Sidewalk Flower (48 page)

“What do you think happened?
 
What exactly did Trista say?” Stefan asked,
surprisingly not out of breath.

Feeling his lungs burn not just from the
running but from the fierce fireball of worry erupting inside him, he did his
best to keep up with Stefan.
 
“I just
know she’s in trouble.
 
She sounded
pissed but very scared.
 
The only thing
she got out was that she needed help.
 
Then the phone must have fallen because after that, she never came back
on the line.”
 
He winced at the unknown.

“Could you hear anything else in the
background?”

He bit the inside of his lips, recalling
the unreal sounds.
 
“Some slamming and I
think breaking glass.
 
There was some
shouting.”

Stefan became wide-eyed.
 
“Was it Trista?”

“Maybe once but then it was a man.”

“Was it Jaxon?”

“I assumed it was.
 
But I could be wrong.”

“Well you were obviously right about them
coming back to this venue.”

“That’s where she said she was going when
she’d called me earlier.”

“Fuck, I wonder what the hell’s going
on.
 
Have you tried calling Jaxon?”

He had but with no luck.
 
They continued their sprint.

Stefan brought out his phone and cursed
it.
 
“Shit.”

“What?”

“I have a fucking missed call from
her.
 
It was almost an hour ago.
 
Run fucking faster, Lucky.
 
She wouldn’t have called both of us like this
if it wasn’t really bad.”
  

When they finally made it to Stefan’s
Saab, it was to a scene neither had expected.
 
There, lying on top of Trista was Jaxon.
 
If it hadn’t been for his cousin’s beaten face, he would have gone
straight to kicking Jaxon’s ass for what he’d apparently done.
 
As it was, nothing was clear.

* * * *

His facial swelling had sealed his left
eye shut but Jaxon looked up as two men approached.
  
He didn’t trust the newcomers and would
probably die but he’d pounce if he had to.
 
Trissy stayed lying beneath him, her body shivering but protected, while
thick, tense air settled around them.
 
He
blinked his right eye tightly, trying to focus on the slow moving pairs of legs
and their possible intentions.
 
His
thoughts and reactions felt gummy but then he vaguely recognized the black
leather pants on the one who had moved to within inches of him now.

“Jaxon, hey, it’s all right, man.
 
It’s okay.
 
Hey, you hear me?”
 

“Stefan?”
 
He could kiss mercy’s feet if they were amongst friends right now
because he was close to blacking out.

“Yeah, man.
 
We’re here.
 
You okay, bud?”
 
Slowly, Stefan’s
hand rested on his shoulder but he flinched and Stefan pulled it back.

“We have to get out of here.
 
I don’t know where they went,” he said, his
eyes darting to the surrounding woods.

“Where who went, buddy?”
Stefan asked
but the next thing that struck through was Lucky’s loud, insistent voice.
 

“Trista?
 
Oh my God.
 
What’s wrong with her?
 
What happened,
Jaxon?”

He couldn’t answer his cousin.
 
He was going to need more than fifteen
minutes to sort through the hell that had taken place tonight.
 
As for what was currently wrong with Trissy,
he was sure she was in shock.
 
Physically
she would heal, but mentally, he had no idea where she’d gone hiding.

With no other choice, he ignored Lucky’s
question, which pushed his cousin to lose his cool.
 
“No, you tell me what the hell is wrong with
her, Jaxon.
 
Do we need to get her to the
hospital?
 
What in God’s name happened to
her clothes?”

He made it to his feet, but wasn’t able
to stand straight for the throbbing pain suffusing through his spine and
surrounding muscles.
 
As it was, he toed
up to Lucky’s face as closely and sternly as he could.
 

“Lucky, not now.
 
Okay?”

“I want some answers, Jaxon.”

“I don’t think you do.”

“What the hell is that supposed to
mean?”
 
Lucky’s glare was full of hurt
and anger, his face fixed so tightly he looked like his skull could crack
through a cement block.

“Guys, guys, calm down.
 
Jaxon, you look like shit.
 
Trista shouldn’t be out here.
 
Let’s get her back to the hotel and then
we’ll figure out what comes next.
 
All right?”
 
Stefan
was playing his hand at reason.
 
Luckily,
it worked.

Although it wasn’t in his nature, he shied
away from Lucky’s hostility.
 
He could
only imagine what it must look like.
 
The
kid deserved to know what had happened but it would have to wait.
 
They needed to get out of there and more
importantly, to make sure Trissy came out of her hiding spot.
 
He tried to bend over to scoop her up at the
same time that Stefan and Lucky also lowered in to assist.
 
But he was hurt and had to back off.
 

“We’ve got her, Jaxon.
 
It’s okay, man, we’ve got her,” Stefan said
calmly.
 

He hated it but this time accepted the
pat on his shoulder from his band mate without flinching.
 
Stefan would be able to sense his immense
distrust where Trissy was concerned right now.
 
That he favored being the only one to be this close to her and the shame
that he was too beat up to follow through.
 

“Trista?
 
Trista, hun?
 
You’re safe, okay.
 
We’ve got you.
 
Everything’s going to be okay.”
 
Stefan’s words seemed to fall on hazy ears.
Thank God his friend had the decency to fix what he could of her dress,
ignoring her nakedness, and then cover her with his coat as she remained
propped between his and Lucky’s shoulders.
 

He’d never been more thankful to have
Stefan there but it wasn’t until Lucky spoke that Trissy started to stir.

* * * *

“Come back, darlin’.
 
It’s too cold where you are, come back to the
warmth, hold onto me.”
 
Lucky whispered
into her ear.
 
He had an idea where she’d
gone.
 
The memory seared through his mind
as he remembered meeting her for the first time not so long ago and the wild
weekend that had turned his simple world upside down.
 
He could cry at the sight of her right
now.
 
Had they been alone, he would
have.
 
He regretted ever having left her.

* * * *

Caught between the safe confines where
her mind had hidden her and the delicate male voice taunting her return,
Trista’s hand made one single sweep across the palm that held it now.
 
She blinked her eyes and saw that she was
surrounded by people she loved but it was still too muddled and unstable to
come all the way back.

The eerie way in which her memories
paralleled the present left her hovering in a fog—listening and seeing
everything going on around her, but unable to participate.
 
She was trying her best to keep up with
Stefan, Jaxon and Lucky.

“I’m taking her back to the hotel,
now.”
 
Lucky’s declaration leaped from
his pursed lips.

Jaxon didn’t look pleased with the brash
statement, what with his gritted teeth and the bulging vein near his
temple.
 
She nearly willed herself to
reach out and tell him it was okay now.
 
They seemed safe…enough.
 
But then
Lucky squeezed her hand and the motion acted as a numbing agent, chilling her
to everything else besides the warmth of his touch.
 
She bowed her head, confused at the way it
felt like she was abandoning Jaxon, and watched her feet as they walked her,
one in front of the other, alongside Lucky.

She heard Stefan remind Jaxon that their
goal right now was to get out of there.
 
Had he been arguing otherwise?
 
Stefan must have seen the same face she had, the one that would have
scared her had she not already come up against real monsters tonight.
 
Faintly, she heard Stefan say, “The Saab
isn’t going anywhere until tomorrow when Jimmy unlocks the front entrance.
 
So against your pride, Jaxon, we need to
catch this ride with Lucky.”
 
They walked
a few feet further and then Stefan’s concern turned to her.
 
“How are we gonna get her over the
fence?”
  

Silently she watched them hatch a
plan.
 
Lucky let her hand loose and stood
tall, appearing to measure himself against the locked chain link entrance.
 
About twenty feet further down, the height of
the fence dipped.
 
He hiked down and
compared his stature to that spot.
 
The
fence reached the middle of his chest rather than being even with the top of his
head.
 
He ran back over to them.
 

“I think we’ll be able to get Trista over
without scraping her up too badly,” he said, taking her hand back in his.

 
Apparently to them, she wasn’t in any state to
climb on her own.
 
If she wasn’t so numb
and could feel the pain that surely canvassed her back and limbs, she probably
would have agreed.

“Down there, it’s low enough that you can
raise her up and over and I’ll catch her on the other side.”
 
Lucky ran his idea past Stefan, who at only a
couple inches shorter, quickly agreed.

Once there, Lucky latched his fingers in
through the diamond shaped openings and heaved himself up onto the fence.
 
He leaned into it and then swung a leg over
the top, then the other.
 
He was on the
ground on the other side in just a few short moves.
 

Stefan whispered to her as he carefully
scooped her up into his arms.
 
“It’s
okay, sweetheart, Stefan’s got you.
 
Just
hold on tight and we’ll have you out of here.”

She still had some instincts about her
and clung heavily to Stefan’s neck.

He complimented her bravery.
 
“That’s a girl; hold on tight, just like
that.”

It had to be difficult to climb the fence
with a 130-pound package of bottled up nerves and distress clutching at you,
but Stefan was able to make his way high enough up the fence that he managed to
roll her over onto Lucky’s awaiting shoulders.
 
It wasn’t graceful and had she been more lucid, she may have been
embarrassed at the dogged way they’d strung her up and over.
 
But modesty was the furthest thing from her
fragile mind then and there.
 
Once Lucky
had her positioned over his shoulder, he harnessed her with his right arm and
used only the left to guide his way down to the ground.
 
He could have made a quick leap but the point
had been to make this as smooth a transition as possible.
 

A flood of relief greeted her nerves to
be on the other side.
 
But clarity was
hedging its way slowly through her mind and she wondered if Jaxon would need
the same amount of help from the guys.
 
She wanted him to be as cared for as she had been.
 
So she watched and was warmed by what she
saw.

Stefan reached down and offered Jaxon a
hand.
 
After a series of pain-ridden
winces and heartbreaking grunts, the two cleared the fence and it seemed like
finally this nightmare might be at an end.
 

Stefan and Lucky were situating her in
the truck’s cab when Jaxon
paused,
his fists bleached
white at the knuckles.

“Wait, I’m gonna be sick.”
 

She could hear the belches popping up
from his throat.
 
He stood a few feet
from the open passenger side door and doubled over in heaves of vomit that
caused his body to convulse in waves.
 
His gagging sounds vibrated through the truck, and Stefan hurried out to
check on his friend while Lucky finished securing her in the middle of the
bench seat.
 
All she could do was watch.