Page 7 of Broken By Silence
It shatters something in me.
I’ve left her too many times. Locked in a room, in a war I madeher fight alone, and every time I left her stuck in the silence of her own world, she created out of pain and survival.
I owe her more.
I fight.
For air.
For words.
For one more second with her.
My heart kicks in my chest… hard.
It hurts like hell. Like being shocked back to life.
A gasp tears from my throat. My eyes flutter.
White light stabs through the dark.
And then I see her.
Not a memory or a dream.
Lottie. Eyes rimmed with red, face pale, but real.
She gasps, too. Her hand clamps tighter around mine.
There’s a flurry of doctors and nurses.
The tube is removed.
The pain lingers… so does the darkness.
“Lottie.” I force past the raw ache in my throat.
A whisper.
A prayer.
A promise.
Chapter 3
Lottie
For a second, I think I imagined it.
The machines beep in some new rhythm, the kind that makes the nurse rush in, and I think it’s just my heart breaking again.
It’s been breaking a lot lately.
I swear I feel his hand twitch in mine. It’s faint… barely there. But it’s real.
Suddenly, I’m gasping, crying, folding over our joined hands like I can keep him back here with us by sheer will.
Then I’m ushered out into the hallway with Archer and Oscar. Claire and Will left with promises to be back soon, but they had to take care of a few things to ensure Roman’s dad doesn’t come back to try to finish the job while he’s lying in the hospital bed, vulnerable.
