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“Right here, baby girl,” Jake said from the doorway.
“I told you it can only be one at a time right now,” the nurse scolded.
“She’s also upset, so bite me,” he retorted.
“Please,” Archie tacked on to the end of it. Oh, he looked like he’d been ill. “We’re all worried about her. It’s been hours.”
Hours?
What the hell…?
“Fine, but please wait.” Finally, the nurse looked at me again. “What’s the last thing you remember?”
“I was at Homecoming.” My bracelet was gone. And I was in a hospital bed. The guys didn’t look too bad. Jake still had some bruises from before, but they looked yellow under the lighting. Archie looked a little sick and pale. Coop’s expression seemed inflexibly angry, except when he looked at me. They were all still in their nice clothes, though Coop’s looked like he’d spilled something on his shirt.
Images flashed as I tried to think.
“I went the bathroom. I didn’t feel good.”
Coop came around to the other side of the bed and put a hand on mine carefully because of the I.V.
Everything after that was just…fuzzy. “Did I fall?” I’d fallen. But I didn’t remember how.
“Okay, that’s good, Frankie,” the nurse said. I looked for a nametag, but she didn’t seem to have one on. “Really good. The doctor will need to see you, and there are police here who want to talk to you, too, but before we do any of that, your friends are all going to have to wait in the hall for a minute.”
There was some disagreement with the guys, but Coop pressed a kiss to my forehead. “We’ll be right back,” he promised. “We’re literally going to be right out there.”
I nodded. Not that I really seemed to have a say in anything. Once the door closed behind them, I focused on the nurse again.
“First, my name is Denitra Hunley, you can just call me Denitra.”
She seemed to be waiting for me to respond, so I nodded. Her close cropped dark hair curled against her scalp, but she had a really kind smile.
“I’m a nurse here at Mercy General, but I’m also a SAFE advocate. So I’ve been with you since they brought you in.”
Safe?
“Stop Abuse for Everyone,” she continued. “Have you heard of that before?”
I shook my head slowly. “I’m not going to like where this is going, am I?” Between my wrist, my face, and this whole situation, my head had started to pound.
“Probably not. You were admitted from emergency room unconscious and for treatment in a suspected sexual assault.”
I definitely didn’t like where this was going.
“Someone roofied me.” That was why I couldn’t remember.
Ice slithered through my veins. The vague flashes seemed to come and vanish before I could grasp them. My eyes burned. “Can we turn the lights down?”
“Of course.” She rose and turned off the main overhead, leaving only one on across the room, and it was much dimmer. That helped. “And yes, it was suggested you had been drugged by the young men who found you. You have very good friends.”
Maria had told me that someone had been doing that. But… Guilt stabbed at me. “Did…did someone…?”
“As far as we can tell with a cursory exam, no. Because you were unconscious, another nurse and I, only, removed your clothes and jewelry and bagged it for evidence. I also cleaned out under your nails…” She continued talking in that very easy tone, explaining everything, and as unsettling as the information was, it also helped to have it laid out for me.
A shiver went up my spine, and I wanted to fold my arms, but the IV pulled and my wrist protested, so I put them back down.
“You said I wasn’t…”
