#Selfie (Hashtag Series Book 4) (20 page)

Ivy

Blood and tears stained my vision.

Pain was in the air.

My hands shook uncontrollably.

I dialed the phone.

Braeden

“Is that my phone?” Rimmel called out from the bathroom, the running water muffling her voice slightly.

“Yeah,” I yelled back.

“Pick it up! It’s probably Romeo.”

I snatched the cell off the table beside the couch and glanced down at the screen. It wasn’t Rome. And that meant it probably didn’t matter if I answered it or not.

But I did anyway.

The second I silenced the ring and put it up to my ear, I anticipated hearing her voice. I tried not to think too much about that. Before I could even muster a hello or what do you want, she started talking. Words rushed out of her mouth so fast and wobbly my hand tightened around the phone.

“Rimmel? Thank God you picked up. It’s bad, really bad,” Ivy said, and her voice caught on nearly every other word.

“What the hell is going on?” I practically growled. Tension coiled inside me so tightly I was afraid a piece of me might snap.

“B-Braeden?” Her voice wobbled again. I heard the distinct sound of tears there.

“Are you crying?” I demanded. I started pacing, not even thinking about it, but moving quickly around the room and toward the door.

“Y-y-yes.” She sniffed.

“Where are you?” I ground out. “Did someone hurt you?”

“Don’t yell at me,” she said pathetically.

That’s when I knew she was really upset. Usually, when she thought I was yelling, she would yell back.

Pinching the bridge of my nose with my forefinger and thumb, I pulled in a breath. “I didn’t mean to yell. I’m just worried. Please tell me what’s going on.”

A sob broke over the line, and I rushed to snatch my keys off the coffee table. Rimmel was standing beside the couch with a worried expression on her face.

“I was on my way over. It came out of nowhere.” Her voice shook. “I didn’t mean to hit it.”

Okay, she was in an accident. She might be hurt. I needed to get there. I flung open the door and rushed outside.

Behind me, Rimmel was calling my name and ran out behind me.

I stopped and turned. “Stay here. I’ll be back.”

“What’s going on?”

“Ivy just needs some help.”

“I can—”

“No,” I said harshly. “I’ll be back.”

My tone drew her up short. I’d never talked to her like that before. I hadn’t meant to, but I was going out of my damn mind.

“Where are you?” I asked Ivy as I climbed into the truck and slammed the door.

“A few blocks away. I just came over that small bridge,” she said, hollow, like she was focused on something else. She started crying again. The sounds of her soft sniffles had me pressing down on the gas and tearing out of the driveway and up the street.

I knew where she was. She was by Old River Crossing. It was a small bridge, not even a quarter mile long, that drove over Old River that ran through town.

“Ivy, are you hurt?” I tore around the corner and down the next street. I was just two blocks away now. I’d be there in seconds.

“What?” She was totally distracted. “I-I’m not sure.”

My tires squealed when I took the next turn, and the sound of the V8 under my hood roared through the darkness. I hadn’t seen any other cars on the road. It was late, but not so late that other people wouldn’t be out. I knew I should slow down, exercise some caution, but it was physically impossible.

She needed me.

I was going to get there.

Up ahead, a car on the side of the road came into view. It was parked crookedly, and the driver’s door was wide open. The headlights were on, and I could see her outline standing in the dark, beside her car.

What the fuck was she doing standing there in the dark on the side of the road by herself?

My God, this woman was going to put me in an early grave.

Slamming on the brakes, I skidded to a stop just behind her little car. I hit the END CALL button on the phone and tossed it on the seat. The truck was left running when I leapt out and rushed around the side.

“Ivy!”

“Braeden,” she sobbed and rushed toward me. Her phone was still clutched at her ear like she didn’t realize we could talk without it.

The second she was close enough, she wrapped her arms around my waist and pressed against me as close as she could. Her body was shaking like a delicate leaf in a windstorm.

“Hey,” I murmured. Some of my fear she was seriously injured cleared because she was finally in my arms. That had been the longest short drive of my life.

“What happened?” I rubbed her back and noted she wasn’t wearing a jacket. It was spring, but when the sun went down, it got cold. How long had she been out here? She was probably freezing.

She forced her head back and looked up at me with a tear-streaked face. With the harsh light from my headlights, she looked like a ghost. “It’s suffering. It’s all my fault.” Her voice rose and hysteria started to creep in.

I brushed back the blond strands that had gotten stuck in her tears and held her face so I could look at her. “What’s suffering?”

She drew in a breath and wrapped her hand around mine. I let her lead me around the front of the car, but she didn’t have to point out what I was supposed to see. My eyes went right to it.

There on the side of the road, where the pavement turned to loose gravel and then gave way to grass, was a large deer.

“It came out of nowhere. I tried to stop. I tried to swerve.” She started crying, burying her face in her hands.

“It’s okay.” I tried to pry her hands away.

“It’s not!” she yelled and pointed to the animal. “Look at him! It’s been struggling for minutes. It keeps trying to get up, but it can’t. It’s bleeding…” She stared at it, almost transfixed. “It’s dying.”

I wrapped a hand around her chin and forced her eyes away. “Stop looking,” I commanded.

“How long is it going to lie there and suffer? Its last moments of life will be nothing but pain and panic, and it’s all my fault.”

A fat, glistening tear fell out of her eye and rolled down her cheek. Her eyes squeezed shut as her chest heaved, and the tear dripped onto my hand and slid across my skin.

“Aw, baby,” I whispered. “I’m gonna make it stop.”

Her eyes reopened and focused on me. I released her chin and walked through the beams of the headlights. The animal was definitely struggling, and it definitely wasn’t easy to watch. I could almost smell its fear in the air when I drew closer. As I came forward, it panicked more, its already wide eyes going even bigger.

I talked to it softly, kindly, trying to convey I wasn’t here to make it hurt.

I was going to take away its pain.

I didn’t want to do this. But if I didn’t, Ivy would stand here and cry until every last breath drained from its body. She would beat herself up over the way it was suffering, over the way it hurt.

Blood smeared its light-colored fur, and one of its legs was completely twisted. It was a female, something I hoped Ivy didn’t realize and something I didn’t plan on sharing with her when this was done. I swept the surrounding roadside for any fawns waiting anxiously nearby, but thank God this doe seemed to be alone.

“Hey, there,” I murmured when I was close enough to touch it.

The animal stilled, like maybe it could fool me into thinking it wasn’t there anymore.

“Sometimes life sucks, huh?” I said, taking another tentative step closer. She was watching me out of the corner of her eyes and her breathing was very labored.

Several feet away, Ivy called my name. I held up my hand so she would stay where she was.

“This isn’t something I wanna do,” I told the doe, “but sometimes the hard thing is the best thing. At least this way you’ll have some peace.”

I moved swiftly, wrapping my arms around the neck of the animal. She was already growing weaker; her struggles weren’t enough to keep me back.

I took a deep breath and shut my eyes.

Then I broke her neck.

The distinct cracking sound was so loud to my ears that I stood there for long moments wondering if I’d gone deaf.

The animal was limp and lifeless in my arms, and when I realized it was over, I lowered it to the ground. Because she was partially still in the road, I dragged the body into the grass, near the trees.

I hoped she was at peace.

When it was done, I turned back to go to Ivy. I faltered when I saw she was only steps away. Her rounded, wide eyes were fixed on the deer and her lower lip was trembling. I pulled off the lightweight athletic jacket I was wearing, draped it around her shoulders, and tucked it underneath her chin. She didn’t seem to notice.

“There’s no more pain,” I whispered, palming the back of her head. “He’s at peace now.”

Ivy sank into me, and I felt her shoulders shake with silent tears. I held her close, as tight as I dared. Most women were full of drama; they liked to turn on the tears when they thought it would get them somewhere.

But Ivy wasn’t most women.

I guess I’d never realized that until very recently.

Or maybe I had. Maybe I just hadn’t wanted to admit it to myself.

She wasn’t being dramatic right now. She was genuinely hurting, genuinely in pain over this animal. The fact that she hadn’t kept on driving after she hit it said a lot. Instead, she pulled over, got out, and called someone for help.

Calling my sister wasn’t the best form of help. I’d have to tell her that. But later, when she wasn’t crying in my arms.

Rimmel was so sensitive to animals; they both would have stood here on the side of the road and cried. Two women blubbering on the side of the road, in the dark, all alone.

Damn.

I knew Rimmel needed looking after, but it was crystal clear that Ivy needed the same.

Thank Jesus I picked up the phone tonight.

“C’mon,” I whispered and tucked her into my side. “Let’s go. You’re freezing.”

“We’re just going to leave it there?” she asked, craning her neck to look back.

I blocked her view with my arm. “Did you want to have a funeral for it?” I asked. I deserved an Academy Award for making that sound sincere and not snide.

She tipped her head back and looked up at me with wide, pain-filled eyes. “You would do that?”

Something in my chest squeezed, and I’m pretty sure my heart skipped a beat. “If that’s what you need to feel better, then yes, baby, I would.” In that second, I meant it. I would give a damn sermon over the body of that animal right then if it meant giving her any peace.

“Don’t call me that.” She looked down.

I tipped her face back up. “What?”

“Baby.”

Shit. I called her baby?

“Why not?” I asked. I was supposed to tell her she’d been hearing things. That grief was making her cuckoo.

“Because I like it.” Her voice was deep and scratched from all the crying she’d been doing.

Now was not the time to get a hard-on.

Now was not the time for a serious case of stiff dick.

I just killed a deer. I was on the side of a road. I was comforting a girl who literally drove me insane every chance she got.

But I called her baby.

And she liked it.

I brushed the pad of my thumb over her bottom lip and tucked her beneath my arm. “C’mon, Blondie. Time to go.”

“Prada is in the car. I left her there. I didn’t want her to see…”

“Okay, I’ll get her.” I promised and got the dog and the other stuff she had piled in the front of the car. I took all her stuff, including the dog, to my truck. When I came back, she was still standing in the same spot, seemingly staring off in space like she forgot where we were.

After parking her car neatly on the side of the road, I cut the lights and engine. I made sure it was locked up before I shut the door.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“We’ll come back for it in the morning.”

“Just leave it here?”

Why did this surprise her? Did she really think I’d let her behind the wheel of a car right now? She was beyond upset, and it was dark. Since she’d just managed to mow down an animal when she was in her right state of mind, I wasn’t about to risk what she’d do now.