Chasing Spring(58)

I would have killed him. Had I walked in five minutes later and Lilah’s shirt been on the ground or her pants unbuttoned, I would have destroyed him.

I heard commotion in the kitchen and I knew I only had a few seconds before Blake came in to help out his friend. I looked Trent straight in the eye and then tossed him to the ground. He crumbled to a heap and clutched his legs into the fetal position. He was prepared for more abuse, but it wasn’t coming.

I needed to get Lilah out of the trailer before things got worse.

Blake was yelling in the kitchen as I reached down to scoop her up off the bed. She stirred in my arms, blinking her eyes open just barely.

“I was just dreaming of you,” she whispered, rolling her head toward my chest and inhaling.

“Are you my angel?” she asked with a small smile. “You smell like one.”

My heart broke.

“Lilah, can you hear me?” I asked, trying to keep her awake and cognizant.

“Silly, silly, silly. Your mom tried to be my mom's angel, but she didn't know she'd get her wish.” She tapped her finger against my chest in time with her words. “I don't want you to end up an angel,” she crooned, nestling against my chest and continuing to mumble. “I can't be saved. We can't be saved. Don’t you see that?”

She was laughing, a soft, quiet laugh that turned dark. Suddenly, her smile contorted and she squeezed her eyes closed as she started to cry.

“I’ll only hurt you.”

“You can't hurt me,” I argued, though I knew it was pointless. She wouldn’t remember any of this in the morning.

“I already have,” she slurred.

I glanced up to see Blake standing in the doorway gripping a long kitchen knife. Sweat collected on his brow and he fidgeted on his feet, nervous despite the fact that he was the one wielding a weapon.

“Get out of my house,” he yelled, pointing the knife out toward me. “NOW!”

I should have been nervous. He was a maniac with a knife, but with Lilah in my arms, there was no room for fear.

I stepped toward him and he stepped back. I knew he wouldn’t use the knife. He was holding it out like he was going to do something with it, but he was scared. The blade bobbled back and forth in his shaky hand. He backed up into the kitchen, careful not to stumble over his feet. Everyone was gone.

“Where's Ashley?” I asked.

“She gone. I kicked ’em out,” Blake answered gruffly. I'd have to take his word for it. I needed to get Lilah out of there.

He backed up to the kitchen counter and trailed my every move with his knife. The blade was only a foot away from me; he could have reached out and used it, but he backed up and ran for the bedroom to help Trent.

I kicked the front door open and walked out into the quiet woods without glancing back. Had Blake been a little bolder, maybe he would have thought seriously about using that knife, but when it came down to it, guys like him were cowards. Drugging girls to take advantage of them was a testament to that.

I held Lilah up with my knee while I opened the door to my truck. Once she was lying across the bench seat, I rounded the front, slid inside, and propped her head up on my lap.

After her slurred speech in Blake's trailer, she'd drifted off. I couldn't tell if she was sleeping or passed out, but I made sure to keep checking her pulse as I drove the few miles back to the hospital.

I carried her into the emergency room and did my best to ignore everyone’s stares. I could only imagine how bad we looked. I was carrying my girlfriend in my arms, she was unconscious, and I was covered in mud and sweat.

I walked up to the nurse sitting behind the glass window, relieved to find that she wasn’t the one I’d dealt with earlier. As soon as she saw Lilah in my arms, she hopped up and buzzed the swinging doors so I could step back into the hallway. She pulled out a rolling bed from a spare room and I laid Lilah on top of it as I began to explain the situation as best I could.

“My girlfriend was drugged at a party. I don't know what they gave her, but her breathing has been inconsistent since I got to her. She was awake and talking for a second, but she hasn’t said anything in a while.”

The nurse nodded and started wheeling Lilah down the hallway. I moved to follow after her but a police officer stepped up and blocked my path. I tried to look past him to figure out where they were taking Lilah, but his burly shoulders made it impossible to see around him.

“Would you mind coming with me for a moment, son?” His dark eyes stared down at me and I knew he thought I’d had something to do with the drugs.

Despite my protests, the police officer led me to a conference room down the hall. It was small, with a simple round table and six plastic chairs positioned around it. A white dry-erase board took up one entire wall and there was still writing on it from a previous meeting, a bunch of medical jargon I didn’t understand.

“Take a seat,” he instructed.

I had to fight to control my temper. I’d just lived through six hours of hell and now I was about to get interrogated by an officer. It was complete bullshit.

“So you brought your friend in after she'd been drugged. Were you two at a party?” he asked, leaning forward to rest his hands on the top of the table.

I sighed and started from the beginning. I described my afternoon: rushing to the hospital to take care of my father who was still in room 178, probably passed out from the morphine they were giving him for the pain. I told him about Ashley's phone call, described Blake as best as I could, and gave the officer his address. Somewhere in the middle of my explanation his brows relaxed and he took a seat across from me, dropping the tough guy act altogether.