Page 15 of Sweet Oblivion

With a slight nod, her purse is shoved my way.

Guess they’re inside.

Pretty sure this is the first time I’ve ever opened a woman’s purse. My mom’s was always off-limits. If we wanted something, we asked. We weren’t allowed to just grab something out of it. There weren’t many things that would piss her off, but that was one of them. Shuffling around in Delaney’s bag feels... wrong. But if we want to get out of this car and inside her apartment, we need keys.

It’s basically empty. A wallet, gum, her phone, one of Kyrie’s toys, and her keys tucked away inside a pocket. Okay. Survived that. With them in hand, I round the front of the car and open her door slowly, careful to make sure she doesn’t fall out. She barely moves. Her eyes open a crack to see me as her lower lip quivers.

She’s one giant bruise on top of another.

Her battered skin, swollen and sore.

“How about you let me carry you, Bambi?”

I half expect her to tell me to fuck off. To tell me to stop calling her Bambi. She’s not a damn deer. She may have told me that a time or ten before. She’s feisty as hell and fiercely independent and liked giving me hell with a side of beer. Maybe I’m prodding her, but nothing comes. Not this morning... Not after last night.

She simply nods, her arms sliding around my neck as I lift her from the seat and kick the door closed. “I’m so tired, Ryker.”

Pressing my lips to the top of her hair, she relaxes. “Let’s get you upstairs, and then you can go to bed, okay?”

I feel the small shake of her head before she rests it on my shoulder and take the stairs at the back of Love in Bloom twoat a time. The familiar feel of the old metal creaking beneath my feet reminds me of the stairs behind my aunt’s bakery. The ones we used to take back in the day when we wanted to party without being found. It takes a minute to get the key in, and a few shakes of the knob before it turns and the door?—

What the fuck?

Is that?—?

A small pink pig with a bigass flower around its neck. Like big. Practically the size of the thing’s head. It stares at me from the other side of the door.

“Ahh... Delaney? There’s a pig in your apartment.”

She lifts her head to look at me. “That’s Tori. She’s harmless.”

Okay. Harmless pig. Didn’t see that coming.

The harmless pig refuses to move, forcing me to step over her.

“Do you want to lie down?” I ask, having no clue what to do now that I have her here. So I stand in the middle of her apartment, frozen. The pig named after—what, a 90s TV star?—on one side, staring at me with beady little black eyes, like it thinks I’m the one who hurt its human, and me on the other. “Do you?—”

“I want a shower.” Her words are careful. Measured. Clearly spoken so I can read her split lips. “I want to wash his hands from my body.”

Her chest shakes with each weak word, and I look around the apartment for direction. A small kitchen and open living room directly in front of me with a hall off to one side. The setup similar to my aunt’s. Looks like we’re going right.

After a few steps, Tori joins us and, honest to God, noses the door to the bathroom open. Well, okay then. Smart pig. Carefully, gently, I sit Delaney on the counter and turn. A clawfoot tub with a sheer shower curtain circling it sits on the opposite wall. Once I’ve got the water on, I turn back to Delaney, who hasn’t budged.

“Do you...” My words die as tears pool in her gold-flecked, milk-chocolate eyes. “Do you need help?”

She shakes her head no.

“Okay.” Guess that was a stupid question, but as I take a step toward the door, Delaney grabs my hand.

“Don’t leave.”She takes a deep breath, like the words hurt to say. Not physically, but mentally. Emotionally. And there’s absolutely no way I’d say no to her. “I mean...” her hands shake, and her ASL is iffy at best.“Will you stay in the living room? Please?”

Some of her words are signed. Some aren’t. But there’s no missing what she’s saying.

Stay. I don’t want to be alone.

If this motherfucker doesn’t die in that hospital, I might kill him when he gets out.

I shove my hands in my pockets and drag my eyes over her boxy blue scrubs. The ones they gave her because her clothes became evidence. “I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be right out there with Tori.”