The Single Dad (The Dalton Family #3)(88)

I turned around and looked at Eve.

Her head was slumped forward.

Her hands limp.

“Oh God, Everly!”

There were noises outside.

More sounds that I couldn’t process.

Shouting.

A horn that wouldn’t stop blaring.

“Everly!”

I needed her to lift her head.

I needed to hear her voice.

I needed her to respond.

Why is she silent?

Why is her head down?

I reached for my seat belt, every bone aching as I got it undone. “Everly!”

Ford was holding his left arm in the air while he was trying to get his door open. “Everly, answer us. Talk to Daddy; tell me you’re not hurt.” His wrist was bent in an awkward direction, telling me something was seriously wrong with it. “Everly, talk to me.”

“Stay there,” I told him. “Your arm is broken. I’ve got her.” I freed myself and got onto my knees, turning toward the backseat. I grabbed her leg, shaking it, trying to gain her attention. “Everly, look at me, baby.” I waited. “Are you okay?”

As she lifted her head, her expression stabbed me in the chest.

A blast of concern now bubbling inside me.

Pain was etched across her face.

Her skin was pale, ghostly.

She took in a breath, her lips slowly parting, her eyes filling. “Daddy …” The first tear dripped, followed by many more. “It hurts.” And then, “Help … Daddy.”

“I can’t open”—Ford slammed his fist into the door, shaking the SUV—“the fucking door. Get me the fuck out of this car!”

“You’re going to hurt yourself even worse,” I cried out to him.

“I don’t give a fuck. I need to get to my daughter.”

“I’m climbing back there right now.” I slid through the small opening between our seats and landed on the seat beside Everly’s. “Tell me where it hurts.” I gently touched one leg and said, “Here?”

She didn’t answer.

She just looked at me, confusion filling her eyes.

“How about here—”

“Ow!” she shouted when I reached her belly.

“What’s going on, Sydney?! Tell me what’s wrong!”

I lifted her shirt; a large bruise was forming on her abdomen.

“Oh God, Ford, there’s a bruise on her side.”

What does that mean?

I touched her forehead.

She was sweaty.

Not like when she’d been hiking.

This was clamminess that was growing across her face, seeping through her arms and legs.

As the tears fell from her eyes, she glanced toward the window, the glass cracked like a giant spiderweb. “Daddy … where am I?”

My heart catapulted into the back of my throat. “You don’t know where you are?”

“Everly, tell me what’s wrong, baby,” Ford said. “Tell me what you’re seeing.”

She looked at me, dazed.

“Everly?” I said.

“Daddy … head hurts.” She lifted her hand to her eye and winced.

Fuck.

“Ford, she looks confused.”

My fingers shook as I touched her.

My stomach churned.

“Ford—”

“Something’s wrong!” he yelled. “Something’s fucking wrong!”

I didn’t realize he had turned around and was leaning across the opening I’d climbed through, his hand on Everly’s thigh.

“She needs a doctor,” I told him. “Call 911.”

I couldn’t stay calm.

I couldn’t stop the worry.

As I stared at him, his arm dangling, the position of it even worse now, he reached for the door again and tried to pry it off. “Open the fuck up!”

The movement shook Everly, and I screamed, “Ford, stop!”

“I need out. I need to get a fucking doctor.”

He was stuck.

That only left me.

When I turned toward my door, someone was opening it.

“Is everyone all right in here?”

“No!” I gasped. “Call 911!” I pushed myself off the seat, rushing past the person who had opened my door, and yelled, “I need a doctor!”

My ears buzzed, and my eyes blinked as I took in all the chaos.

People.

Cars.

Everywhere.

A mix of voices, a jumble of words I could barely make out.

But enough that I heard, “Call 911.”

“Break the fucking window.”

“Shouldn’t we wait until the ambulance arrives?”

“What if she dies?”

“They’re on their way. Two minutes out.”

I put my hands over my ears, trying to block out everything everyone was saying.

But the moment I had them secured like earmuffs, there was a hand on my arm, shaking me, forcing my attention toward them.

It was a woman.

She was now holding my shoulders and said, “Help is on the way. We called 911.”

I clung to her arms. “She needs help,” I panted. “Everly needs help.”

“Don’t worry, honey; they’re close. Can’t you hear them?”