Aligned: Volume 4 (22 page)

She reaches out and grabs my hand, and I melt. “Come on, Daddy.”
 

I smile down at her. “I’m coming, Isabella.” The name just falls from my lips as if I already know her name. I follow her as she drags me away and pulls me into her bedroom.
 

The whole room is different shades of pink. She pulls me until we get to a small table. She takes a seat, and I take a seat in the chair opposite her. It is much too small to sit comfortably in, but I don’t care. I could sit here all day as long as I’m with her.
 

She pours me some fake tea and hands me a cup. I take it from her small hands and pretend to sip from it just as she does. She giggles, and it’s the most beautiful sound I have ever heard.
 

Isabella stops when she hears something. She smiles at me and then turns to the door. “We are coming, Mom,” she says in a sweet voice.
 

She stands from the table, and I do the same. She grabs my hand again, and we start walking down a hallway that turns darker with each step. We take another step and an unbearable pain forms in my chest. I stop walking, and she looks up at me curiously.
 

“Come on, Daddy.” She tugs at my hand again.
 

I shake my head. “I’m sorry. I can’t. It hurts too much.”
 

She smiles at me in her sweet way. “We have to go. We have to find Mommy.”
 

She tugs at my hand again, and the pain returns when I take another step into the darkness. “Come on, Daddy. You can do it. I’ll protect you.”
 

She looks at me with her eyes. Beautiful eyes that are just like her mother’s, and it’s all I need to see to get through the pain. I push through it and follow her. I follow her through the pain.
 

I stand as soon as he comes. I can’t let this go any farther. Not when Landon is passed out in the next room. Not when I still have a chance with him.
 

“What? What do you mean it was you?”

Drew shakes his head as if he can’t believe his life. “I mean it was me that night, not Landon.”
 

I replay the memory over in my head. He’s wrong. It was Landon. I would know. I was there. It was the most memorable night of my life. I try to draw my hand back from Drew’s, but he doesn’t let go. He just keeps holding it and rubbing his thumb across my palm.
 

I look out at the ocean as I take another bite of my grilled cheese that has gone slightly cold. Drew’s lost it, is all I think.
 

“It was me, Caroline. I was the one who came back that night, not Landon. I hit your brother with a baseball bat. I broke into your mother’s car and held you all night in the backseat. I gave you the smushed cupcake that I smushed when I dropped it as we were running out of the trailer. I saved for months to get you the perfect pink and purple butterfly clips that I knew would match your dress. Your favorite dress that you wore at least once a week, and I knew you’d be wearing that day.”

My mouth falls open when he tells specific details that only the person who saved me that night would know. I turn to look at him with tears in my eyes that match the ones in his eyes. “It was me.”
 

“How? How did I not know?”
 

He smiles at me and wipes the tears from my cheek. “You used to always get Landon and me mixed up. Back then, we dressed alike, and no one could tell us apart. We never corrected you. We thought it was funny. The best part of being a twin.” He pauses. “That night, you only said Landon’s name once right before you fell asleep in my arms. I didn’t bother correcting you because it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter if you knew it was Landon or me because if Landon had been there, he would have done the same thing. He just got the short end of the straw that night. He had to go home to take care of Dad while I got to take care of you.”
 

More tears fall. Everything I thought my whole life about Landon is wrong. He didn’t save me that night. Drew did.
 

I watch Drew take a deep breath before he smiles at me. “It doesn’t change anything. I just needed to know. Now, I do. I saved you that night. He saved you another night. That’s how it always was. We all protected each other, but fate knew that you belonged with Landon, not me.”
 

His hand moves from my hand to my stomach, and then he quickly removes his hand leaving me empty as he gets up and walks back inside.
 

“Drew,” I beg as I follow him. He stops but doesn’t look at me.
 

“I didn’t know. If I had known ...”
 

“It wouldn’t have changed anything. This is what was supposed to happen. You’re supposed to have Landon’s baby. We had our one night. A night I will never forget. A night when I told you how I feel.”
 

He touches my cheek gently with his hand. “I love you, Caroline. I always have. I fell in love with you that night. You fell in love too. You just fell in love with him.”
 

He removes his hand from my cheek and walks away again. And I know if I let him go, he won’t ever pursue me again. He’s letting me go. He’s letting me go to be with Landon. If I let him go, he’ll just be an uncle and a friend but never anything more.
 

I don’t know what I want anymore. My whole life, since that night, I thought I did. I wanted the boy who saved me when I was eight. I just thought that boy was Landon.
 

Now, I don’t know what I want. Except I feel my heart beating rapidly in my chest. I feel my breath catch. My heart still knows what it wants. It wants the boy who saved me when I was eight.
 

Infinity. The number of people I will help heal.
 

It only takes me a couple of seconds to get the pin out of my prosthetic leg, but it takes me what seems like hours to get the pin to unlock the handcuffs. Each second that I don’t get it to unlock is another second that Landon has to hold on. Each second might be one second too long. It might be the second when Landon can no longer be saved.
 

I wish Landon were awake. He’s broken into my condo before. He knows how to pick a lock. I don’t. I just know I have to. It’s the only way to save him.
 

I don’t know what’s different this time when I push the pin into the lock, but I feel it spring free, releasing one of my hands.
 

“Just hold on, Landon. I’m coming. Just one more.” I begin picking the second lock, and this time, it unlocks much faster now that I can see. When it springs free, I jump off the bed and go to Landon.
 

“I’m here. Everything’s going to be okay.” I’m practically crying as I say it. I put my hand on his wound in the center of his stomach. There is blood, too much blood, soaking his stomach and chest. I crawl the foot or two to grab some clothes out of the dresser drawer and press it to his wound, but I’m not sure if it really helps.
 

“You’re going to be okay. Just keep breathing.” I watch his chest barely move at all as he breathes. I remove the tape from his mouth hoping it will help him breathe, and it seems to help as he gasps when it’s removed, but he doesn’t wake up.
 

I want to remove the rest of the duct tape, but first, I have to call for help. Landon needs an ambulance. Now. I don’t know where my phone is, so I search Landon’s pockets and find his phone. I dial 911 and tell them the address. I’m instructed to hold pressure on the wound until they get there so that’s what I do while I begin removing the duct tape.
 

“They are coming, Landon,” I say as I fumble with the tape. “They are coming. Just hold on a little longer. You’re going to make it.”
 

I hear the garage door open and close which makes me jump. There is no way that an ambulance or police got here so fast. It’s Ethan.
 

My heart races as I try to form a plan. All I care about is that he doesn’t hurt Landon. He has to survive. He has a child he has to protect. Landon has to live.
 

I grab my prosthetic limb and slip it on quickly. I grab one of the shirts and shorts and the gun that’s lying on the floor.
 

Then I lean down and kiss Landon on the lips. “I love you. Hold on for her.”
 

I have to draw Ethan away. I have to protect Landon for just a few more minutes. Ethan will come after me, not Landon. So I get up and I run, and I hope like hell that Ethan runs after me.
 

***

I run down the stairs as fast as I can despite the fact that my leg is missing a pin, and the prosthetic could fall apart at any second. I throw a t-shirt and shorts on the best I can as I tumble down the stairs.
 

I run to the front door, but I don’t see Ethan. He has to see me leave. He has to come after me. It’s the only way to keep him away from Landon. I open the front door trying to be as loud as possible. “Ethan!”
 

I see him round the corner from the kitchen. His face shows a look of disbelief for just a second, and then he cocks his head and smirks at me. Our eyes lock for a just a second longer and then I run.
 

I run for my life.
 

I run for Landon.
 

I run for James and Daniel.
 

I run for all of the girls who were never given a chance to run.
 

I feel Ethan running behind me, but I don’t look back. I just run. I have to get him as far away from the house as possible. As long as he’s running, he won’t stop to go after Landon. That’s the only person left who needs saving.
 

I run faster than I’ve ever run before. I run past houses, but no one bothers to look out their window to see me. To save me. I no longer care about surviving; I just care about running.
 

My breathing is hard and fast as my legs take me farther up the road. I hear him panting behind me, but I won’t let him catch me not as long as my feet keep moving.
 

I reach the hill that leads to a main street. If I can just make it up the hill without him catching me, I’ll be safe. All of us will be safe. I pick up speed as I begin running up the hill. I run fast. Faster than I ever have before.
 

I make it halfway up the hill when I hear his panting and footsteps stop. He’s given up. Or he’s going back to the house to get Landon.
 

I turn my head for just a second to see what he’s doing. That second is just long enough for me to make a mistake. I feel myself tumbling to the ground as my prosthetic gets caught on something. A rock most likely that makes the remaining pin come loose rendering the prosthetic useless. The side of my face lands on the hard cement.
 

I immediately roll over to look at Ethan. I point my gun in his direction and watch him smile at me as he walks closer until he’s less than a foot away.
 

“Don’t move,” I say gripping the gun tighter so close to pulling the trigger.
 

“Or you’ll shoot?” He raises his eyebrows at me. “You won’t shoot me.”
 

“Yes, I will.”
 

He shakes his head and then pulls out bullets from his pocket. “You don’t think I’m crazy enough to leave you alone with a loaded gun.”
 

My eyes widen. It can’t be. I pull the trigger begging a bullet to fly out and hit him, but none does. It’s empty. The gun is empty. I toss it to the side and begin crawling backward up the hill while keeping my eye on Ethan.
 

He just walks calmly toward me each time I move back. He pulls a large knife out of his pocket and holds it casually in his hands.
 

I hear sirens in the distance, which causes Ethan to pause for just a second.
 

“What did you do?”
 

Now, it’s my turn to smile. My heart calms, and my breathing returns to normal.
 

“I saved Landon,” I say. “I might die, but he’s not going to die.” I smile as the sirens get louder. The sound of a car engine coming up the road is music to my ears. “But you are.”

When the pain was too much to bear

You saved me.
 

The second she left, my eyes open. I tried so hard when she was holding me and keeping me alive, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t show her that I was alive.
 

But feeling her leave knowing that she was doing it to protect me gave me enough strength to fight through the fog and the pain to open my eyes. Just opening my eyes is painful physically and emotionally. Physically because it fucking hurts to be shot in the stomach, and it doesn’t just hurt where the bullet entered my body. It fucking hurts everywhere.
 

And emotionally it kills me to be away from her. I know I need to stay alive for my daughter who has yet to be born, just as she said. But I don’t want to live in a world where she’s not breathing. I won’t do it.
 

So I move. So slowly that I’m not even sure I am moving. But I do. Every fucking centimeter it takes for me to sit up. I put one hand on my stomach trying to keep myself from losing any more blood while the other removes the last piece of tape from my leg that Alex hadn’t removed.
 

I somehow stand. I don’t know how. I don’t know if it’s the fucking adrenaline they say you get when going through a life-or-death situation or if it’s something else. Like love. I don’t care what it is, but whatever force greater than me keeps me moving. I move down the hall. I tumble down the stairs. I move through the house to the garage. And then I climb into the first car I see. Her car. Tessie.

I put the car in reverse and pull the car out of the garage. It screeches as I turn it. She could have gone one of two directions. Down the hill would have been easier, but there is nothing there but woods. Up the street is harder, but she could have made it to civilization. A chance she could have made it to somewhere safe.