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“What was that?” I asked as Valen followed my painfully slow pace as we made our way to the prospect room.
“Nothing,” Valen insisted. “Just reminding me of something before he heads back over there,” he said, reaching past me to open up the door.
“There’s nothing wrong with my arms,” I reminded him, even if I was actually charmed by the gesture.
“For fuck’s sake, Lulu, let me be the good guy just this once, okay?”
“That must be a hard role for you to play,” I grumbled, hating myself a little for it, but sometimes there was no stopping the old bitterness from seeping out.
Valen, uncharacteristically, let it slide. Probably because I was hurt. And because I’d let down my guard enough tocry on him.
“That pill should kick in about forty minutes from now,” Valen said as he reached up to my bunk, pulling down my pillows and blankets. “Which, I imagine, is going to feel like forever,” he went on, putting all my stuff into place. He even went and found my phone charger and wound the cord through the wire headboard, so it would rest right in front of me. “You need to call your parents,” he told me.
The sound that came out of me then was hard to explain. A groan and a grumble mixed into one.
“They might not be as well-connected anymore as some of the other people in town, but you know they are going to hear about it sooner or later. And they will be pissed they didn’t get the information from you.”
That was true.
My dad was nothing if not overprotective.
My mom was a little bit more… go with the flow when it came to me and what I did with my life. But, yeah, she was still a mom. And her daughter getting shot was not going to be something she shrugged off.
“I know,” I said, sighing as I pulled out my phone and plugged it in. “I will. As soon as…”He was gone. “As soon as the meds start to kick in. It doesn’t seem like the cops got called, so my dad wouldn’t have heard about it from his police… acquaintances.”
It would have been wrong to call the cops his buddies. Granted, he’d been working for the NBPD as a Cyber Crimes Expert Consultant since well before I was even born, but my dad just wasn’t really someone who made friends easily. And, you know, he hadn’t exactly retired from hisotherbusiness when he first started working there, so he didn’t want anyone to get to know him too well and risk them figuring out any of his secrets.
But he did know a lot of the cops. And they would absolutely say something to him if they got word—either through legitimate sources, or the ones that greased their crooked palms to look the other way to their criminal dealings—that something happened to me.
“I’m gonna go get you some drinks to have nearby. You want anything to eat? Those pain meds and antibiotics will probably give you a stomach ache if you don’t put something in,” he added.
“Sure,” I agreed, mostly just because it would give me a few minutes alone to call my parents.
He didn’t ask what I might like.
Because he knew all of that.
All the foods I craved and under what situations I craved them. PMS? I wanted grease, not chocolate. Bad day? I drowned that in mac & cheese. Celebration? I would opt for ice cream or ice cream cake over anything baked.
He knew all that.
Because he knew me better than almost anyone on the Earth.
Damnit.
As soon as he was gone, I grabbed my phone and dialed my mom.
“Hey, babe, what’s up?”
“Hey, Ma. Are you at work or home?”
“Home. Why? Is something up? You sound off.”
“Is Dad home?”
“He’s right here. What’s going on?” she asked, voice hitting that borderline hysterical edge that moms got when they were worried about their kids. Even if their kids were grown.
I heard the background noise as my mom switched me to speaker.
