When I thought I was far enough away, I dropped to my knees and laid her on the ground. I pulled my shirt over my head and used it to press against a still-bleeding cut on her head. As I did, I looked for bullet wounds, afraid she’d been shot.
All I saw were injuries from the accident, no bullet holes.
“Brae…” She tried to say my name but couldn’t.
My chest heaved just hearing her say anything at all. “I’m here, baby. Thank God you’re alive. Everything’s okay now. I’m calling an ambulance. Stay with me, okay.”
“Always,” she whispered.
I yanked my phone out and called 9-1-1. When the responder came on the line, I told her where I was exactly and begged them to hurry. She asked for details, and I started to give them to her when the sound of Zach’s scream drew my attention.
Ivy whimpered. She must have heard it too.
“Shh, shh,” I said, leaning over her and trying to hold her close without moving her so much.
“Please hurry,” I said into the line. “We need an ambulance. And maybe a fire truck. The car’s leaking gas. I’m afraid it’s going to explode.”
Zach screamed again. “Help!”
I laid the phone next to Ivy and kissed her on the forehead. “I’m gonna be right back, sweetheart.”
“No,” she whimpered. “Stay safe.”
“I promise.”
I ran back to the car where Zach was struggling to get free. His seatbelt must have been tangled or jammed. When he saw me, his eyes turned desperate. “Braeden, help me. I can’t get out.”
I just stood there and stared. I watched him struggle for a few minutes. That dark place I always wrestled with?
I let it consume me.
Zach stopped and looked at me. “You’re not going to help me, are you?”
“No.”
“That’s murder.”
“Murder. Karma. Righting a wrong.” I shrugged. “Call it what you want. Whatever it is, it’s exactly what you deserve.”
He started struggling anew. Panic replacing all smugness on his face.
A small flame lit up from the rear of the car. I stared at it as it grew.
Zach peered out the window and started to beg. “Please help me. Please don’t let me die.”
“Hope you like hell, you son of a bitch.”
I turned around and walked away. He continued to beg, but it fell on deaf ears. A few steps later, the small flame lit into a great fire with a single whoosh. I picked up my pace and ran to Ivy. Just as I dropped and covered her body with mine, the car exploded.
Heat from the flames blew in our direction. I heard debris hitting the ground and the groaning of metal.
In the distance, I heard several sirens. I knew they were coming for us.
I hit END on the phone and pulled back just enough to look down at Ivy’s battered face.
Her eyes were open. “He’s dead, isn’t he?” she asked.
“Yes.”
She nodded. “I’m glad.”
“Me too.”
She didn’t ask if I had an opportunity to pull him out, though I was sure she probably knew. If she ever asked, I would tell her. I let him die.
Maybe that made me a murderer.
But I never said I wouldn’t kill to protect what was mine.
The most dangerous man in the world is one who had nothing but found everything.
That was me.
And in the end, I didn’t have to pose as anyone but myself. Because in the end, I was exactly who I was supposed to be.
An ambulance rolled to a stop at the side of the road. A police car and a fire truck followed right behind.
“You still with me, baby?” I said, pulling back to wave at the men.
She groaned.
I looked up at the stars and thanked them.
Happily Ever After
(AKA Epilogue)
Ivy
I spent three days in the hospital.
One for every time the car flipped.
I had a severe concussion, a broken wrist, a split cheekbone, stitches in my head and my shoulder, a few broken ribs, and a black-and-blue body to match.
But none of it hurt.
Not much anyway.
Because I was still alive. Because Braeden pulled me out of the car. I knew I never would have been able to get out on my own. If he hadn’t been there, I would have died the instant the car exploded.
He saved my life.
In more ways than one.
Not only did he ride in the ambulance with me to the hospital, but he literally never left my bedside. The nurses probably would have complained if he hadn’t charmed them all into loving him too.
I was in and out of it the entire first day; the pain meds kept me groggy. But sometimes I would wake up to see everyone sitting around the bed, and sometimes it would be just Braeden.
I could have sworn at one point I heard Braeden telling Romeo he was sorry he left his car on the side of the road, and I wished I’d been able to stay awake long enough to hear what he had to say about that.
Braeden’s mom even checked on me. Sometimes she was in her uniform, because she worked on another floor. My parents were here too. They were staying at a hotel just down the street.
At night, B would climb into the bed with me after I begged him to, and I would snuggle into his side (as best I could) until the nurses would come in and shoo him out and back into the chair.
I’d been fully ready to die that night. I hadn’t wanted to, but I would have sacrificed myself to make sure B was safe.
I’d never tell him that, because I’d only get a lecture, but deep down, I think he knew why I forced that car off the road.
He never asked and I never told.
Just like when I heard him tell the police he didn’t have enough time to get me out of the car and then go back for Zach before it blew up.
At the risk of sounding totally heinous, I wasn’t sorry he was dead.
At least now, all of us could live our lives without wondering if he was out there, watching and waiting.
Missy came to the hospital. Braeden wouldn’t let her in. She came back the next day, but he’d already notified the staff and they wouldn’t let her come down the hallway.
I know she probably wanted to say she was sorry.
Sometimes sorry wasn’t good enough.
Sometimes nothing was.
Missy was nothing to me now.
Just someone I used to know.
When the doctor finally signed my release papers and the wheelchair was wheeled in, I was so happy to go home I actually cried. It made me feel like the worst kind of Nancy, but no one seemed to think so but me.
I even caught B clearing his throat a few times.
Thankfully, it was just me and him on the way out. Everyone else was at our house waiting for us. I was looking forward to seeing them all, but I really just wanted time alone with my guy.
The nurse let Braeden push my wheelchair, and on the way down the hall, he slowed and almost stopped in front of a room. Inside was a man lying in a bed. I heard some kind of sports playing on TV.
Braeden stared for just a second and then started pushing me again. I reached around and covered his hand with mine. “I’ll wait if you want to go say hi.”
He leaned down and kissed me softly. “Nah. He’s just somebody I used to know.”
I knew it was his father. And I also knew he’d closed that door to his life. He no longer feared he was like that man; he was no longer scared he would turn out the same.
Braeden had his demons just like the rest of us, but unlike his father, deep down, Braeden was a good guy.
“You’re my favorite person ever,” I told him in the elevator.
“Well, that’s a relief.” He crouched down next to the chair so we were face to face. “I’d hate to think you were gonna spend the rest of your life with someone you didn’t really like.”
Behind us, the nurse chuckled.
He reach
ed into his pocket and pulled out a very familiar silver necklace. “I’ve been holding on to this for you. Think you might want to put it back on?”
“You found it,” I whispered, staring at it resting in his palm.
“The stars are ours, Blondie.” Braeden stood and fastened it around my neck. Then he moved behind the chair to push me out into the lobby. “She’s my girl,” he told the nurse.
I resisted the urge to tell him she probably already knew that.
Instead, I smiled at her and nodded. “Yes, I’m his girl.”
Author’s Note
Gray hair?
Chewed nails?
Messy hair, red eyes, a Romeo hoodie that needs a good washing?
All these things and more went into writing this book.
Let me just cut to the chase and say this was not an easy book to write. Not at all. It was the hardest book in this series. I can’t say it was the hardest book I’ve ever written, but it was damn close.
I say this for many reasons. None of which have anything to do with my underwear and shoes. Seriously. Did you just read that? WTH am I talking about underwear and shoes for?
Oh, that’s right. Because I used up almost all my brain cells writing this book. Ha!
Anyway, if you’d like to know why this book was so hard for me, I will go on. If you don’t want to know, then stop reading here.
…
So you stayed.
I like you.
This book took a little longer to complete than I originally planned. It’s actually released a month later than I wanted. And even releasing then has been a huge stressor, not just on me, but on my editor and my formatter, etc.
As I was writing #Poser, I made a trip to Nashville to the large book convention UtopYA (now known as Utopia). Going to a convention is a lot of work, lol. But we won’t talk about that. I was blown away by the amount of support and enthusiasm the Hashtag Series was shown. Like honestly.
It is 100% accurate to say the Hashtag Series (ahem, Romeo and Braeden) have taken over my life. Seriously. I’m even contemplating trading in my car for a lime-green Hellcat.
Not strange at all.
Especially since I will likely be like Rimmel and require a stack of books to see over the dash…
So suffice it to say, it seems normal for me to love this series and to be so invested. BUT I wasn’t really prepared for how many other people love it as much as I do. The kindness and the outpouring of support and people coming up to me to talk about it was overwhelming. (In a good way.)
And then I won three awards. All three of them for the Hashtag Series.
If I hadn’t realized before how much this series is loved by readers, then I did then.
Best Contemporary Cover (#Nerd), Best Contemporary Lead (Romeo!), and Best Contemporary Series.
Like, whoa.
I honestly didn’t expect to walk away with awards. With so many great books, so many great authors… Why me?
Those three awards now proudly sit on my shelf in my office. I still smile when I think about that night. I’m still in awe of YOU, the reader. The fact that you have FULLY embraced a story and characters I love so much yet was afraid would get lost in the vast sea of books is so humbling yet so very incredible.
And this is where the hard part comes in.
Because now I know. Now I know how loved B and Romeo are. Now I have an award of Best Series to live up to.
#Poser needs to be worthy of all this love. #Poser needs to be on the same level the first four books have been. I gotta tell you, it’s daunting. It’s overwhelming because I so badly want to deliver a book that is fitting of its place in the series.
But not only that.
The subject matter of this particular book was intimidating to me. Rape. Abuse. Lost friendship. Betrayal. Mental illness.
I usually stay away from rape. Yes, in past books, I have alluded to rape or a character is almost raped (but the deed is stopped), but what happened to Ivy… it was something I never planned to write. I guess that’s why it made a good story, because I didn’t write it. The characters did.
Sometimes it twisted my stomach. Just the horror of what happened to her. The weight Braeden must have felt while carrying around that information—especially knowing what kind of past he lived through and how he felt about abuse toward women.
It actually took a lot for me to step into those worlds. And I don’t mean just to write it. But when I write it, I also to some extent have to feel it. It was draining and exhausting.
That being said, I still am not one hundred percent sure I did the subjects justice. Ivy basically lived with rape without realizing it. Like a PTSD victim, but not knowing she was traumatized. She basically thought she was going crazy because she couldn’t get past her one-night stand and the guilt she felt. Then with the sudden panic attacks, the freak-outs when someone touched her unexpectedly, and the nightmares…
I tried to show everything she was dealing with internally without going overboard.
And then there was Zach.
Oh, Zach. When I first decided to write an entire section in Zach’s point of view, I wondered how it would work. I knew I wanted to do it and I had a lot of his backstory already in my head. I also knew many readers had asked for this, for a glimpse into his crazy. But delving into the mind of a person who is highly mentally unstable isn’t easy.
I’m not mentally unstable.
At least most days.
Ha-ha. Kidding.
Writing someone who is was hard because it’s hard to write something I’ve never actually experienced. Some of the scenes with him made me feel sick and icky. But I wrote them. I figured if he made me feel that way, then I was probably on the right track. Even when things didn’t make exact sense, I felt that was on point because he doesn’t make sense.
And Braeden. Oh, Braeden.
His character growth in this book kind of took me by surprise. But in such a good way. I knew he would grow. But I didn’t know how much. The way he was really there for Ivy even at his own expense really got me in here (I’m pointing to my heart right now). Again, I can’t say if I handled the stuff between him and his father the way everyone thinks I should, but for Braeden, it felt right. It felt like he did enough, said enough, and came to terms with enough that he was able to put to rest a lot of the darkness inside him that he blamed on his father.
I’m not really sure that kind of abuse and childhood is something one ever really “gets over.” I think it’s more about learning to live with it as part of yourself while also understanding it doesn’t define you.
Same with rape in a lot of ways.
So yeah, that was why this was such a challenging book to write. But even so, I enjoyed it. I love these characters so much, and when I sit down to write their stories, it’s almost like watching a movie, because I don’t always know what’s going to happen.
I don’t know what I’ll do when I have to say good-bye to them. I’m not ready to do that yet.
You know what that means?
Yep. Another Hashtag book is coming your way.
Soon.
But until then, I hope you enjoyed this one. I hope you found it to be truthful, entertaining, and above all else, a justice to the rest of the series.
As always, I want to acknowledge my editor, Cassie McCown, who seriously had to strap on a cape and edit this book for me—and do so in less time than usual. It seemed mean to hand her a longer book and give her less time to edit. But she took the challenge and conquered it. And for that, I seriously appreciate you, Cassie.
Also, quick shout-out to my husband and two kids for putting up with me while I wrote this book. For not getting mad when I had to work while we were at the beach on vacation. For not getting upset when I forgot to cook dinner and rolled around in a smelly hoodie (because I can’t write without Romeo). Thank you for putting up with my insane schedule and supporting me. And for being a Hashtag household. Because seriously, these books haven’t just taken
over my life, but my entire family’s lives.
Thanks to ALL of my fan club girls, Cambria’s Nerds. Melissa Stickney, who keeps the place running when I’m off in la-la land. To Adrienne Ambrose, who pimps my stuff like nobody’s business, and to Sada Walker Maciel for always, always supporting me. I think you might be my biggest supporter, Sada.
Lastly, thanks to Cameo Renae and Amber Garza. These girls are my rocks, my writing besties, and cheerleaders. If they weren’t there to tell me I could do it, then maybe I never would have.
So guys…
Keep reading. Keep being #nerdy. And THANK YOU. Times Two.
See you next book!
XOXO —Cambria
Cambria Hebert is an award-winning, bestselling novelist of more than twenty books. She went to college for a bachelor’s degree, couldn’t pick a major, and ended up with a degree in cosmetology. So rest assured her characters will always have good hair.
Besides writing, Cambria loves a caramel latte, staying up late, sleeping in, and watching movies. She considers math human torture and has an irrational fear of chickens (yes, chickens). You can often find her running on the treadmill (she’d rather be eating a donut), painting her toenails (because she bites her fingernails), or walking her chorkie (the real boss of the house).
Cambria has written within the young adult and new adult genres, penning many paranormal and contemporary titles. Her favorite genre to read and write is romantic suspense. A few of her most recognized titles are: The Hashtag Series, Text, Torch, and Tattoo.
Cambria Hebert owns and operates Cambria Hebert Books, LLC.
You can find out more about Cambria and her titles by visiting her website: http://www.cambriahebert.com
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