“She was fighting him the whole time,” I added.
“Good for you,” he said. “I’ll be right back, okay?”
I nodded, and Mayra leaned her head back against my body. Two EMTs showed up then and lifted a groaning Justin Lords onto a rolling bed. I had to admit to a little sense of satisfaction when I saw one officer handcuff him to the edge of it. Lords and the acne guy were both cuffed and loaded into the back of the ambulance, and then the officer walked back over to us. I gave him descriptions of the other two guys as well as the name Mark, though I didn’t know what his last name was. The cop wrote all that down, too, and then one of the police cars drove away.
“What time is it?” Mayra asked.
“Eleven thirty,” the officer responded.
“I need to call my dad,” she said. “We’re not going to be home on time.”
Mayra finally sat up next to me and started rooting through her purse for her phone. Once she called, she told him we had a little problem, and we were going to be late. I could hear his voice getting louder on the phone, but when she said we had been attacked, he went quiet.
“He wants to talk to you,” Mayra said as she held the phone out to the officer.
“Ma’am, I really can’t discuss…”
“It’s Henry Trevino,” Mayra said quickly. “He says you probably know him.”
The officer’s eyes widened a little.
“Henry Trevino is your dad?”
“Yes.”
The officer took the phone and placed it up to his ear.
“Mr. Trevino,” he said into the phone, “Peter Gregory here…She looks just fine, but we’re going to be taking her to the hospital for a quick check just as a precaution…No, sir…I don’t believe so. I get the idea the boyfriend here managed to stop that…Yes, sir…He’s definitely making the trip—he’s going to need some stitches…Yes, sir…Oh…yeah, of course. I can take care of that. I’ll meet you in the ER when you arrive.”
~oOo~
I winced as a nurse injected my skin with some kind of local anesthetic before she started stitching up my temple. I had already recapped the whole ordeal twice with two different police officers, and I was pretty sure they were doing the same thing with Mayra. I supposed they just wanted to make sure they were getting the same story from both of us though they didn't seem to doubt what happened.
I had heard one of the officers talking to a doctor, and not only was Lords way up on the intoxication scale, but they found cocaine in his system as well. The other guy they brought in—the one with the acne problem—apparently had cocaine in his pocket and was known to the police. They were hoping for more information when Lords regained consciousness.
When I thought back to just a couple of hours ago when my fists were connecting over and over again with Justin’s head like they usually did with the heavy bag, I just felt numb. I remembered every moment of it though it didn’t really feel like me at the time. Everything in my head just screamed that he was going to hurt Mayra, and I had to make sure he would never, ever try to do that again.
The nurse finished with my head and then fussed over the cuts all across my knuckles and fingers. She also had me lie down on my side and applied some sort of cream and a bandage on my leg, which had been badly scraped on the asphalt when I tackled Lords.
Mr. Trevino walked in just as the nurse finished. She nodded to him as she walked out, glancing at me briefly before disappearing. Mayra’s father stood for a minute by the curtain separating me from the open hallway before he came over and sat on the rolling chair by the bed.
"Matthew," he started to say, but his voice cracked, and he closed his mouth. He paused to take a couple of breaths and run his hand over his face before he continued. "You saved my daughter from something about as horrific as it gets. I don't even know where to begin to express how grateful I am that you were with her tonight."
He stood up and took a couple of steps away and then turned around.
"I'm paying your hospital bill. Not going to listen to any argument about that, so save your breath.”
He walked over to the curtain and pulled it back.
“Mr. Trevino?” I called out.
“Yeah?” He turned around again to look at me.
I fiddled with one of the bandages on my finger, took a moment to collect my thoughts, and then spoke.
“I’d never let anyone hurt her,” I told him. “No one. Ever.”
I continued to look down at my hands, but I could see him standing motionless off to my left. After a minute, he ran his hand over his face again.