Wretched Love

“I’ll also do my best to convince my colleague to forget about the gun you didn’t point at him,” she added, a hint of amusement in her voice.

“Much obliged,” I managed to bite out.

“I’ll be back to check on her,” she promised, giving my shoulder one last squeeze before she walked out.

“She survived.”

Yeah, there were machines telling me that she’d survived. There was the beeping of whatever was measuring her heartbeat. She was alive.

But it remained to be seen if she’d truly survived. What he did to her… What I did to her... Abandoning her when she needed me most.

It remained to be seen if I could survive that.

“Cops are here,” Hansen remarked.

It had been a while. A day. Maybe more. Maybe less. I didn’t fucking know. All I knew was that Kate hadn’t opened her eyes. Kate still had a tube down her throat.

I didn’t take my eyes off Kate.

Faint pulse. Faint pulse. Faint pulse.

“Figures,” I muttered.

“Want to arrest you,” he added.

My hand tightened around hers.

“They can certainly try,” I grunted.

He chuckled. “Yeah, I told them as much. When Kate wakes up, you’ll probably have to go down there, make some kind of statement.”

Faint pulse. Faint pulse. Faint pulse.

“Won’t be going anywhere until my woman walks out of this place on her own two feet,” I said, still not taking my eyes off her.

Hansen sighed loudly. “You pulled a gun on a doctor, brother,” he reminded me.

“I’m aware.”

“Doctor in question is luckily having some memory issues, thanks to Sarah,” he continued. “But there were witnesses in the waiting room who haven’t been as open to our… suggestions as we would’ve liked. Even with our connections, the cops still have to go through at least some of the motions. They are definitely takin’ it seriously.”

My jaw hardened. “And you can tell them I’ll happily hop down to the station, do a song and dance for them, when my woman walks her ass out of the hospital and gets off life support.”

Faint pulse. Faint pulse. Faint pulse.

“We pay them enough,” I added. “They should be doing the song and dance for us.”

Another chuckle. Hansen slapped me on the shoulder.

It was a dangerous move.

“Okay, brother,” he conceded. “I’ll convince them that it’s in their best interest to wait.”

My eyes ran over the bruises and cuts on Kate’s face. “You do that.”

His boots thumped against the floor as he walked out.

It was just me and Kate again.