Then it was what it was. It was fists and blood and howls and cursing and bones breaking under my knuckles and adrenaline surging through my system and my blood racing so fast that it whooshed in my ears.
I didn't know how long it went on. It felt like seconds, but judging by the raw-meat look to the man's face, it had to have been long minutes. But then arms grabbed me, yanking me back, making my back crack against Dusty's kitchen counter hard enough to wind me.
The guy who grabbed me hauled up his friend and they took off.
I took a slow, deep breath, trying to calm it back down. For the first time in maybe my life, I went into a fight something other than cold and detached and calm. For me, it was like any other aspect of my job. I did it rationally. I finally understood what happened with Eli when he lost it, when he went hot, when he was an unstoppable force of rage.
It was right then, ears no longer whooshing, that I heard the low, sad, pained whimpers coming from my side and I looked over to see that Dusty had rolled and curled up in the fetal position, rocking gently. One of her hands held her face, the other her stomach.
Fuck.
Mother fuck.
I rushed over toward her, getting down on my knees by her side and reaching out to touch her hand.
She let out a shriek and jerked away, making my stomach drop in a nauseating way.
"Honey, it's me," I said, making my voice soft even though it felt like my jaw was going to crack from how hard it was clenched. "It's okay. They're gone. You're alright."
She let out another whimper as she dropped her hand, giving me a full view of the black and swollen-shut eye. The sight brought another wave of rage that I had to fight back. She didn't need me angry. She needed me calm and controlled.
"Everything hurts," she admitted, her good eye losing the battle with tears and they started streaming down her face.
"I know. I know, honey," I said, reaching down for her, glad when she didn't shy away as I pulled her half up onto my lap. When she didn't scream at the way I twisted her slightly, I figured her ribs were fine, that the pain to her center was likely just muscular, not bone. "Who were they?" I found myself asking, brushing some of her soft blonde hair away from her face. "What did they want?"
It was like I shot a gun off in her apartment.
The tears stopped, her eye went huge, and then she flew upward, letting out a loud cry of pain at doing so, but getting up and crawling across the room to under the TV cabinet, scrambling inside.
"Dusty, calm down," I urged, moving down beside her, watching with drawn-together brows as she found a box, pulled it out, and opened it.
"No. No no no no no," she cried, rocking back and forth slightly, going back into the cabinet and feeling around. "God, no."
"Alright," I said, reaching out and taking her hands, pulling them in front of her and holding them in place.
"Let me go."
"Not until you tell me what you're looking for."
"Five hundred 30s," she said in a desperate hiss.
30s meant thirty-milligrams of Percocet.
A single pill at that dose would go for twenty on the street.
Five hundred of those meant that she had just lost ten thousand dollars worth of drugs.
Ten thousand.
Jesus Christ.
"You understand what I'm saying, right?" she asked, swallowing hard, tone desperate.
"I know exactly what you're saying," I agreed, nodding.
"Bry might be a friend of mine, but he can't just... let me lose ten thousand dollars of his."
That was the damn truth.
When it came to drug dealers, old friend or not, business was fucking business.
And she just lost a huge stash of drugs the day before New Years Eve when everyone would be scrambling to feel good all night.
"Who were those guys, Dusty?" I asked, wanting to take care of her but knowing there would be nothing that could ease her mind until we figured some shit out.
"I have no idea. I've never seen them before. I thought it was Bry showing up early so I went to pull the door open and it crashed in and..." she trailed off, shrugging a shoulder.
"Alright, honey, listen," I said, ducking my head a little to catch her troubled gaze. "I know this is a huge fucking deal and it needs to be handled, but right now, I need you to let me clean you up and look you over. Figure the hospital is out of the question," I added, though I would have preferred a CAT scan to make sure she didn't have a concussion and an x-ray for her ribs, but I wasn't going to push. She'd been through enough trauma for one night.