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"Has she shown any signs of snapping out of it?" A thick, rich voice joined in the dull buzz of sound.
"Little flickers now and then. She's battened down her hatches and taken cover. For fuck's sake, Braun, how did this happen?"
"I don't know. I want answers, but no one's got time to give me any at the moment. Atticus seems to think he can sweep this all under the rug without police involvement, but don't ask me how he intends to do that. Two bodies in the fucking road, blood everywhere. She's fucking lucky the body didn't come up over the hood and through the windshield."
“Calm down, Braun. What’s done is done, we just have to pick up the pieces now.”
“She killed a man, Con. I know you’re good at your job, but this isn’t something that’s going to slot into place neatly in her life. Can you imagine living with this for the next fifty, sixty years? Tonight, she shaped the rest of her life into something unrecognizable.”
A fingertip brushed over Archie’s forehead. “We don’t have all the details, Braun. It might have been an accident, we don’t know. However it happened, Archie made the choice she felt was right in that instance, and we can’t criticize it. We weren’t there, we can’t comment on what was going on in her head. All we can bank on is that her life and Jasper’s were in grave danger. Nothing else would’ve pushed her to the line of killing someone, then pushing her over it.”
Grave danger. She wondered where that saying came from.
What the fuck. Oh fuck. Scream.
Archie flinched with the memory of the guy's face in those last few seconds. The never-ending reel kept playing. It wouldn't stop. There was no peace from it, no reprieve. God, she just wanted to close her eyes without seeing it all in slow-motion replay. She knew bad people went to hell—murderers and rapists and all the rest—but somehow, she'd expected hell to come aftershe was dead.
Obviously, she was wrong.
Connie tilted Archie's head back into the water. Her hair grew wet and heavy, tugging on her scalp as heat cradled her skull. Something cold pooled along the parting of her hair, and Archie wanted to lift her hands and work the shampoo into a lather. But she was lost, her hands floating uselessly in the water. The Mistress's fingers acted in Archie's stead as she spoke. "There's a time to reflect on what happened, Braun, and now isn't it. For tonight, for the next couple of days, we have to trust Atticus's ability to do his job. From what you've said, from what I saw that night with Boadicea, he's more skilled than any of us first thought. He will do his best for Archie, and then we can help her through whatever comes next."
"I love your optimism, Connie, but someone needs to look at the dark side of this. What if Atticus can't fix this? Can you honestly see this little innocent surviving prison? They'd break her into pieces."
"Do not underestimate her, Braun." For a heartbeat, Connie's nails dug into Anarchy's flesh like a harem of bees stinging her scalp. That sensation was enough to stir the fog choking her. "You've had a shit week, a long day, and I don't blame you for seeing this from the dark side. But at the end of the day, there's a reason for what she did, and it comes down to self-defense. She was in fear for her life, for Jasper's, and she did the only thing she could do against two trained and accomplished killers."
Something crashed against the wall; Archie instinctively shrank away from Braun's anger, using the fog to hide behind. She'd caused so much trouble. More guilt crashed down on top of her, squeezing her into an impossible position. Pressing down on her until she thought she might just pop from the pressure.
But Connie didn't flinch. She just rinsed the shampoo away and murmured to her charge, the words lost in the rush of water. "Braun, you've hit your limit. There's nothing we can do now until the boys get back, and that could be hours. Go downstairs, have a drink, and get your head down on a pillow for a while. I can look after Archie."
The Dom sighed. "Unless you're planning on leaving Archie in there until she wrinkles, I'll lift her out for you. Do you think she should be at the hospital? I mean, she's not injured, Con, but...she's hardly blinking. The lights are on, but no one's home."
"She's home." With one hand, the Mistress squeezed excess water out of Archie's hair. "Bring a towel over, Braun. The water's cooling and I don't want her to get a chill. The stress of tonight has pushed her into akinetic catatonia. I'm just a psychologist, I can't prescribe what she needs. Legally," she added deliberately.
The plug popped and the warmth surrounding her ebbed away. Archie began to shiver in reaction, yearning for the heat to come back and chase the chill away. Dark blue eyes appeared in her vision, their expression concerned as they peered into hers. A haggardness that hadn't been on Braun's face earlier aged him beyond his years.
"What does she need?" he asked, his lips seemingly moving in slow motion.
"Akinetic catatonia is treated with benzodiazepine, which comes in a few forms. It's a sedative, and only doctors are lawfully permitted to prescribe it. Anarchy's brain has suffered a mental trauma, and the levels of anxiety have shut her system down. She's tucked herself away where no one can reach her."
"But the drugs would help?"
He had a really nice mouth, Anarchy mused. She liked it better when it was smiling, rather than with that downcast turn at the corners.
"They would reduce the anxiety, yes. Unfortunately, there's a whole host of side effects that tag along with it, addiction being one of them. Withdrawal symptoms are another."
Braun waved a finger in front of her face. "Anything has to be an improvement on this, Connie. If you can't give it to her, we need to take her to someone who can." At a signal Archie couldn't see, Braun leaned back and spread a towel wide. The bath was empty apart from her unresponsive body; Braun and Connie worked together to lift her up, wrapping the warm cotton around her, then supported her as she flopped in his arms.
"We can't take that risk, Braun. Jasper has one of the most honest submissives in Avalon. What do you think she's going to do if she wakes in the hospital? She'll confess to whoever is there to listen—medical staff aren't bound by patient confidentiality laws if a patient confesses; they have a duty to report a crime. The cops would have her handcuffed to the bed and finish reciting her Miranda rights before she understood what was happening."
"Okay, so we break the law and go rob a fucking pharmacy. It seems to be the night for committing crimes."
Braun carried her out of the bathroom and down the hallway to the guest bedroom she'd been using. Connie followed them, muttering to herself.
"We don't need to resort to that. I have something in my bag that would work. I just can't decide whether we should give her the chance to pull herself out of this, or drug her. God, Jasper will kill me if she gets hooked on it."
Jasper. Anarchy's ears pricked at the sound of his name. The last time she'd seen him, he'd been motionless on the ground. Had he survived the attack? If he wasn't here with her, he'd been hurt. Nothing else would keep him away. Her lips wouldn't move, couldn't form the question she longed for an answer to.
"Leave her until morning." Braun decided as they dried her off awkwardly, then set her onto cool, smooth sheets. "We can reassess then—she's in no danger if we leave her to rest?"
