Page 5 of Beautifully Shattered
The doctor gives me one of her fake sympathetic looks again, and I just glare at her.
She should have saved my daughter. She doesn’t deserve my decency. Not even a slither of it.
I’d been waiting for them to bring my little girl to me, swaddled in a blanket so I could hold her, but maybe that’s just the way it’s done in movies. The doctor insisted that I had to come down to this eerie basement. Said it will be easier for me this way.
Nothing about this is easy.
“You ready?” Lexi asks, and I glance up into her blue eyes, swimming with tears.
None of this was real until she stepped into my room. One look at her, and I knew. I knew Ringo, the nurse and the doctor weren’t lying.
My little girl was gone.
I nod, even though I’m not ready. How can anyone be ready to see someone they love dead?
But I need to do this. I have to see Bobbi with my own eyes.
If I don’t, I’ll spend the rest of my life wondering if this is just some twisted dream. A nightmare too brutal to even comprehend.
The doctor pushes the door open, and inside, a man stands by a row of stainless steel doors that look like something out of an industrial kitchen.
Shit.
I guess it is. A fridge for the dead.
I shake my head, ready to tell Ringo to turn the wheelchair around, panic clawing at my insides as my stomach lurches.
“I’m going to be sick.” I croak just as someone shoves a vomit bag in front of my face, catching the first expulsion.
Behind me, Lexi holds my hair back with one hand while rubbing my back with the other, and I heave and heave, like if I just vomit enough, maybe I can throw up the grief too.
But it’s no good.
It’s still there. Heavy and crushing.
I can’t do this.
When I’m finally done, I wipe my mouth with the back of my shaking hand, and Ringo’s hand moves into view, reaching for the bag.
“Let me take that for you, Angel.”
Shit. Why is he being so gentle with me? I practically blamed him for my little girl’s death.
DoI blame him?
Maybe.
I asked him to save her, and he didn’t.
Was it his fault? Probably not. But I need someone to blame. I just have to.
Rightnow, aside from the doctor, he’s the only one here my fury knows how to aim at. There’s this wall of madness around me, thick and suffocating, and I don’t know what to do with it.
I’m so full of hate I can taste it. So much that I’m scared even Lexi might catch some of the blast.
I let Ringo take the bag from me, unable to meet his eyes. I’m too angry, too close to breaking. But I keep it bottled in, needing to get through this moment.
“Show me.” I force the words past my lips, my voice raspy and barely there.
