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I shook my head and focused on the top of her head. “I think we’re good here until the cops show.”
He nodded and said, “I’ll be back to check in every once in a while.” And he eased the door shut so as not to wake her.
I hissed out a breath and closed my eyes as I tipped my face to the side and rested my cheek on the top of Chloe’s head.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
The already-unconscious woman didn’t answer, so I enjoyed these few moments of quiet as I got to do nothing but hold her and reassure myself that she was okay and safe. When I buried my nose in her hair, however, I had to gnash my teeth from the scent of decaying basement that clung to her.
Recent visions of how I’d found her assaulted me, and I shook my head, forcing them from my brain. I took her hand gently and ran my thumb over her fingers before lightly tracing the bloody scabs she had forming on her wrists already. Chloe sighed in her sleep, and the sound filled me with this overwhelming sensation of privilege that even after what she’d just been through, she still trusted me enough to take care of her and keep her from harm so she could rest.
When I saw red and blue lights flashing in the rearview mirror, I groaned. I was going to have to wake her up now, and I already knew she was going to have to answer a bunch of awful questions, and I had a bad feeling I wasn’t going to get to keep holding her like this and getting the physical reassurance that she was okay.
And sure as shit, the first thing they did was separate Chloe from both me and Trick. They stuck her in the back of a cop car, where one officer took her report and called EMS, and the rest dealt with me and her brother.
When the ambulance arrived, they took over her care, and the police turned their full attention to questioning us men.
For a minute there, I was sure Trick and I were both going to go to jail. No one liked the fact that we’d basically broken into the psycho’s house to retrieve our family member…or that Trick might’ve gotten a little too forceful when he’d subdued the douche.
But our salvation seemed to come from the fact that half of them had already been to Lucy’s house and seen what he’d done there to her and the baby, plus the two officers escorting Freston outside had trouble restraining him, and he tried to run, causing all the others to converge.
Trick and I just sat back and watched, glad Chloe had already been transported to the hospital at that point.
After taking our names and information and asking a shit ton of questions, it felt as if eons had passed. But finally, Trick and I climbed back into my truck so we could head toward the hospital, too.
“Chloe’s okay and already there,” Trick reported from the passenger seat, where he was scanning his phone and reading the group chat. Then he glanced up and added, “It says your dad’s checking her over.”
My brow furrowed. “My dad?” Dad was a heart surgeon, not a—
“Yeah,” Trick answered, cutting into my thoughts. “I guess he’d just gotten out of surgery when the news went out, so he stuck around, and my dad asked him to be the one to look her over.”
I nodded. “Good…good. What about Lucy and the baby?”
“Uh…” Trick squinted, scanning his phone again before he started nodding. “Yeah. Here. Ava Grace has a slight skull fracture but the doctor doesn’t act like it’s anything to be worried about. They’ll keep her overnight for observation but that’s it.”
I nodded, glad to hear that. Poor kid had seriously looked dead earlier. It would’ve killed Lucy if anything bad had happened to her baby.
“And Luce?” I asked.
Trick shrugged. “Okay, I think. No one’s been worried about her in the chat for a while.”
I exhaled and nodded, glad I only had one person to worry about again.
As we neared the hospital, Trick instructed me where to go and which entrance the family would be waiting at. And he wasn’t lying.
Half a dozen people poured outside as soon as we parked. Trick’s dad and his siblings and their spouses crowded around him as they opened his door for him, looking him over and already asking questions as they drew him back into the hospital with them.
Pick glanced my way once and sent me a silent head bob of thanks when I alighted from the driver’s side, but he was too preoccupied with his kid to actually come over and talk. His oldest, however, paused to slug me companionably on the arm.
“Thanks, man,” Julian murmured. “For being there.”
I nodded and slipped my hands into my pockets, leaning against the back of my truck to watch the others file back inside again. “Yeah, no problem.”
Julian gave my bare chest a funny look and smirked. “D’you lose your shirt in the scuffle with that scumbag or what?”
With a sniff, I half-smiled back at him. “Something like that.”
His gaze changed, and he tipped his head as if realizing I was more shaken than he’d originally guessed. Then, he started backing toward the hospital as well, as if eager to return to the rest of his family. Or maybe he sensed I wanted a second alone. “You coming in?” he asked, motioning behind him.
