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“He hit me, kidnapped me,” she declares loudly to the police.
“Did he...” I ask softly, noting her disheveled clothes.
She shakes her head. “He threatened to, was going to, but I got him talking so I could get away.”
An officer whose nameplate saysBeverlyis listening to every word Samantha says, and she adds, “Sounds like you were lucky. That’s usually not the case.” She offers a pressed-lip, tight smile before asking Samantha to sit down with the paramedics to get checked over. “Your eye looks pretty bad, and you probably have a concussion.”
It's all I can do to let her go so that the paramedic can do her assessment, but I’m watching Samantha closely. I might never take my eyes off her again.
“Thank God!” Ms. Redding says, running up. She must have arrived in all the ruckus. My family is running behind her, looking at Samantha and me with relief.
“She’s okay?” Luna asks me, giving the mother and daughter a private moment.
I nod woodenly. “Yeah, concussion, they said.”
My brothers and Kayla lay heavy hands on my shoulders, supporting me because now that Samantha’s safe, I feel like collapsing myself. “We gotchu, Chance,” Cole tells me. “And Samantha too. She’s one of us.”
There’s a murmur of agreement among my siblings, and we circle around Samantha and her mom protectively.
Samantha might be one of us, but she’s also...mine. And I almost lost her before telling her how much I love her.
I squat down beside her, needing to say it right now. “Samantha, this might not be the time, but...”
“I love you,” she blurts out as her tears finally fall.
I gather her into my arms but stop short before she puts her head on my shoulder, wanting her to see the truth in my eyes. “I love you too.”
When she nods and buries her face into my shoulder, the relief in my soul is instant. She not only loves me, but she’s accepting my love. Those are two very different things, and that she trusts me enough to let me inside her heart is a gift I will never take for granted.
Suddenly, there’s a chorus of shouting, and chaos breaks out as Stephen wrenches free from the officer trying to put him into an SUV. Running straight at us, he screams, “Samantha!”
I move in front of her protectively, ready to do whatever it takes for her. I’ve never killed before, but I will do it now for Samantha.
But before Stephen gets within three feet of Samantha, Kyle steps in his path and punches him square in the nose. Stephen goes down sloppily, crumbling unconsciously to the ground with blood spurting all over his face.
It’s oddly anticlimactic, especially when Kyle holds his hands out and says, “Self-defense and defense of others. Totally legit, yeah?”
When none of the officers move to cuff him, he turns around with an ‘aw, shucks’, sideways smile. “Figured if there was gonna be a fall to take, it’d be better if it was me than you, Chance. You got a reputation and shit. I don’t. Besides, a punch like that might mess up your manicure.”
Dark and twisted as it may be, his logic makes sense in a sweet sort of way. Not that I have a manicure, but if the police did press charges for assaulting a restrained man, I’d be done for. I don’t think Kyle’d give a single fuck.
“Thanks, man,” I tell him with a nod of appreciation.
“Okay, are we good for me to ask a few more questions now?” Officer Beverly asks the paramedic.
* * *
“I received an update from the district attorney,” the lawyer says as Samantha and I sit down in his office. On his desk is a name plate,Thaddeus Howe.
Thankfully, he’s a man with a good sense of humor, and if you ask him about Dewey and Screw ‘em, he’ll go along with the joke and answer, ‘And Howe.’
But we’re not here for jokes, and as Samantha settles into her seat, I reach for her hand, relishing her fingers in mine. Doing that, something that once seemed inconsequential, now feels huge.
She’s okay, I remind myself.
“What did the DA say?” Samantha asks. She likes Thaddeus, and I can understand why. He’s a straight-forward, no kid gloves, rock-solid attorney who's done a good job of representing Samantha’s interests in the case with Stephen.
I give her hand a squeeze, and she forces a brave smile.
