Worth Fighting For | Book #1

Chapter 67

The distance between the car and the crowd was longer than expected, given that my view of it was blurry as undisclosed tears clouded my peripheral vision.

There was not a single point that I could or even would look back, I kept running until I was pushing hastily through the sweaty bodies in front of me, up until I reached the inner circle of the crowd.

Josh's arm was being lifted in the process when I shoved forward, knocking into Harvey from behind. "Hey, where did you go?" He asked with only minor concern, given that he wasn't aware of my current situation regarding Jack and Josh's uncle.

My breathing was faltered, causing me to practically hyperventilate in front of both Harvey and Valentina. "Come on," she muttered as she wrapped a comforting arm around me, forgetting that Josh had just won behind her, "lets get you back to the car and you can tell me what happened."

"No, no, no—not the car."

"What's wrong, Sav? You look like you've just seen a ghost," Harvey added and wrapped another comforting arm around me. But despite their warmth, nothing helped to beat the memory and the pain currently searing through my stomach.

I pressed down onto the cut, hoping to somewhat prevent any further damage. "What the fuck?!" Valentina's eyes caught my hands as we were pulled away from the crowd. She lifted my shirt, revealing the blood stained skin and the unexplainable, deep laceration beneath it. "God, Savannah! We need to get you to a hospital."

"I'm fine," I spoke between laboured breath as my vision stayed inconsistent with my surroundings.

It wasn't long before the rest of the group appeared from the dispersing crowd, causing me to hastily wipe my tears and tighten my grip to my jacket pocket with the use of pressure to prevent further bleeding.

Josh furrowed his eyebrows when he walked over, most likely to the fact that we'd walked away from the fight a little earlier than expected.

"Tell him." Valentina was more stern than I'd ever seen her before as she crossed her arms and signalled to Josh now listening in beside her, "if you won't tell us what happened, tell him."

"Tell me what?" Josh laughed, obviously still relying on the high that winning had brought him. He was truly happy, and I was about to ruin it.

It was becoming even more difficult to concerntrate on what I was meant to be telling Josh as my eyes rapidly searched for the very same callous smile that would continue to haunt me. I'd hoped we would find Jack crippled over somewhere from the knock to his knees, but even I knew that it was too optimistic to assume he was still here.

The searing pain reached my stomach again, causing my eyes to scrunch closed. I had initially assumed he had only cut through the first layer of skin, yet I now knew that my body had prevented the undeniable pain of how deep he had actually managed to go.

"What happened? What is she talking about?"

My heart dropped down into my stomach when I looked into Josh's eyes, now filled with more concern than ever before.

Even when he'd spotted the bruise on my cheek weeks ago, he had been visibly seething, but this felt different, as if  he wanted to do anything in his power to protect me from anything he felt he might have caused instead. And I knew he'd blame himself for this.

"Please can we just go. We can talk about this in the car, but not here, please," the pain still seemed to persist even when I moved towards Josh's car, yet my anxiety continued to climb as I neared the very familiar metal with a scratch now painted across the door.