AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Spit it out doc.”
He puffs out a breath, ignoring me he looks Elle in the eye and rests a tattooed hand on her arm. “Given what you’re wearing, and I’m pretty sure you’ve been drugged given theneedle mark on your neck, I can do an examination to see…” he looks down to her knickers uncomfortably.
She seems to understand his meaning and she squirms as if to get away. “No, no, no, no…”
He lifts his hands from her and holds them up in surrender. “It’s okay, you’re okay. I’m sorry, I don’t mean to upset you, I just had to ask. We’ll leave it there, okay?”
She nods frantically and I see red. A rape kit. He was asking if she needed a fucking rape kit. If someone has…if that fucker… He’s dead.
The doctor looks to me and nods his head toward the living room, heading over there himself. I look down at the woman who’d once brought us together, but has also nearly torn us apart, and who is now thrown back into our lives whether she want it or not. Offering her a small smile, I follow the doc across the room. Lance comes with us. Hayden hangs back.
“You guys go ahead; I’m going to get her settled.” He lifts her off the counter and she wraps her arms around his neck as he carries her up the hall. I turn to the doctor, crossing my arms over my chest and staring him down. I have half a foot on him, but he is not intimidated one bit by me.
“I was worried about internal bleeding but it seems that it’s just bruising. She has two broken ribs and her shoulder was dislocated; that will be painful for a while. I don’t think there is any head injury, so she should be fine to sleep, but keep an eye on her overnight. I’ve taken a blood sample and I’ll test for drugs as soon as I leave.” He pulls a tub of pills from his pocket and passes them to me. “One tablet, three times a day for the pain. Don’t let her drink on those.” He gathers up his equipment and bags and heads for the door.
“Thank you, Felix,” Lance calls after him.
The doc grunts in response and is gone. I turn to my cousin; he looks haggard and defeated. “They said she was for you.”
“What?”
“The guy who dumped her out front told Albert to call up to our flat to say there was a package for Lance Preston. Someone knew that she means something to you.”
“What are you saying, Brent?” He spits. “This ismyfault?”
“No, Lance. I’m not saying this is your fault,” I sigh. “I’m saying someone who knows that she is important to you, to us, has targeted her. Not many people could know that, so we’ve got something to work on! Who knew about her?”
“No one!” He throws his hand in the air, turning away from me. “This is exactly why I cut ties with her three years ago, so she wouldn’t be in danger.”
“Well, she’s been initiated into this world now.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean she’s a part of this now. We can’t just send her home and pretend that we don’t know her again. She needs to know everything; she needs to understand what happened and why.”
“You were the one who said she couldn’t know!” He pokes his finger into my chest, three years of anger in his voice. It was a difficult time after I’d insisted Lance broke it off with Elle before he fell too far, but he already had . We both knew that. Then he’d seen Elle and I together and, for the first time since we first met, Lance and I were at odds. He didn’t speak to me outside of necessity for months and it took us a long while to get back to normality.
“Circumstances have changed, Lance. We need to adapt,” I keep my voice calm and cajoling.
“Thisismy fault.” His voice cracks as he sinks to the sofa.
“No, it’s not.” I crouch in front of him. “There’s no one to blame here except the fucker who hurt her. We’re going to find them, Lance. Andwe’regoing to kill them.”
My cousin looks at me with a new resolve, his jaw set in determination as he nods. We both rise and I pull him in for a hug. He’s taken aback at the rare affection, but we’d nearly broken before, and I can’t allow it to happen again. He hugs me back, slapping my shoulder and clearing his throat free of emotion.
We find Hayden and Elle in his bedroom, he is wiping her face gently with a wet flannel, clearing the blood from under her nose. She’s now sat on his bed wearing a pair of grey sweats and a darker grey t-shirt that swamps her, Hayden kneeling between her legs. Her face is cleaned of all blood and blotchy from crying, the large bruise looking angry and painful.
“Get some sleep, baby,” he says, rising to his feet and heading over to us. She climbs into the bed, encasing herself in the duvet. Hayden joins us in the hallway, closing the door behind him.
“How is she?” I ask.
“Fucking terrified,” he bites out, but his anger isn’t with me.
“We’ve got to tell her, she needs to know who we are,” I say softly.
He looks between Lance and I and then nods. “Not tonight, she needs to rest.” We are agreeing with him when the sound of Elle’s cries comes through the closed door. “Ah, fuck this.” Hayden steps back into the room, stripping off his jeans and slips beneath the duvet behind her. Her gasp is audible from the doorway where Lance and I listen to Hayden’s soothing words.
“Hush, baby, it’s me. It’s Hayden. You’re safe. No one is going to hurt you again, I promise. We’ve got you baby, you can sleep now. I’ll be right here.”
