Which brought me to now - us writing out our statements, which had sucked big fat gorilla balls. You don’t realize how much you use technology until you have to write out five pages of words by hand, with no spellcheck, no autocorrect, and using muscles in your hand you haven’t had to use like that in years. This had then progressed into all of us – with me sitting on Raoul’s lap – listening and swallowing audibly as Tana outlined the months of abuse she’d gone through, and the events this morning that had led to him bringing her in to be seen.
Leaning to the side so that DB could see Raoul, I whispered to Tana, “Will you be ok here on your own?”
Smiling sadly at me, she nodded and picked at the blanket that was covering her. “Yeah, what’s the worst that can happen, right?”
Figuring that fake wood still counted, I rapped on the top of the table on wheels beside her bed. “Let’s not tempt fate, shall we?”
That’s when the first true smile I’d seen from her happened, and she slowly lifted her good hand and mimicked the knocks on the table. “We got it double covered now.”
Leaning over my back, Raoul knocked harder than even I had. “Triple now. I’ve given them my number, so if you have any problems, or need anything, just ask them to call me, yeah?”
“Will do.”
Gently taking my hand, he gave me a tug toward the door, and with one last look over my shoulder – one where she mouthed ‘he’s hot’ at me, and then shooed me out the door – I walked toward the elevators, trying to figure out what the shit had happened to my day. I was so focused on replaying it all, that I didn’t realize where we were until Raoul spoke and I saw the screen saying we were headed for the ground floor.
“Lotta thinking going on there, baby. You ok?” he murmured, moving my hair away from where the Titan had punched me, his eyes darkening when more of my cheek was uncovered. I didn’t know what it looked like now, but I knew what it had looked like an hour ago, and I figured from the clenching of his jaw it wasn’t pretty or in the shape of a fairy. And I say fairy because I’d had a patient once who’d been in a car accident. When her car had turned onto its roof, she’d hit her steering wheel at an angle that made the bruising look like Tinkerbell. Swear to God, it had wings and little puffy things on its shoes, too.
“Yeah, just thinking through what I could have done differently,” I sighed, leaning my head back against the metal wall, and then standing back up again quickly when I thought about what could possibly be on them.
Closing the distance between us, he lifted his hands and gently tipped my head back. “Rose, a man like that isn’t going to care how it’s done, he’s still going to lash out at someone who can’t protect themselves. He’s still going to pick on someone who’ll lose in a fight. And if it hadn’t been you, it would have been whoever had the balls to try to help Tana.” I nodded, knowing he was right, but I was sure I could have done something differently. “Lucky for you – and for Tana – you have a deputy sheriff and a sheriff at your back. And baby,” he whispered, leaning in so that our noses were almost bumping, “we’ll be making sure that prison isn’t a fun time for him.”
Just then, there was a ping, and the doors started to open, meaning that I had to make the sacrifice of moving away from him. Which was probably just as well seeing as how when they opened, my brother, Jose, and Tabby were storming toward us, and they all looked pissed. Correction, they looked angry, but as soon as they saw my face, their expressions turned to ‘fucking pissed’.Chapter SixRoseAfter they’d seen my face – and after they’d all lost their shit, found it again, lost it once more, and then settled down – they decided that I needed ice. Ground ice with tequila and lime in it, so basically a Margarita. It worked well because when I wasn’t drinking it, I could swap the ice pack out for the glass and then swap it back again when I wanted another sip of it.
I’d changed out of my scrubs into the jeans I’d had in my locker when we’d gotten here, but six margaritas on an empty stomach later, and I’d found myself in a predicament – my little finger was stuck in the tiny pocket above the normal pocket. All I’d done was reach in to get my cell phone out, and here I was trapped.