on me.
I put a hand up and turned my face to the side, trying to see through the beam of light. “I’m Julian. Who are you?”
The man drew his light down. “Yeah, I know. And you’re an idiot.”
I pulled my shoulders back. “And why is that?”
The man sighed, turning off his flashlight. “Because you’re not supposed to be here.”
“Who’s that?” a feminine voice called from beyond him, at the beginning of the tree line to the ranch’s front lawn. It wasn’t familiar.