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“Rox, stop, it’s not Star’s blood.” Hands touch my face, and I hear Zak’s voice again. “Star’s okay. It’s not her that’s hurt.”Not Star, then who?“Rox, it’s you. It’s your blood,” Zak says, answering my unspoken question.
All the air expels from my lungs in a huge breath, and I drop back on my heels. Voices continue on around me, shouting, arguing, but I’m not paying any attention. My attention is on Star as she moves to a sitting position, and I watch her hand slip in the pool of blood that gathered on the floor. Feeling the sticky, viscous liquid between her fingers, she wipes them down her once white pyjamas. A vision of another much smaller hand doing the same thing swims in my mind, but I push it away.
“We need to move out of this room. Kavanagh, take Star and I’ll bring Rox.”
Kavanagh comes over to Star, helping her to her feet, but she begins to protest as he tries to steer her away from me.
“It’s okay, I’m right behind you, Star. Go with Kavanagh.” I hear sirens in the distance, and as I take in the room, I realise there’s one person missing. “Mad—”
“He’s went after the shooter.”
“On his own?” The panic that had gripped me when I thought Star was injured comes back in full at the thought of Maddox getting hurt.
“He’ll be fine. He knows what he’s doing, Rox. Let’s just focus on you, hey. Come on.” Getting to my feet, I feel a little woozy and the pain in my arm has intensified now there’s not much to keep my mind busy.
Zak walks me as quickly as possible to the kitchen at the back of the house where Star and Kavanagh are waiting.
Sitting me down on a stool, Star opens a first aid kit and pulls out some gauze while Zak uses a pair of scissors to cut the sleeve of my t-shirt open.
Kavanagh paces while yelling into his phone in what sounds like part Irish part English. Then just as he finishes his call Connor enters the room followed by a policewoman I had hoped never to see again. Main reason being that I may just murder the bent bitch, and I’m really not ready for prison life yet.
I have a long fucking list of things I need to do, most of which are illegal, before I’ll even consider spending another hour behind bars. I’m obviously planning to never get caught, but if that should happen, then I’m going to make damn sure I get every last one of the fuckers.
She looks straight to Kavanagh, and I immediately feel the need to get Star out of here. I don’t like the idea of Hughes seeing my sister.
Zak is busy cleaning up my wound, which is going to need some pretty nifty suturing.
“You need to get Star out of here, Zak,” I whisper to him.
His eyes lift to mine, and he frowns. “What’s going on,” he asks quietly.
“There’s no time to explain. Please just get her out of here.”
Star goes to speak, and I quickly shush her. “Don’t speak and don’t turn around. Zak’s going to get you out of here.” She nods, although she doesn’t seem too happy about it. She’s spent most of her life hiding away, so I can hardly blame her for being pissed to still be doing it.
As Zak finishes putting a temporary dressing on my arm, movement out of the corner of my eye grabs my attention. Another copper, but this one is someone I think I can trust and am much happier to see.
Hughes is still occupied with Kavanagh while Smithy makes his way to us, and Connor appears to make some move to block her view should she turn her attention this way.
“Sarg, good to see you safe,” Smithy greets, and nods to Star. “We need to move. Star, you’re with me. Unfortunately, you need to stay here, Sarg,” Smithy orders, talking to Star as though he knows her. It’s something to think about but later when she’s safe.
“Oh joy,” I say with a roll of my eyes. “Zak, you go with her.” He begins shaking his head, but I ignore him and turn to Smithy. “Where will you take her?”
“I have a safe—”
“No way. If you insist on me going, then we’ll go to ours.”
I look to Smithy, who gives a nod, albeit a hesitant one. “Good. Make sure you let Maddox know not to come back here. I’ll meet you at home as soon as I can.”
Star looks like she wants to argue but refrains, and Zak also isn’t happy, but I don’t need a babysitter. I do need to get my sister out of sight, something inside me was clear about that as soon as I laid eyes on Hughes.
Star reaches for my hand, and I give it a quick squeeze as Smithy begins leading her away. Zak isn’t so subtle about his goodbye. He grabs the back of my neck, holding me tight as he brings his lips to mine. When he pulls away, I don’t need words to know what he’s telling me. It’s the same look he wore the day I got arrested, and his words echo in my mind;‘we love you.’
I didn’t really take it in that day, and I sure as hell didn’t believe it when I finally had time to absorb what he said. But I’m starting to believe them now.
I try to let him see that as he releases me and walks away.
One thing I’m certain of though is there are very few people, even on the job, who I can trust and even less in the normal world.
