Path of Destruction (Broken Heartland, #2)(3)

“We found you alone. No one else was in the cellar,” her Dad insisted, exchanging a wary glance with her mother.

“Our best guess is that the wind caught the door and it hit you in the head,” her mother explained. “Luckily the car was okay and we were able to track your location on the GPS when we could get a hold of you.”

Should have stayed in the damn car.

The tears that had welled in her eyes started to spill down her cheeks, sending her mother into a tailspin of emotions right along with her.

“We’re just so glad you are okay,” her mom said, taking her hand. “That’s what’s important right now. That you’re okay.”

“I’m okay,” Cami whispered, more as a question than a confirmation.

She wasn’t okay though. She felt sick to her stomach that it took her almost dying to make her parents realize that she was alive. Her halfhearted “I’m okay” was all she could muster. With her parents fawning over her and telling her that she’d been alone during the storm, she couldn’t rationalize a damn thing.

Whatever else they were about to say was interrupted by a knock on her hospital room door. A familiar face stood in the doorframe. The bright-yellow daisies in his hands and the comforting smile of his lips were the first bright spots she’d seen since she’d woken up from what was sure to continue to be a nightmare.





Ella Jane felt herself waking up, felt the greedy hands of consciousness clawing at her, dragging her to a place she didn’t want to be.

Alive.

She fought to hold on, to stay under, to remain in the depths of sleep, the in between, where he was still alive. Where she was still whole.

His voice lingered in her mind, the one she knew as well as her own. The one she knew she wouldn’t hear again unless she was fortunate enough to dream of him.

Don’t go. Please, please don’t go. Stay. Please stay with me, she pleaded silently.

But just as it had every day for the week since his funeral, daylight broke across her bedroom. Glaring sunlight exposing the harsh truths. The scent of sweat and unwashed hair surrounded her. Her pillow was still damp from crying herself to sleep only a few hours ago.

She’d thought her dad leaving had been the hardest thing she’d ever live through. She would’ve let out a harsh laugh, but her mouth was too dry. She couldn’t care less what her dad did now. All those nights of praying for him to come back just pissed her off. Now she could hear his low solemn voice downstairs, even over the steady hammering of roofers repairing the house, and she wanted to scream. She didn’t want him here. What a stupid wasteful thing she’d done, wishing for someone who didn’t want her.

Just like she’d done with Cooper.

She’d had someone who loved her, who truly loved her, and who she could trust and actually count on, and had she gotten on her knees and thanked the universe for him every day? No.

She’d taken him for granted. And now he was gone. And she was…empty.

Her heart pumped blood and her lungs inhaled and expelled air, but other than that, she might as well have ceased to exist.

The thickening ache in her throat remained, reminding her that she had to swallow over it, and that, eventually, people were going to get sick of her silence and demand that she speak.

But she couldn’t. There were no words. Once she opened her mouth and uttered a single syllable, it would be real. She would exist, living, breathing, speaking, in a world that he was no longer a part of.

No.

She wouldn’t.

Despite the pitying looks, the whispers, and the gossip, she would keep her silence. The last words she spoken, she’d spoken to him.

And they’d led him right to his death.





“It’s really good to see you,” Cami said after her parents had excused themselves from the room.

Hayden took a seat next to her bedside after he put the bouquet of daisies he’d picked up for her in the hospital gift shop.

“You too. How are you feeling?”

“A little confused,” she confessed. “And I’ve got a throbbing headache.” She gave him a taut smile as she drew her hand up to her bandaged head. “Are you okay?” she asked, pulling her hand from his and pointing at the cast and sling he was wearing.

“Just a slightly fractured arm. Cast comes off in a few weeks.” He shrugged. “Nothing I can’t handle. Doctors say I’ll still be able to play lacrosse long as I go to my physical therapy and everything.”

“I’m so sorry about your grandpa,” Cami offered. “My parents sent flowers. But I wish I could have been at the funeral for you.”

“Don’t worry about that,” he insisted. “You were a little busy being comatose and all.”

She smiled and for the first time since the storm, he felt like he was saying the right things. Lying to his grandma and his parents taking everything he said with a grain of salt had him second-guessing his usually self-assured ways.

“Guess we were the lucky ones, huh?”

“I guess. If, by lucky, you mean alive,” he said quietly. “Over a dozen people were killed that night. The reports are still coming in.”

The look of shock and sadness on her face told him that no one had told her all the facts about that night.

“God. That’s awful. Anyone else we knew?”