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“What’s with security?” I whisper to Farrow.
He casts a quick glance at Omega. “They’re here because the cops are being pricks.” Off my confusion, he whispers, “They want to throw you back in so you can get more information off your dad.”
Wow. Alright. I want to smoke, but I can’t in a hospital. “Could this night get anymore fucked up?”
Farrow stares right at me in a way that decimates my insides.
It can.
26
PAUL DONNELLY
Farrow brings the three of us to a smaller waiting room. Sad in here. Just a magazine rack and five lonely chairs. None of us fill them.
Maximoff hasn’t uncrossed his flexed arms. “You look pissed,” he says. He’s talking to his husband. Farrow does have an angry furrowed brow.
“I want to choke out my colleague right now, so yes, I’m extremely fucking pissed.” He’s scrolling hotly through the electronic tablet. “But first, I need to ask”—he looks up at me—“when you talked to Luna at the row house was she coherent?”
I nod slowly. “Yeah.” I’m frowning. “Why?”
“Did she understand where she was?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
Lo and Maximoff are drilling daggers into me, but I’m trying not to take it personally. That’s her dad. That’s her older brother. Being overly protective is in their DNA, and if I had a daughter or sister, it’d likely be in mine too.
“I need you to be sure,” Farrow says.
I run my fingers through my hair, thinking back in clearer detail. “She could tell me how she fell and hit her head. When I asked her questions, she could answer. She never seemed too confused, just…scared.”
Farrow is typing at rapid speed. “Okay, so she woke up—”
“She woke up?” I jolt, paddles to my heart.
“Jesus, why wouldn’t you start with that?” Lo retorts, about to charge for the door.
“Wait, wait!” Farrow shouts, extending his arm to keep Lo here. “You can’t see her yet.”
Lo goes pale.
“She’s not okay?” Maximoff asks.
“She’s confused about time, and unfortunately…” His glare punctures the door, then the tablet. “My colleague decided to ask Luna if she’d like a rape kit. I wanted to wait until she was in a state where she could consent or at least process this request, but they asked when I wasn’t there. And Luna said yes.”
My head whirls three-sixty degrees. Why would she ask for a rape kit? She knows they didn’t touch her. She told me they didn’t.
“The results came back two minutes ago,” Farrow says.
Oh fuck me.
I scrape my hands over my head, breathing harder.
“She gave me permission to disclose the results with family.” Farrow glances over at Maximoff. “Don’t break anything, wolf scout.”
Maximoff is already up in flames. He squats down to cool off.
Her dad looks even more homicidal.
“There was semen…” The medical jargon goes in one ear and out the other in a snap-second daze. All I hear: semen, no abrasions, no signs of force.
Of course there wouldn’t be. I had sex with Luna. Me. That morning. Twice. Consensual, loving, smoldering, extraordinary sex.
“She wasn’t raped,” I cut in—or maybe Farrow just finished talking. I can’t be sure. “She told me when I found her. I asked if they touched her like that. She said they just picked her up and took off her hoodie. To sell her hoodie. She wasn’t raped.”
Farrow’s brows pinch at me in confusion. “There was semen…”
I stare harder at him.
Sudden realization sobers his face, but like a good friend, he doesn’t speak the answer; his eyes flit cagily to Lo.
Lo is already glaring at me. “Whose semen?”
I scratch the back of my head. I never thought he’d find out I broke this promise. Never imagined a scenario where he could or would need to know. My luck has completely run dry.
Fuck.
Me.
Fuck this situation.
He adds, “Because I could’ve sworn you promised me that you’d wait for her.”
My nose flares, stifling emotion. “I didn’t wait. We didn’t…I slept with her this morning. Or…” What’s the time? “The morning before Lily picked her up. It probably hasn’t been twenty-four hours yet.”
Lo grinds his teeth, his gaze lethal on me. “I don’t know if I want to hug you or strangle you.”
I can barely breathe. “I’ve got that effect on people.” I nod to him. “I’m not really into strangling though. I vote hug.”
“I vote you better get out of my face.” He’s pissed but relieved, and that’s all I can hope for at this point, honestly. He’s glad his daughter wasn’t sexually assaulted. She had sex with me. Her…well, I’m not her boyfriend. Not yet, anyway.
Maximoff is upright again, cracking his stiff knuckles. “Do they need DNA proof it was Donnelly?” He’s asking Farrow.
“If Luna lets the police admit the kit into evidence, then they’ll need it. It’s a good idea to get it anyway.”
“Whatever I need to do,” I tell them.
Blood test, apparently. I just keep nodding as Farrow describes the medical process. He’ll take me to get my blood drawn. Then he tells Lo and Maximoff, “Wait here. I’ll be back to talk about Luna.”
