His laugh was bitter. “You’ll just keep doing it.”
“No, I swear. That’s why I checked into the hospital. I’m trying to change. I don’t want to be like this. I never loved her. I don’t know what I was saying. You’re right. You’re always right.”
He shook his head sadly. “But once a whore, always a whore, right?” He leaned down and sneered at her. “There is no saving you.”
And then I saw it. The silver glinting in his palm.
My warning yell was too late.
He sank the blade deep into Tori’s belly.
The world moved in slow motion. In a blur, Tori clutched her stomach and stared down at the blood gushing from the wound.
Rowe and Liam both sprang into action, rushing Will and tackling him to the ground. He hit the ground hard but fought the entire time while Rowe and Liam kept him down.
It all happened through a fog, like a dream I couldn’t control. I stood there in the middle of the chaos, my brain fighting through shock to make sense of any of it.
Tori turned to stare at me, her eyes wide and terrified. “Mae.”
The world came back in a burst of color and noise. Tori slumped to her knees, and I realized the ringing in my ears was my screams. I rushed to her, dropping down beside her. “Call an ambulance! She’s been stabbed!”
I got her down on her back, the knife I hadn’t seen until it was too late still sticking out of her abdomen. “What do I do? What do I do?”
The basic first-aid training I had didn’t cover stab wounds.
“The ambulance is on its way, but they’re coming from Providence.” Rowe appeared beside me, pressing his hands around the wound on Tori’s belly.
Her scream of pain forced a sob from my throat. “You’re hurting her!”
“I’ve got to try to stop the bleeding. Take my phone. Call Perry. Her place isn’t far. If she hasn’t left for work yet, she might get here quicker.”
I stabbed at Rowe’s phone, finding Perry’s number. It rang in my ear while I spun in a circle, desperately looking for help that wasn’t there.
Liam had Will facedown in the dirt, his hands pinned behind his back by Liam’s bodyweight. But Will had stopped fighting, his gaze pinned on Tori. “Oh God. Tori. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it!”
“Shut up!” I screamed at him. “You don’t get to say that to her now!” I wanted to kick and punch and bite and tear the man limb from limb for everything he’d done. He’d taken my sister, the man I loved, and now he was trying to take my best friend as well.
“Rowe? What’s up? You need a ride to work?”
“Perry! It’s me. I need help. Tori’s been stabbed.”
“What?” But that was the only moment of confusion Perry had before her nurse’s training kicked right in. “I’m getting in my car. Where are you? Have you called an ambulance?”
“We’re at Rowe’s cabin on Old South Road. We’ve called an ambulance, but there’s so much blood…”
“Mae, listen to me. You need to get pressure on it. Put the phone down.”
“Rowe’s here. He’s already doing it.” My tears streamed down my face. “Perry. Hurry.” I dropped to the ground without waiting to hear her reply so I could pick up Tori’s hand.
It was covered in blood.
I stared down at her pale face, clutching her fingers between mine.
She gazed up at me with wide, terrified eyes. “You’ll take Isaac, right? If I…”
I blanched. “No! You’re not dying. Not here, not today. Isaac needs you. I need you! So you fight, you hear me. This isn’t how this ends. Because you and me? We’re soul mates, too. We’re growing old and wrinkly together, and watching our boys grow and become best friends, too. I’m not doing that without you.”
She closed her eyes and smiled softly. “That sounds nice.”
The strength in her grip faded. Rowe looked as helpless as I felt. The blood was everywhere, coating his hands, Tori’s clothes, the ground.
I didn’t even notice Perry arrive until she was pushing me aside. She gazed down at Tori and brushed a sweaty piece of hair from her forehead. “Fancy seeing you again. And in another life-or-death situation. We need to stop meeting like this.”
Tori gave a painful laugh. “At least there’s no flames this time.”
“Amen to that, sister. Amen.”
She moved around Tori with a medical bag of equipment, taking out gauze and other things I couldn’t identify. Locating a pair of gloves, she snapped them on, then nodded to Rowe to let her take over.
He stepped back, right as the first wail of ambulance sirens reached us. He stormed over to where Will still lay on the ground with Liam on his back. Tears streamed down Will’s face while he sobbed for his wife, but Rowe showed no remorse. He wiped Tori’s blood down the center of Will’s face then grabbed his jaw in a bone-breaking hold. “If I didn’t want to see you spend the rest of your sorry life in jail, I’d kill you myself.”
He pushed his face away roughly and stood, wiping the rest of the blood off on his pants. Then he stormed to the back of Will’s car, yanked open the rear door, and reached in. He emerged a moment later with Isaac cradled in his arms, fast asleep after crying himself into exhaustion.
Rowe didn’t look at Will when Will called out for Isaac. And Liam yanked his arm painfully to shut him up. Rowe squeezed my hand as he moved toward the house. “I need to check on Ripley. Go on to the hospital with her. I’ve got them both.”
God, I loved him.
The ambulance finally arrived in the clearing, two cop cars close behind. Liam took the chance to lean down and hiss in Will’s ear, “You ever want that God of yours to forgive your sins? You better confess everything. You’d better get up on that stand and tell the world how you let an innocent man be sentenced to death row for a life you took. I don’t know much about religion, but I do know enough that you don’t get forgiveness unless you confess.”
Damn, I loved him, too.