Page 102 of Protected from Torment

So I quickly send the location to my phone, then leap up from the couch. As I sprint for the door, I try calling Mel one more time. Hoping against hope that this will be the time she answers.

Once again, the call goes to voicemail.

This time, instead of asking Mel to call me back, I leave a different message.

“I’m on my way,” I tell her. “Just hang on until I get there.” My voice catches. “And Mel. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before. But I love you.”

CHAPTER 20

MELISSA

I really screwed up this time.

If I’d just been paying closer attention, this wouldn’t have happened. But how could I not be distracted?

I thought going back into the woods might help me sort through my thoughts. Possibly even come up with a solution to the mess I’m in.

Guilt pricks at me, and my hand instinctively comes to my lower abdomen. Not a mess, I silently tell the life growing inside me. You’re not a mess. Never you. But everything else… I’m just not sure what to do.

I hold my hand still for a few seconds, as though I might be able to feel a flutter of movement in acknowledgement. It’s a silly thing to imagine, given that the baby couldn’t be more than six or seven weeks. But still, I can’t help wishing.

The fear I’ve been trying to contain makes a bid to escape. It keeps getting bigger and fiercer with every minute that passes. Despite the reassurances I’ve been trying to tell myself—babies that small are well protected, I’m not having any cramps, there isn’t any bleeding—it’s not much help. All I keep thinking is that something bad happened to it, and it’s all my fault.

A small, wounded sound escapes, and along with it, a fresh flood of tears. “I’m sorry,” I whisper to my belly. “Please stay with me. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

There’s no answer, of course. The only sounds are the whisper of rustling leaves from the branches overhead, and the gentle panting of Oscar, sitting beside me.

Sensing my distress, Oscar nudges my arm. His ears are tucked back, and his tail is down. Worried eyes meet mine, and if he could talk, I swear he’d be telling me how sorry he is.

I swallow hard against the lump in my throat. My breath comes in shudders as I try to stop crying. Oscar whines and butts my arm with his nose again.

“It’s not your fault,” I tell him. Giving him a little scratch between his ears, I add, “I should have been paying better attention.”

But I ran after the squirrel, his eyes seem to say. I’m the one who pulled you off balance. It’s my fault you’re down here. And I’m so sorry.

“It’s not your fault,” I repeat. Then I lean over to hug him, ignoring the flare of pain from the movement. Burying my face in his fur, I squeeze my eyes shut while I breathe in his familiar, comforting scent. “It’s not your fault, Oskie. And you’re a very good boy for staying with me.”

At the words, good boy, his tail gives a tiny wag, but it quickly droops again.

He’s not convinced.

But I am. It’s my fault I’m stuck at the bottom of a hill I didn’t even know existed. Not his.

After all, if I’d been paying attention to my surroundings instead of walking distractedly through them, I’d have reacted faster when Oscar spotted the two squirrels as they made their mad dash through the forest. Oscar’s well-trained, but the temptation of not one squirrel, but two? And both of them chittering away, making it impossible not to notice them?

If I’d been more aware, I would have warned Oscar before he lunged at them. But my mind was somewhere between moving back to South Carolina to stay with my parents and Tyler’s betrayed expression as he accused me of tricking him.

So I didn’t stop Oscar. And he went darting off into the thick of the trees, using all eighty pounds of his body to drag me along with him.

If circumstances had been different, I might have ended up with some scrapes and scratches, but that would have been the worst of it.

Except these circumstances involved me getting towed to the edge of a surprisingly steep slope that drops to a narrow stream beneath. And while Oscar managed to avoid falling down it, I wasn’t as lucky.

So I went tumbling down a good ten-foot drop before landing half-in, half-out of an icy cold stream. I tried to slow my descent by grabbing onto a tree on the way, but all I managed to do was peel off a few layers of skin on my hands.

When I first landed, stunned and breathless, I didn’t feel anything.

But then I tried to get back up, and my body resisted. My head spun from the hard rap it received from a rock at the edge of the water. My ribs screamed from the motion. And the moment I put weight on my left leg, my ankle folded beneath me.