Izzy’s spirit throbbed and groaned, that energy moving across the ground.
Horror and the hope she’d always had in me.
Silently promised her that this time, I wouldn’t let her down.
I took another step along the side of the house, forcing him back another. So close to him being clear. Away from my girl.
He mimicked to the left. My lungs froze when I saw my window. Quick to aim for his shoulder, to incapacitate but not kill, pulling the trigger even faster.
Fear crawled down my spine when I realized he’d seen my intentions in the same second, that he was pulling off a shot.
But I didn’t care.
I sprinted his direction.
No thought of the outcome except for the one where Izzy was safe.
Fire blazed up my right side, and my body jolted with the severe, gutting shock. I fumbled, feet wanting to fail, barely able to stand, but somehow, I managed to force myself to keep moving. Sight clouding, I fought to lift my gun again, knowing the only choice I had was to take him out.
Asshole grinned like he’d won as he aimed again.
The grin drained from his face when the butt of a shotgun came down hard on the back of his head.
From out of nowhere.
No warning.
Zachary’s eyes went wide before he dropped to his knees and flopped facedown onto the ground.
Mr. Lane rushed to stand over him, a foot on his back and his shotgun at the back of his head as he stood guard. With knowing eyes, he lifted his chin and sent me a look that promised it was finished.
Unable to remain standing, I dropped to my knees.
Relief blistered and blew while pain screamed and tore through my side. Blood soaked my shirt, but I couldn’t stop, refused to give up. Groaning, I crawled to Izzy, quivers trembling my hands as I met her eye, whispered a thousand apologies as I untied her bindings.
I managed to free her wrists.
My girl free.
It was the only strength I had left, and I slumped over.
She reached up and jerked the gag out of her mouth.
“Oh my God, Maxon. Oh my God. You’re hurt. Oh, sweet man.”
She fumbled to get to me.
Scrambling to get to her knees, she gathered my head into her lap.
She held my head close to the beat of her heart.
To the sweetness of her soul.
Tender fingers ran through my hair. “I’ve got you. I’ve got you. I’m safe. Me and the boys are safe because of you. Now, I’m goin’ to make sure you’re safe, too. You’re safe.”
She pressed her lips to my forehead, and I relished in the sensation.
In her touch.
I struggled to draw a breath into my lungs that screamed.
No air.
Blackness closing in.
Movement rustled from the side, and I blinked up and saw the worried face of her mama hovering over me. This woman who’d cared for me so much, and still, in a way that I hadn’t understood.
She pressed a towel to my side, and I could see her trembling with fear, but she was smiling. “Just what you need is another scar to make you look even more appealin’, Mr. Chambers. My girl here isn’t gonna be able to keep her hands off you.”
A smile tweaked at the corner of her mouth, and she looked over her shoulder and gusted a sigh of relief when she heard sirens coming up the lane.
Izzy kept whispering her belief into my spirit. “It’s okay, my dragon. It’s okay. You’re gonna be fine. You stay right here with me. Don’t close your eyes. Just stay. Stay.”
Her mother held pressure on the gunshot wound.
It was almost in the same spot as the wound I’d sustained in the last fight with my father.
When I’d believed my life a sacrifice.
Thinking it noble to turn my back to the light rather than to stand in its warmth.
Through the haze that took me over, I stared up at this girl’s beauty. Her voice as a little girl. As the years had passed. As she’d become my all.
At this girl who’d been my savior.
Everything faded as I silently promised to always be hers.
* * *
I blinked open my eyes, mind slowed with the drugs I could feel slogging through my veins.
But my sight was clear.
My heart right.
Soul no longer bent.
Izzy was sitting in a chair across the room with Dillon on her lap, quietly reading him a book, while Benjamin was in a chair right next to me, the side of his face rested on the hospital bed as he watched something on a tablet.
Izzy’s mom and dad were in the other corner, quietly talking with each other.
Warmth overflowed the room.
Love a slow, sated buzz.
Got the sense they’d been there for a long time.
Settled in.
Waiting.
Standing by my side.
It was Benjamin who noticed I was awake first. His head popped up, and he sent me one of those crooked, beautiful smiles that shattered me all over again.