Once Upon A Half-Time 2(165)

I slammed into the door.

Not enough.

I retreated a step. Two. Three. The world sucked away the oxygen and replaced it with agonized heat.

No time left.

I crashed my body into the wood, and nearly shattered my shoulder. It worked. The door swung open in shards. I fell to the ground.

Josie.

I turned, reaching to help her.

I never made it.

Arms grabbed us, dragging us from the barn just as the walls groaned and shuddered. The entire structure burned through, blackened and charred in minutes. Josie screamed as the frame collapsed, falling upon itself in blast of heat, ash, soot, and destruction.

Men twisted me from her, and the flashing lights surrounding me weren’t the reds of an ambulance. They blasted me in blue.

Chief Craig rolled me onto my back. EMTs tried to stick an oxygen mask over my face, but he ordered them away. He slammed a knee between my shoulder blades and whipped handcuffs onto my wrists. Pain exploded through me, but I couldn’t do a damn thing.

“Andrew Maddox, you’re under arrest for arson and the attempted murder of Josie Davis and Nolan Rhys.” He dug his knee into me. “And this time, I got you for good, you son of a bitch.”

I said nothing.

The world darkened, and my thoughts focused on Josie.

She was pregnant.

At least I had one thought to comfort me when I went to jail.

Except I had a bad feeling I wasn’t leaving Saint Christie’s police station alive.





21





Josie





The EMTs fought me. I struggled to escape from the ambulance.

They held me down without a problem. I’d sucked in too much smoke, and my head turned foggy and pained.

I knew Frank and Kathy, the husband-and-wife EMT team. Kathy shined a light in my eyes, and Frank tucked the oxygen mask over my nose and mouth.

“There you go. Just like Matt.” He chuckled.

“Maddox.” I coughed, and my vision blurred with a dark halo.

“Don’t worry.” Kathy silenced me with a soft cluck of her tongue. “Chief Craig has him. He won’t hurt you anymore.”

They had it all wrong. I yanked off the oxygen. No wonder Granddad hated the damn thing so much. The cough stole my breath. I tried to tell them, but my throat was coated in acrid ash.

Shouting echoed over the yard. Kathy and Frank forced me to lie down.

Maddox.

Something was wrong. He was hurt. I struggled again, but this time they didn’t have to hold me down. I felt too heavy to move. Kathy tucked a blanket over my body and took my vitals as my blood pressure spiked.

She leaned over me, brushing my face. “Josie, how do you feel? Are you hurt?”

Only one thing mattered. I squeezed her hand and forced the words out.

“I’m pregnant.”

And then I collapsed.



It was the second time I woke in the hospital after a fire.

The first time was terrifying because I had no idea what had happened. The second was worse. I feared the devil I knew because I saw the chaos he caused before. He wasn’t done with us yet, and I dreaded what was to come.

The IVs dripped and machines beeped. They had me on oxygen. It did dry my throat—Granddad was right. I batted the tubes away.

My room was just outside the nurses’ station. I caught their attention as I woke up. I wasn’t particularly fond of Suzie Adams in high school, but at least she’d dropped the attitude now that she was an adult. Putting on thirty pounds also helped the former cheer-captain gain a bit of humility.

“You’re awake.” Suzie checked the machines. “You’re so lucky. No burns, no damage from the smoke.”

“The baby?”

Suzie reserved her judgement. She had a toddler with no daddy at home.

“Everything looks okay. The doctor wants to see you. He’ll be in shortly.”

“Maddox?”

Suzie didn’t want to answer that. “Chief Craig is here. He needs to get your statement.”

“Wait.”

Suzie bolted from the room. Damn it. I couldn’t focus, couldn’t think. A blue uniform immediately took her place. Chief Craig closed the door, and I tried to silence my coughing. Couldn’t. He didn’t look like he cared much.

“Josie…” Chief Craig’s tone spiked my heart rate. Unfortunately, he could hear it on the monitor. “I’ve already spoken with Mayor Rhys.”

“Chief…it wasn’t—”

“He explained that you two had a secret relationship.”

My lungs seized. The panic stuck inside the thick ash coating my chest. “Not true—”

“He also told us that Maddox was threatening both of you. Nolan said he worried for your safety, and that it was not unexpected that Maddox would attempt to break you two up.”

That smug look. Chief Craig didn’t believe a word Nolan told him, but it fit his own ends.