Maddox (Next Generation Carter Brother #5) - Lisa Helen Gray Page 0,3
she asks, her voice trembling.
“We should talk about this,” Cameron snaps, blocking the doorway when I turn to exit.
“Move!” I snap, cuddling Jasmine to my chest. Her little arms wrap around me, her face tucked into my neck.
“Mummy,” she whimpers.
He slams his fist against the door, the veins in his neck bulging. “You aren’t taking my daughter.”
For the first time, I really look at him, seeing past the red in his eyes to his dilated pupils. He’s on something. Something more than weed.
Jasmine grips me tighter. Normally when he gets like this, I put her in her room and turn the television on for her. We don’t have time to placate him right now. We need to go, and he is in our way.
“Move!” I yell. “She needs to see a doctor.”
“She’s fine. She’s just being a baby, like always,” he snarls, and I clutch her tighter when she whimpers.
I fear this isn’t the first time he has said something cruel about her to her face.
“Cameron, let them go,” Scarlett says, dressed now. Her face is pale and apologetic but all I feel is disgust towards her.
“And I want you gone by the time I’m back,” I warn him.
His gaze sharpens, something lethal, deadly, shining through the haze. “No. I’m fed up with you constantly telling me what to do. You aren’t my boss.”
“I’m not your mum either,” I snap, trying to push past him, but he keeps blocking my path.
“You bitch,” he roars, slapping me around the face.
I nearly drop Jasmine, and the only reason I don’t is because of how tightly she is clinging to me.
“Cameron,” I whisper, feeling blood trickle down my chin.
“Cameron,” Scarlett gasps, stepping between us, but he pushes her away. Her head smacks against the doorframe and she collapses to the floor.
I step back, my heart racing for another reason. “Cameron, don’t do this. Let us go.”
His fists clench at his sides and he takes a step forward. “You aren’t taking her from me.”
“Baby, get down for me a minute,” I whisper, my entire body shaking. She lets go and I quickly place her in her book corner behind me before stepping in front of him, blocking his view from her.
My fear for her health thrums through me, but fear of what Cameron is going to do is just as bad. It wouldn’t be the first time he has hurt me, but it will be his last.
I can’t do this again. I fought for so long for our family, to keep us together, but I can’t do it anymore.
It’s no longer about keeping our family together. I lied to myself in thinking I could. Each time I forgave his transgressions was me giving him more power. Power to hurt me, to hurt us.
Right now, it’s about protecting my little girl. I should have left him sooner.
I hoped he would change. He hasn’t. And now I’m taking a stand, something I should have done the first time he hit me.
“I’m asking you to move, Cameron. I need to take Jasmine to the hospital,” I tell him, trying to keep my voice even, calm.
A scream bubbles from my throat as he reaches out for me. I try to jump out of his reach, but it’s too late. He grabs me by my hair, and with a rage I didn’t know existed inside of him, he attacks.
The next thing I remember, apart from the excruciating pain, are flashes of blue lights as my head rolls to the side. A man in a green paramedic uniform sits forward, gripping the bar of the bed I’m lying on.
Memories come flooding back, and I begin to struggle, needing to get to Jasmine.
“Amelia, you need to calm down. You’ve got extensive injuries,” he orders gently, pressing down on my chest to get me to lie back down, which isn’t hard as the pain is too much for me to bear.
My gaze darts around the ambulance before going back to him. “J-Jasmine,” I croak out, my lips swollen and cracked. I try to say more, to tell him she’s in danger, that she’s not well, but I can’t open my mouth.
“Jasmine is the little girl?” The small room blurs when I nod. “She’s in the other ambulance. She’s being taken care of.”
Relief courses through me as I let the pain take over, falling into a deep slumber.
CHAPTER ONE
MADDOX
There is nothing like doing a food shop when you’re starving. The possibilities are endless. The only trouble is, I want everything for dinner tonight.