Page 87 of When The Noise Stops

She looked at the fence, then at my hand around her wrist.

"Don't leave me with them."

"I'm not."

When the cops came, I talked. She talked. The guy—Reese—talked, but nobody believed his version. They bagged the gun. I rode with her to the hospital.

Lila had a concussion.

We were inside a room in the emergency department. My phone kept going off. Maggie. The guys.

"Answer the phone, Knox," Lila urged the twelfth time Maggie called.

"Gabby was scared to death by what happened. She has a fever."

I knew she was probably lying. I hung up.

Lila heard her.

"Go."

"I'm not leaving you."

"If your baby really is sick, you'll regret not going to her."

"Sunshine—"

"Knox. Go."

I looked at her. Split lip. Bruised face. Eyes tired.

"I'll send Tiny to be with you."

"Okay. I'll probably just sleep until I'm released."

I wouldn't have left if I'd known she would up and disappear before Tiny reached her.

Chapter 36

Lila

Three months.

That's how long it had been since the parking lot. Since Reese. Since the gun in my hands and Knox's voice cutting through the static in my head.

Three months in D.C. with Ronny had done me good. I spent them with her and in meetings in a church basement talking through my tangled emotions.

And there were a lot of them.

For a while, I convinced myself I had brought Reese on myself. That if I hadn't spent the eighteen months since Archie went to prison fucking men I barely knew, Reese never would've been in my life in the first place.

But Ronny set me straight.

Reese putting his hands on me was Reese's fault. I could''ve fucked every man in Tampa, and it still wouldn't have given him the right to walk into my house, grab me, or throw me against a wall.

But that didn't mean I liked what I had been doing.

For eighteen months, I had been using men.