Page 132 of Echoes of You

A red haze covered my vision. I didn’t think, I simply charged. I ran out of the trees and toward Adam and Maddie.

When I was just a few steps away, his head jerked up, eyes flaring. But it was too late. I tackled Adam to the ground. His fist flew, glancing off my cheekbone, but I struck back with an uppercut to the ribs.

Adam grunted but answered with a knee to my gut. “You’ll never have her,” he spat. “She was mine first, and she always will be.”

We grappled for purchase, and I managed to get my arm against his throat. “Maddie belongs to herself, and you’re nothing but a bad memory.” A nightmare. The person who had tortured her time and time again. That red haze was back.

Maddie coughed and sputtered, trying to breathe. Because Adam had hurt her yet again.

I pressed harder on Adam’s throat, but he got off a blow to my ribs, which had my hold loosening for a second. It was enough.

Adam shifted and pulled something from his waistband. The flash of metal gleamed in the afternoon light, and the world slowed. Some part of my brain recognized that it was a knife.

He couldn’t get to Maddie. I wouldn’t let him. But he didn’t want to. Maddie had been right when she’d said that he hated me most of all. He plunged the knife deep, and white-hot pain lanced my side. Shouts sounded, and the world wavered. And then I couldn’t hear anything at all.

45

MADDIE

“I swear to God,one more injury, and I’m cutting you off from medical care,” Doc said with a huff.

Nash grinned at her, but it was tinged with pain as she prodded his wound. “Sorry, Doc.”

I squeezed his hand as hard as I could, mine trembling with the action.

Nash cast concerned eyes at me. “Hey, I’m okay. Just a few stitches, remember?”

He was okay. I said the words over and over in my mind. Doc had told us the knife hadn’t gotten anything vital. Nash would have to take it easy for a couple of weeks, and he’d be sore, but he would be fine. I’d have some serious bruising around my throat and tender wrists and ankles, but I was otherwise fine, too.

“He stabbed you.” Tears brimmed in my eyes.

“Hetriedto. This is barely a scratch.”

A scratch didn’t require internal and external sutures. I shoved down my tears. This wasn’t about me. Nash didn’t need my tears. He needed my support. “Let’s just get you patched up.”

He studied me for a moment as if not believing my words. “Okay.”

Doc nodded and stepped forward. “You’ll feel a tiny pinch.”

She injected him with the local anesthetic, but Nash didn’t even flinch. We were quiet as we waited for it to take effect, but I didn’t let go of Nash’s hand.

“Can you feel this?” Doc asked, pressing a gloved finger above the wound.

“Nope, stitch me up.”

She shook her head but pulled out the suture kit.

“Mads, eyes on me,” Nash said.

My gaze flew from the kit to his face.

He gave me a tender smile. “Don’t want you passing out on me.”

I winced. “That was one time. So long ago.”

“I fell off my bike—”

“You fell trying to pop a wheelie,” I corrected.

---