Page 39 of No Good Fight

The call came in as a woman reporting herself as falling down the stairs. Those are the tidy words dispatch uses. They don’t cover the crooked lamp by the couch, the broken glass swept badly against the baseboard, or the way the woman keeps apologizing for taking up our time.

“She tripped,” the boyfriend says. “But not at the top of the stairs, at the bottom of them.” He places a hand on her shoulder, and I can see the way his fingers dig into her skin.

She nods before I ask her to confirm his account. There’s no rug anywhere near her feet.

I check her pupils while she stares over my shoulder. Her hands twist in the hem of her shirt, fingers worrying the fabric until the seam curls. When I ask if she feels dizzy, her eyes flick toward him, quick as a flinch.

“I’m okay,” she says. “Really. I’m sorry.”

“You don’t need to apologize for getting checked out.”

The boyfriend laughs under his breath. “She gets worked up.”

I keep my face calm. A reaction from me will not help her after we leave. Men like him know how to make women pay for other people’s concern, and I have no interest in handing him a weapon he didn’t already have.

So I ask questions. I offer transport. I keep my voice even while Josh draws the boyfriend’s attention to paperwork near the counter. Before we go, I slide a resource card halfway beneath a magazine on the coffee table.

The woman sees it. Her eyes fill, but she doesn’t cry.

“No hospital,” she says softly.

I nod once. “Okay.”

On the way back to the station, Josh watches me from the passenger seat for a long minute before he says, “You look like you’re trying to decide whether prison is worth it.”

“Bad scene.” The words almost stick in my throat. But they’re not the ones I should be saying. I should be telling him about his sister, but I don’t. I’m not ready to. Not yet.

“Yeah.” He glances out the window, humor gone. “They usually are.”

My hands stay locked on the wheel the rest of the drive.

After shift, I go to the hardware store instead of home. Heavy duty window locks go into the cart first. Then motion lights, extra batteries, a better screwdriver set, and two small cameras I can place without drawing attention if Alex gives me permission. I repeat it to myself while I stand in the checkout line and still hate how little comfort it gives me.

The cashier scans the pile and lifts his brows. “Planning for the apocalypse?”

“Nah,” I chuckle darkly. “Bad landlord.”

He waits for more.

He doesn’t get it.

By the time I reach Alex’s building, the sky has gone that weird shade of flat gray that comes before rain pummels the area. Alex is sitting on the low front stoop with a blanket around her shoulders and her laptop balanced on her knees while she types away with an almost furious look on her face.

For half a minute, I stay in the truck.

She’s barefoot, one foot tucked under her leg, hair twisted up like she did it without caring what fell loose. The screen light catches the tired set of her mouth. She looks cold and stubborn and too damn breakable for the way she keeps pretending otherwise.

Her head lifts when my engine shuts off.

She knows my truck now, and there’s a weird part of my chest that loves that little detail. I get out slowly. Yesterday, she let me hold her. She stood in the rain with my hand at the back of her neck and went quiet against me in a way I haven’t been able to stop feeling. I can still remember the damp warmth of her skin beneath my palm. The way she didn’t step back when I brushed her hair behind her ear.

Good night, Allycat.

I should not have said it like that. She’s my best friend’s little sister.

But I want to say so much more…so much more than that.

“Your new office has terrible security,” I say when I reach her, trying to lighten her mood.