Then panic truly hit me.
Booda.
Where was Booda?
My head snapped up so fast that pain tore through my temple. I looked toward the bed. Empty. It was now on the floor.
“Wait!” I yelled frantically, trying to twist away from the officer holding me down.
He gripped me tighter. Shoved his knee further into my back.
I thrashed as I turned my head from side to side, trying to see past the bodies moving through the home while cold metal cuffs snapped around my wrists.
Too many boots stomped through the rooms, and too many voices yelled over each other.
But none of them belonged to Booda.
I kept listening. Waiting for his voice to cut through the chaos. Waiting for somebody to start screaming. Waiting for gunfire. Something.
Nothing came.
My pulse stumbled.
The officers were still tearing through everything around me, but all I could hear was the blood swoosh inside my ears.
“Sit her up.”
Hands grabbed me again. Rougher.
They hauled me upright, and my stomach came with me a half-second late. The side of the bedframe slammed against my hip as metal cuffs bit into my wrists behind my back. I blinked at the ceiling, then at the floor, then back at the ceiling again while the room refused to stop moving.
“Watch her,” an officer ordered.
Flashlights kept sweeping through the apartment while officers moved in and out of my bedroom, carrying pieces of my life with them. Shoes. Drawers. Pill bottles. A shoebox from my closet. Somebody flipped my dresser over.
I blinked slowly, trying to force my eyes to focus.
Still no Booda.
Had he run?
Had they caught him already?
No. If they had, I would’ve heard it. Booda wouldn’t go quietly. Not ever.
An officer brushed past me, carrying my mattress halfway into the hallway, while another crouched beside my nightstand, shining a flashlight underneath it.
“Clear.”
“What is this?” I demanded hoarsely. “Why the fuck did y’all break into my house?”
Nobody answered me.
One of the officers walked past carrying my gun in a plastic evidence bag.
Ice slid through my chest.
Fuck!
