“I’m here, baby. You’re safe,” I tell her. “I’m going to get you help.”
More tears stream down her face and I wonder if she’s in any pain. She doesn’t look physically hurt.
I break out into the front yard to see the place swarmed by cop cars. They notice me immediately and three big guys come hurtling towards me, probably wanting to restrain me, assuming I’m sneaking off with some poor defenseless girl to have my wicked way with her.
“Help,” I call out. They slow their pace instantly, reconsidering the scene before them. “She needs help. An ambulance. They gave her something.”
I get out into the center of the yard and the cops surround me, instructing me to lay her down. I do just that and instantly pull my shirt over my head, covering her body from their eyes. I drop down beside her, hating how she isn’t moving. “Come on, Tora, Open your eyes.”
A big fat guy comes up to me, looking like the guy in charge. “Son, what did she take?”
I glare up at him. “She didn’t take anything. She was plucked off the street an hour ago and brought here,” I growl, looking back down at her and scanning her body for any injuries. I take in the thin trail of blood that goes from the vein in her elbow and pools in a dried mess at her wrist. “Fuck. She was injected.”
The cop seems to notice this at the same time as I go to reach for her arm. “Don’t,” he demands, catching my wrist and thrusting my hand back at my side. “You’ll contaminate it. We can swab her arm and find out what she was given.”
I nod my head, close to breaking point. “Just… get her help,” I beg, not even giving a shit about getting at Josh right now. All that matters is getting her help. I’ll worry about Josh later.
“We will,” the cop says. “The ambulance is on the way.”
I nod again as I distantly notice cops coming out the front door, each with a student in handcuffs being led towards the cop cars. I watch for a second, hoping none of them are my boys. As for the football players who came to help, I don’t know. I wouldn’t be able to recognize them, but if they’re in trouble for helping, you bet your ass I’m going to get them out.
I remember the camera. I search around for it and find it in the grass at my knee. I instantly hand it over, not wanting to see it. Not if it’s anything like the last one video I saw of her. “What’s this?” the cop asks, taking it from me.
“They were recording it,” I say, looking back down at Tora as her body begins to shiver. “What they did to her.”
I run my hands up and down her arms, trying to keep her warm. It’s killing me that I can’t pull her into me and hold her, but this is what she needs. So instead of dwelling on it and making the thoughts inside my head worse, I distract myself by talking to the cop. I let him know exactly what went down tonight. I tell him about our past. I tell him every tiny little thing Josh has done over the past year to hurt my girl, and then I make sure he knows that with or without their help, Josh is going down.
With that, the cops around me go to check over the camera and I don’t doubt they’re going to find some pretty incriminating evidence. I can only guess what else is on that thing. A moment later, some woman comes over and takes a swab of Tora’s arm before doing some bullshit science crap that I don’t bother paying attention to.
“Hey,” a familiar voice calls out. I look up to see Maxen being carted off by a cop. My eyes naturally rake over his body from head to toe, making sure he wasn’t hurt during the fight. Confident he’s fine, I focus back on his face. “She ok?” he asks.
I shake my head and his eyes close for the briefest second, most likely with a ton of guilt coursing through his body. After all, he was there. This happened on the other side of the fucking door to him and I don’t doubt it will take a while for me to be able to forgive him. Hell, he won’t be forgiving himself anytime soon. Same goes for Brooke.
“You find Josh?” I call across the yard.
“No. He wasn’t in there,” he says, trying to pull against the guy leading him away. “We’ll get him,” he promises. The next second, he’s forced into a cop car and the door is slammed closed behind him, but I’m not worried. We have the camera that shows our innocence in all this. Sure, we might get charged for assault, but if it means getting Tora safe, I’m sure each of us will cop it on the chin.