The Driven Series Boxed Set - Limited Edition (Driven #1-4)

by K. Bromberg

  “I’ll be just outside, if you need me. I’ll wait for Becks,” my dad says, and I just nod because the lump in my throat is so huge that I can’t breathe. I walk through the doorway and stop dead in my tracks.

  Rylee.

  It’s the only word I can hold on to as my mind tries to process everything.

  Rylee. She looks so small, so pale, so much like a little girl lost in a bed of white sheets. When I walk to her side I have to remind myself to breathe because all I want to do is touch her, but when I reach out I’m so scared that if I do, she’s going to break. Fucking shatter. And I’ll never get her back.

  But I can’t help it because if I thought I felt helpless sitting in the back of the police cruiser, then I feel completely useless now. Because I can’t fix this. Can’t charge in and save the damn day, but this … I just don’t know what to do next, what to say, where to go from here.

  And it’s fucking ripping me to shreds.

  I stand and look at her, take all of her in—from her pale bee-stung lips, to the soft-as-sin skin that I know smells like vanilla, especially in the spot beneath her ear; and I know this feisty woman full of her smart-mouthed defiance and non-negotiables, owns me.

  Fucking owns me.

  Every goddamn part of me. In our short time together she’s broken down walls I never even knew I’d spent a lifetime building. And now without these walls, I’m fucking helpless without her, because when you feel nothing for so long—when you choose to be numb—and then learn to feel again, you can’t turn it off. You can’t make it stop. All I know right now, looking at her absolute beauty inside and out, is that I need her more than anything. I need her to help me navigate through this foreign fucking territory before I drown in the knowledge that I did this to her.

  I’m the reason she’s going to have to make a choice, one I’m not even sure I want her to make any more.

  I sink into the seat beside her bed and give in to my one and only weakness now, the need to touch her. I gently place her limp hand between both of mine, and even though she’s asleep and doesn’t know I’m touching her, I still feel it—still feel that spark when we connect.

  I love you.

  The words flicker through my mind, and I gasp as every part of me revolts at the words I think, but not the feelings I feel. I focus on the fucking disconnect, on shoving those words that only represent hurt out, because I can’t have them taint this moment right now. I can’t have thoughts of him mixed with thoughts of her.

  I try to find my breath again as the tears well and my lips press against the palm of her hand. My heart pounds and my head knows she just might have scaled that final fucking steel wall, opened it up like Pandora’s box so all the evil locked forever within, could take flight and exit my soul with just one thing left.

  Fucking hope.

  The question is, what the hell am I hoping for now?

  MY HEAD IS FOGGY AND I’m so very tired. I just want to sink back into this warmth. Ah, that’s so nice.

  And then it hits me. The blood, the dizziness, the pain, the rectangular tiles on the ceiling as the stretcher rushes down the hallway, once again foreshadowing the doctor’s words I never expected to hear again. I open my eyes, hoping to be at home and hoping this is just a bad dream, but then I see the machines and feel the cold drip of the IV. I feel the pain in my abdomen and the stiff salt where tears have stained my cheeks.

  The tears I’d sobbed when I heard the words confirming what I’d already known. And even though I’d felt the life slipping out of me, it was still heartbreaking when the doctor confirmed it. I screamed and raged, told her she was mistaken—wrong—because even though she was bringing my body back to life, her words were stopping my heart. And then hands held me down as I fought the reality, the pain, the devastation until the needle was pressed into my IV and darkness claimed me once again.

  I keep my eyes closed, trying to feel past the emptiness echoing around inside of me, trying to push through the haze of disbelief, the unending grief I can’t even comprehend. Trying to silence the imaginary cries I hear now but couldn’t hear last night as my baby died.

  A tear trickles down my cheek. I’m so lost to everything I feel, so I focus on every single feeling as it makes the slow descent because I feel just the same.

  Alone. Fading. Running away without any certainty but the unknown.

  “And she’s back with us now,” a voice to my right says, and I look over to a lady with kind eyes in a white coat—the same lady that broke the news to me earlier. “You’ve been out for a while now.”

  I manage a weak smile, my only apology for my reaction, because the one person I wanted to see, the one person I need more than anyone isn’t here.

  And I’m devastated.

  Does he know about the life we’d created? Part him, part me. Could he not handle it so he left? The panic starts to strangle me right away. The tears start to well as I shake my head, unable to speak. How is it possible that God would be so cruel to do this to me twice in my life—lose my baby and the man I love?

  I can’t do this. I can’t do this again.

  The words keep running through my mind, the scalpel of grief cutting deeper, pressing harder, as I try to feel anything but the unending pain, the incomparable emptiness owning every part of me. I grasp for anything to hold on to except for the handfuls of razorblades I keep coming up with.

  “I know, sweetie,” she says, rubbing her hand over my arm. “I’m so very sorry.” I try to control my emotions over the baby and Colton—two things I can’t control—and two things I now know I’ve lost. My chest hurts as I draw in breaths that aren’t coming fast enough. As I try to swallow over the emotion that’s holding my air hostage. And then I think it’d be easier if I choke. Then I’d be able to slip away, creep back under that cloak of darkness, and be numb again. Have hope again. Be bent and not broken again.

  “Rylee?” she says in that questioning way to see if I’m okay or if I’m going to freak out on her like I did when she told me about the miscarriage.

  But I just shake my head at her because there’s nothing I can say. I focus on my hands clasped in my lap and I try to get a hold of myself, try to get used to the loneliness again, the emptiness.

  When I’ve finally calmed down some, she smiles. “I’m Dr. Andrews. I told you that before but understandably you probably don’t remember. How are you feeling?”

  I shrug, the discomfort in my empty womb is no match for the deep ache in my heart. “I’m sure you have questions, should we start or do you want to wait for Colton to come back first?”

  He didn’t leave me? I gasp in a huge breath of air as the lump in my throat loosens, lets air in, and her words help the slice of the proverbial scalpel hurt a little less. She just angles her head and looks at me with sadness, and I feel like she’s telling me something without telling me. But what? Colton’s reaction to the news? I’m so scared of facing him, of having to speak to him about this on the heels of knowing how he reacted with Tawny’s bombshell, but at the same time a flicker of relief shudders through me that he’s still here. “He’s here?” I ask, my voice barely audible.

  “He just left for the first time since you’ve been here,” she explains, sensing my fears. “He’s been beside himself and his father was finally able to get him to go stretch his legs for a minute.”

  The words fill me with such a sense of relief, shivers dancing over my arms as it hits me that he didn’t leave me. He didn’t leave me. Silly really to even think he would, but we’ve been overloaded with so many things lately and every person has a breaking point.

  And mine passed a long time ago.

  I finally find my voice and look back up to meet her eyes. “Now is fine.” I have so many questions that need explanations. So many answers that I fear Colton is not going to want to hear. “I’m trying to process everything still.” I swallow as I bite back the tears again. “What…?”

  “…happened?” she finishes for me when I don’t continue.<
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  “I was told I could never get pregnant, that the scarring was so …” I’m so shaken, mentally and physically, that I can’t finish my thoughts. They hit my mind like rapid fire so I can’t focus on one for more than a few minutes.

  “First off, let me say that I spoke to your OB and reviewed your files and yes, the chance of you being able to carry a fetus, conceive even, was extremely slim.” She shrugs, “But sometimes the human body is resilient … miracles can happen, nature prevails.”

  I smile softly, although I know it doesn’t reach my eyes. How was I carrying a life—my baby, a piece of Colton—and I didn’t know it? Didn’t feel it?

  “How did I not know? I mean how far along was I? Why did I miscarry? Was it my fault, something I did or was the baby—my baby—never going to make it full term anyway?” The questions come out one after another, running together, because I’m crying now, tears coursing down my face as I wear the vest of guilt over the miscarriage. She just lets me get all of my questions out as she stands there patiently, compassion filling her eyes. “Was this a one-time thing, or is there a possibility that this can happen again? I’m just so overwhelmed,” I admit, my breath hitching. “And I don’t know … I just don’t know what to believe anymore. My head’s swimming …”

  “That’s understandable, Rylee. You’ve been through a lot,” she says, shifting her position, and when she does he’s right there leaning against the doorjamb, hands shoved in his pockets, shirt stained with blood—my blood, the baby’s … our baby’s blood—and if I thought the floodgates had burst before, they completely disintegrate at the sight of him.

  He’s at my side in an instant, face etched with pain and eyes a war of unfathomable emotions. He reaches out to comfort me and hesitates when he sees my gaze flicker down and focus through my tear blurred vision on the stains of his shirt. Within a flash, he has his jacket off and his shirt over his head, throwing them into the chair before wrapping his arms around me, pulling me into him.

  The ugly tears start now. Huge, ragged, hitching sobs that rack through my body as he holds onto me—completely at a loss for what to do to make it better—and lets me cry. His hands move up and down my back as he whispers hushed words that don’t really break through my haze of disbelieved grief.

  And there are so many things I feel all at once that I can’t pick a single one out to hold onto. I’m confused, scared, devastated, hollow, shocked, safe, and I feel like so many things have been forever altered.

  For me.

  Between us.

  Hopes, dreams, wants, that were ripped away from me and predetermined by a fate that I never got a say in. And the tears continue to fall as I realize what I’ve lost again. What hopes might just be a possibility I never expected to be able to get back.

  And all the while Colton laces my tear stained face with kisses, over and over, trying to replace the pain with compassion, grief with love. He leans his head back and his eyes fuse with mine. We sit there for a moment, eyes saying so many things and lips saying nothing. But the worst part is, besides utter relief, I can’t get a read on what his are telling me.

  The only thing I know for sure is that he’s just as lost and confused as I am, but deep down, I fear he feels this way for the exact opposite reason I do.

  “Hey,” he says softly as a soft smile tugs up the corner of his mouth. I can feel his hands tremble slightly. “You scared the shit out of me, Ryles.”

  “Sorry. Are you okay?” My voice sounds sleepy, sluggish.

  Colton looks down and shakes his head with a stilted laugh. “You’re the one in the hospital bed and you ask me if I’m okay?” When he looks up I see the tears welling in his eyes. “Rylee, I …” He stops and blows out a breath, his voice swamped with emotion.

  And before he can say anything further there is a knock on the door jamb. It’s Dr. Andrews asking if it’s okay for her to return. Neither of us even realized she had left because we were so absorbed in one another.

  “Are you ready for your answers?”

  I nod at her, hesitant and yet needing to know. Colton releases me momentarily—the loss of his touch startling to me—as he puts his arms through his sweatshirt. He comes back to take my hand in his as she walks back over to the side of the bed and sighs. “Well, unfortunately nothing I can tell you is concrete because we only had the aftermath of everything to try and piece together. Now that you’re a little more coherent than when we first met, do you mind telling me what you remember?”

  My head feels like I’m swimming underwater but I go through everything I remember, up to sitting on the bathroom floor and then nothing until I was here. She nods and makes some notes on her iPad. “You’re very lucky Colton found you when he did. You’d lost quite a lot of blood and by the time you reached us you were going into hypovolemic shock.”

  There are so many questions I want to ask her … so many unknowns my mind is still processing. I glance over at Colton and hesitate to ask the question I want answered the most because of everything we went through with Tawny. So I opt for another one that’s been nagging at my mind.

  “How far along was I?” My voice is soft and Colton holds my hand tight. The idea that I’d ever even get to ask those words strikes me to the core. I was carrying a baby. A baby. My chin quivers as I try desperately not to cry again.

  “We’re guessing around twelve to fourteen weeks,” she says, and I squeeze my eyes shut trying to comprehend what she’s telling me. Colton’s fingers tense around mine, and I hear him exhale a controlled but uneven breath. She waits a beat to let everything sink in before continuing. “From what we can tell, you either experienced a placental abruption or a complete previa where the vessels burst.”

  “And what does that mean?”

  “By the time you were admitted, the bleeding was so extensive and so far advanced we can only guess as to the cause. We are assuming it was a previa because we rarely see an abruption this early on in a pregnancy unless there is some sort of violent trauma to the abdomen and …”

  She keeps talking but I don’t hear another word, and neither does Colton, because he’s off of my bed in an instant, legs pacing, body vibrating with negative energy, and anger etched in the lines of his face.

  And it’s so much easier for me to focus on him and the explosion of emotions on his face than my own. My overwhelmed brain thinks that by looking at him, I don’t have to face how I feel. I don’t have to wonder if I pushed Zander’s dad a little too hard, a little too much, and I am the reason this all happened.

  Dr. Andrews looks at him and then back at me, concern in her eyes, as I relay the events of the day. Each time I mention Zander’s father hitting me, I can physically see Colton’s agitation increase. I don’t know what this is doing to Colton, not sure where exactly his head is or how much more he can take, and I’m afraid of so many things because I know how I feel.

  “That very well could have been the cause—the trigger of everything—that led to the miscarriage,” she says after a few seconds.

  I squeeze my eyes shut momentarily and force a swallow down as Colton barks out a curse under his breath, his body still restless, his hands clenching into fists. And I study him, trying to read the emotions flickering through his eyes before he stops and looks at me. “I need a fucking minute,” he says before turning and barreling out of the doorway.

  Tears return and I know I’m an emotional mess, know that I’m not thinking clearly when the notion flickers through my mind that Colton’s mad at me for being pregnant, not because the loss of our child. I immediately push the thought away—hate myself for even thinking it—but on the heels of the past few weeks and everything we’ve been through, I can’t help it. And then that thought causes so many more to spiral out of control that I have to tell myself to get a grip. That Colton cares about me, wouldn’t walk away from me because of something like this. I force myself to focus on answers and not the unknown.

  And without another thought, the next question is off of my to
ngue and hanging in the air still vibrating with Colton’s anger. “Is it possible for … can I get pregnant again? Would I be able to carry to term?”

  She looks at me, sympathy flashing over her stoic face, a sigh on her lips, and tears welling in her eyes. “Possible?” She repeats the word back to me and closes her eyes for a moment as she gently shakes her head back and forth. She reaches out and grabs my hands in hers and just stares at me for a moment. “This wasn’t supposed to be possible, Rylee.” Her voice breaks, my grief and disbelief obviously affecting her.

  “I’d hope fate wouldn’t be cruel enough to do this to you two times and not give you another chance.” She quickly dashes away a tear that falls and sniffles. “Sometimes hope is the most powerful medicine of all.”

  I can feel him before I even open my eyes, know he is sitting beside me. The man who waits for no one is waiting patiently for me. My body sighs softly into the thought and then my heart wrings at the thought of a little boy lost forever to me—dark hair, green eyes, freckled nose, mischievous grin—and when I open my eyes, the same eyes in my imagination meet mine.

  But his eyes look tired, battle weary, and concerned. He leans forward and takes the hand I’m reaching out.

  “Hey,” I croak as I shift from the discomfort in my abdomen.

  “Hey,” he says softly, scooting forward to the edge of his seat, and I notice his shirt has been replaced with a pair of hospital scrubs. “How are you feeling?” He presses a kiss to my hand as my tears well again. “No.” He rises, sitting his hip on the edge of my bed. “Please don’t cry, baby,” he says as he pulls me against his chest and wraps his arms around me.

  I shake my head, feelings running a rampant race of highs and lows through me. Devastated at the loss of a child—a chance that I might not ever get again despite the dash of possibility this whole situation presented—and at the same time guilty feeling relief because if I had been pregnant, where would that leave Colton and me?