Page 118 of Escape

My nerves were shot, the adrenaline was no longer rushing through my body, and my emotions were getting the best of me.

“You’re fucking lucky the police are on their way, because if it were up to me, if they weren’t this close, you’d be dead,” Huck seethed.

I reached out a hand to Lori, attempted to rouse her once more, but she still didn’t wake. Tears spilled down my cheeks, worry for her consuming me.

The next thing I knew, the area was swarming with police cars, and it wasn’t much longer before Huck was crouched beside me.

“Josie,” he breathed, the relief he was feeling evident.

“Huck,” I rasped as more tears fell.

He swiped at the tears and pressed a soft kiss to my lips. “Let me get you out of here.”

“The belt is stuck, but I’m okay,” I told him. “Help Lori first.”

Instead of doing as I urged him, Huck reached into his pocket and pulled out a knife. Before the blade was even visible, Lori’s door opened, and paramedics were there.

“Her name is Lori. She was knocked out from either the force of the impact from the truck or when the airbag deployed,” I informed them.

“Thank you, ma’am,” the medic replied.

Just as I was about to ask if she was going to be okay, the pressure of the seatbelt against my body was gone. I turned my attention to Huck and noticed he’d cut the belt to free me.

He reached in, slipped one arm beneath my legs and the other behind my back, and lifted me out of the car.

“I’m pretty sure I can walk, Huck,” I said.

“I’m taking you to the hospital to get checked out,” he returned as he moved away from the car and toward his truck.

“Okay. But I could walk,” I reasoned.

He stopped moving, his eyes roaming over my face, and shared, “From the moment you crashed, and the call was dropped, I thought you were dead. I thought I was going to lose you.” His eyes dropped to my throat, the muscle in his jaw working to contain the anger that was clear as day. When he got it under control, he continued, “Fortunately, that wasn’t the case, but it was clear I just barely got here in time to prevent that from being your fate. So, please, honey, let me take you to the hospital, carrying you in my arms as I do, because for several minutes I thought I wasn’t going to have the privilege of being able to do that ever again.”

As much as I thought I might die, Huck had endured whole minutes of not knowing what had happened to me. If it helped him feel better to have me in his arms, I wasn’t going to take it away from him.

“Okay, Huck. You can carry me wherever you’d like to take me,” I acquiesced. “Can we check on Lori before we leave, though?”

He dipped his chin. “Let me get you in my truck, and I’ll check on her.”

Huck did just that, got stopped by an officer on the way back to his truck, and finally returned to me.

He climbed inside and said, “Lori’s got a pulse and is breathing. They’re taking her to Steel Ridge General, the same place I’m taking you. The police will meet us there, so they can ask you some questions about what happened.”

It was like having a weight lifted off my shoulders to know that Lori was alive. That was all I cared about, so it didn’t bother me at all that the police intended to meet me at the hospital to question me. “Okay. Let’s get there, so I can get checked out and see Lori as soon as they have her stable.”

Huck reached across the center console, took my hand in his, and said, “I love you, Josie.”

“I love you, too.”

“I’m sorry he had the chance to get to you.”

Shaking my head, I insisted, “I was eventually going to have to be on my own. You couldn’t physically be with me every second for the rest of my life, but I know you’re going to do what you can to prepare me to defend myself from this point forward.”

“This is never going to happen to you again, honey, but I’m going to teach you everything you need to know,” he insisted.

Smiling, I squeezed his hand. “Take me to the hospital, Huck.”

Following a beat, he gave me a nod and took me to the hospital. Despite having insisted to the doctors that I was okay, a full workup was done on me. While we waited for some test results, a couple of officers showed up to ask questions. I told them about what happened, explaining everything in as much detail as I could recall, and Huck was sure to remind them that Kurt had been responsible for putting me in the hospital weeks ago. Since I’d filed a report after that incident, gone to get a protection from abuse order against him, and now had this incident, it was likely I’d finally be able to get some justice for all that Kurt had done to me.