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The rest I just didn’t get to see.
“I…” I say at last, my head tipping back while I try to adjust my stiff body. “I don’t feel so great right now. My back is in pain, and my arm…”
“You did sustain a pretty big cut there before, correct?”
I nod at the memory—not something I like to recall, though. I made a mess of my hands and arms when I destroyed Jacob Lacey’s wine cellar, but it was worth it. Now, the light pink marks seem to prove helpful as another thing to add to my list.
“I… I don’t feel good,” I whimper, wafting the air toward my face.
The officer tidies up his documents into a single stack before knocking on the door. He mutters a few things to the people on the other side of the doorway, and I struggle to listen, but I fail. He eventually comes back into the room, his hand on my arm while he lifts me from my spot on the bench. He lets me keep the cup of coffee, drops the blanket off my shoulders, and draws me out into the hallway.
My body is numb, my eyes searching through every individual window and pane of glass to look for Carter. The officer notices, waving goodbye to some of his coworkers while bringing me down the hallway that led us inside. His eyes flick to the left, into a narrow window beside a steel door, and my heart sinks.
I almost drop my coffee all over the floor and hit the glass, my hand on the cold, streaked plastic that gives me a clear view of Carter. He’s still handcuffed, fuming, and unkempt. His shirt is torn down the middle, his face sporting a short dribble of blood while a bruise shimmers on his jawline.
Whatever the police did to him isn’t nearly as bad as what he did to them.
I watched his fury at the house as they arrested us all, his eyes glued to me then like they still are at this moment. He’s fuming, his body rigid with every inhale.
“Dove,” he says, his words hard to decipher through the hard plastic window between us. “Dove, are you okay?”
I nod in haste, wishing I could break through and get to his side once more. “I’m fine, Carter. I’m okay. He’s taking me to the hospital. I’ll be okay.”
Carter is alone in the room, so it makes no difference when he stands up and kicks his chair out from behind him. It goes flying, denting the wall, and I hiccup at his anger even though I know he’s not mad at me. He wants to protect me.
He comes to the glass, his chest showing a few stray drops of blood from the rip that exposes his muscles. I want to tame him, to calm his raging nerves, but I know I can’t do that right now.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, blinking back tears. “I’ll be back, okay? I’ll be safe.”
He nods once before looking at the officer beside me. They share a short, secretive look that almost seems trustworthy in some ways. I lean once more on the window before being pulled away from it, Carter’s eyes following me down the hallway until we hit the cool air outside that’s ushering in the sunrise.
I have to blink a few times to adjust. The fluorescent lighting inside is nowhere as bright as the yellow and orange on the horizon. “Where are we—”
“This way,” the detective says, guiding me to a blacked-out SUV in the corner of the lot. He opens my door, and I collapse into the passenger seat, more exhausted now than I was last night before the incident occurred. “Are you hungry? I can stop and get some food. I need to take you to the hospital, though. Just to get checked out and support that I had to end the interview early.”
“So, I won’t have to come back here?”
“No, you’re safe now, Isabella.”
I nod but can’t help but replay those words over and over again in my head. When the weight of those words becomes too much, I have to ask him to clarify them.
“What did you mean by that?”
He perks up, pulling us onto the main road. “Mean by what? Something to eat?”
“No, I’m not hungry,” I lie. “I’m just curious why you’re saying I’m safe now. I was just in a police station. Am I not safe in there?”
His narrow glare comes with a hefty reply. “No, you’re not safe there. Killian Hughes has officially taken office now. Anything Carter does or the people he keeps around him does, everything is tracked.”
“Tracked how?”
“Well, for starters, you’re being watched. Studied. Researched. Everything imaginable that the mayor could get his hands on, he already has. And he doesn’t like Carter Blackthorne. So, you know what that makes you? A fucking easy target.”
I sink into the seat, my stomach cramping with that admission. I know it’s bad, and I don’t want to be put in the firing line anymore, but it just seems to be how it’s going. Anytime I’m tucked into Carter’s side, I’m a target that can be used to take him down.
It makes me weak.
“I don’t like this,” I say, my chest rising and falling rapidly.
