“Peachy.” I looked up.
“Holy crap your face.” Jack did nothing to soften his horrified reaction.
“It feels worse than it looks.”
“What the hell happened Saturday night?”
I sat up but only because I didn’t want to re-open the wound on my head. “Oh, the usual. Went to a ball with a beautiful woman. Danced with millionaires. Then went to a jam session in Green Valley where I beat the shit out of two bikers, berserker style.”
His eyebrows rose. “Maybe I do need to get out more.”
I slouched back in my chair and rubbed my eyes. It hurt. Everything hurt. That’s what I deserved for losing control. I picked up a pencil and gripped it.
“Seriously, man, what’s going on? You beat up two guys?”
“Suzie helped a little.” He waited with expectant eyebrows. “These bikers. They cornered her when I was inside and—”
I found I still couldn’t think about it, let alone talk about it.
Jack wiped a hand down his mouth. “Shit.”
“I barely got her out of there. She wasn’t fully conscious when I did.” The pencil in my hand snapped in half.
“But you did. You got her out.”
I nodded, but felt more culpability than I could let go of.
“Did you call the police?” he asked.
“Suzie says there’s no point. Any more trouble will just make it worse. She keeps saying ‘her guys’ will handle it.”
He nodded like he got it but didn’t like it.
“She said they were a rival with her boss’s gang or something.”
“Totally different world down there.”
“Yeah.” I scooped up the pencil remains and tossed them into the garbage next to my desk.
Jack sighed. “Is she okay?”
“I think so.”
“She’s tough.”
I agreed—but I also knew how tender she was. I learned what she held inside her. The fact that she could still be so optimistic, so loyal at all was a miracle.
“She seems so immune to the injustice. That feels more hopeless than if it was hard for her. It kills me,” I said.
“It’s terrible. All of it.”
“I can’t do this anymore.”
“Do what?” He straightened with a frown.
“I can’t keep up this charade of research. What have I even done in the weeks she’s been with us? What am I proving?”
Jack stayed quiet. He must have been holding his tongue for some time.
