Her gaze flicked up to me, slow blinking. “I don’t know what time it is.”
“It’s eleven in the morning.”
A soft whimper escaped her as she glanced back out the door toward where we could hear Tuna chowing down on his food.
“He’s okay,” I assured her. Maybe he missed one meal, but he would be fine. I was more worried about her. “Here, let me get you up,” I said, reaching for her wrists and pulling. I went slow, aware that she’d likely been sitting on that floor for almost a whole day. She winced here and there, but it wasn’t until she was fully on her feet that she let out a cry. “What is it?” I asked, grabbing her elbow as she stumbled. “My foot. Or ankle. It got caught between shelves.”
“Here,” I said, scooping her up off her feet entirely and setting her down on the cabinet next to the sink. “I’m just gonna look at it,” I said.
Squatting down, I carefully rolled up her pant leg. I didn’t need to get far to see how swollen her ankle and foot had become.
“I’m not gonna pretend to know how to tell if something is wrong here so I’m not gonna fuck with that. I’m gonna clean up your face, though.”
She gave me a nod, and I went in search of a washcloth, wet it, and soaped it up, then went to work on her face, being careful not to press too hard. It was a painstaking process that revealed a split through her lower lip. The blood from her nose must have been from pressure, but it didn’t seem broken, thankfully.
“How bad is it?” she asked, minute by minute seeming to come back to herself.
“You’re still gorgeous, but it’s not as easy to see,” I told her, making her snort.
“Are you hurt anywhere else?”
“My ribs a little.”
“This okay?” I asked, gathering the bottom of her shirt and waiting for her nod before lifting it up.
I sucked in a deep breath and exhaled at the smattering of bruises up her side, tracking back. Glancing behind her, there were thick bands of bruises across her hips and shoulders.
With careful fingers, I probed around her ribs. She gasped but didn’t cry out.
“No breathing issues?”
“No.”
“Okay. I think these are just bruises. Bad ones, but not a sign of something worse. Alara,” I said, dropping her shirt and resting my hand on her thigh. “What the fuck happened?”
“Break-in.” Her gaze dipped as she spoke. “I was between the rows; he shoved one into me. I fell back into the other one. And then the front one crushed me. But a cop pulled down the street. He spooked. And—” She raised a hand.
“Alara, why didn’t you call one of us?”
She shook her head.
“I wasn’t really thinking. I just wanted to get home. And then I guess I just zoned out.”
I could see that.
Alara was a woman who was so confident, so strong, that realizing that even strength wasn’t necessarily enough to keep you safe, could really fuck with the mind.
The first time I really got my ass handed to me, I’d been detached for a week after. Not quite to the extent Alara was, but stuck in my own head for sure.
“How’s your head?” I asked, tipping up her chin to check her pupils.
“Hurts. But I was punched too. It got me more in my ear, but still.”
There was no stopping the growling sound that moved through my chest and out from between my lips.
To that, Alara’s lips curved ever so slightly.
“You all do that,” she observed. “It’s silly,” she added. “But also kind of hot.”
