SCARRED - Part 4 (The SCARRED Series - Book 4) by Kylie Walker

didn’t say anything else.  Derek let the car glide in the center of the curve. As long as nothing was coming up the other side they would be okay. “Please let nothing be coming,” he chanted in his head as he felt the car going into a slide around the curve, now practically on two wheels.
    He didn’t see the car until he heard Trevor yell out his name. He pulled to the right to keep from hitting them head on and that was when the car went off the side of the steep embankment and began to roll end over end. The car flipped over and over...so many times that Derek lost count. He became disoriented even before he sustained the concussion that would cause him to slip in and out of consciousness.
    He was aware of the taste of iron in his mouth, but unaware that it was blood. He was vaguely aware of someone screaming...someone was with him, but who? Sarah! Oh dear God! I killed Sarah...His mind was trying hard to stay awake and alert as the car finally stopped rolling and came to rest at the bottom of the ravine. He tried to turn his head, he needed to see Sarah... No, Sarah wasn’t there, and she couldn’t be. I already killed her. Sarah!
    He sobbed out her name and again but he couldn’t hear any sound. Was he deaf, or was this conversation only happening in his head? Who is here? There’s breathing to his right...gasping, maybe. He tried to turn his head again, willing it to turn. Is it Chloe? Oh God! Chloe! Did I hurt you? Chloe! Where are you? Where am I? It was so cold and the light at the edges of his vision was beginning to fade. His eyelids fluttered and he entertained the thought that maybe he was home in bed. He tried to take a deep breath and smell the air. Am I on the yacht? I’m so sleepy. Maybe I’ll just close my eyes for a minute. It’s freezing in here. Where are my covers? He let his eyes close one last time. He was too tired to fight it. Everything was beginning to hurt. Why did everything hurt? Where is Chloe?
    Just before the darkness consumed him, he heard the distant sounds of sirens. Fire trucks...or police cars...maybe an ambulance? His last thought before he slipped under the deep end was that he hoped no one was hurt.
    ******
    “T his one is my favorite, I think.”
    Chloe was holding up a picture of Sarah in a fairy costume. She had on a hat with pointed ears made out of foam and a green dress that was made to look like an upside down honeysuckle and shoes that came to a point at the toe. There were leaves in brilliant fall colors attached all over the costume and hat.
    “She wanted to be a “wood sprite” she said, so that’s what we came up with.”
    “It’s brilliant,” Chloe told her, honestly. She felt that pang again in her chest that was becoming familiar to her lately, the pang of regret for all of the things that could have been.
    “How old was she?”
    “She was nine. Between nine and eleven it was all about fairies.”
    Chloe smiled. She never believed in fairies or Santa Claus or the tooth fairy...or even God. She’d convinced herself that if any of those things were real, one of them would have saved her from the unimaginable horrors that she was living through. She turned the page in the album. There was a picture of a younger and thinner Derek. She ran her finger over his face and smiled again. “Was this taken right after they met? He looks so young?”
    “Yes,” Samantha said, looking over at it. “He met us at Martha’s Vineyard that weekend. I was always taken back by how handsome he was when I first met him.”
    “So was I,” Chloe said. “I think it would be hard not to be.”
    “He’s as good inside as he is out,” Samantha said.
    Nodding, “I know. I’m so lucky he found me.”
    “He loves you.”
    “What?” Chloe felt her heart speed up just a little bit at the word “love”. Derek hadn’t said that to her and although she was sure that was what she was beginning to feel towards him, she hadn’t taken the time to evaluate it yet and she