Page 12 of Beautifully Shattered
“If she’s well enough,” I mutter. “I’m sure Abbey would want to go. She built close ties with a few of them.”
Fuck. How’s she even going to handle that news? Grieving her daughter and now fallen friends, too?
The weight of it all presses down, getting heavier by the fucking second.
Glancing up, I stiffen as my eyes lock onto a group of people coming my way.
“Shit, Smitty. I’ve gotta go. I’ve got company.”
4
Yawning, I stretch, my whole body aching as my sore muscles instinctively send my hand to my bump to check on my little bub… only… my bump is gone.
I gasp, eyes snapping open as reality slams into me like a freight train.
Oh. My. God.
Little Bobbi… is gone.
A sob claws up my throat, pain slicing through my chest like a blade.
For the tiniest moment, just a heartbeat, when I woke, everything felt normal. I was still pregnant. Bobbi was still safe. Life was still hard, but there was hope.
That’s what my brain clung to… that fragile, cruel lie. But then, like some twisted Groundhog Day, I have to relive it. Again. The moment I remember Bobbi is gone.
She’s… dead.
I choke on my sob, my eyes flicking around the hospital room to find it empty.
I can’t do this. I can’t be here. I can’t breathe in this life. Not without Bobbi.
“My wife will arrange her own funeral for her daughter.”
Ringo’s voice floats through from the other side of the closed door, his words stopping my tears in their tracks.
Who is he talking to?
Bobbi’s… funeral…
I have to arrange Bobbi’s funeral?
“Where are the funerals taking place?” he asks, and since I can’t hear anyone else talking, I have to assume he’s on the phone.
Wait.
Funerals? As in plural?
My already shattered heart plummets to the pit of my stomach as memories come rushing in.
Ringo got called away because the new compound was under attack.
Me outside, in the rain, crying under the Jacaranda tree.
Lightning.
Men running over the ridge.
Screams.
