Chapter 12 Monroe
MONROE
I pulled up to the county jail and skidded into a parking lot.
I left my purse behind in my car in order to lessen the time I’d have to take up in order to get through all their protocol.
I grabbed my I.D. and walked straight up to the front desk and the man at the front scurried off his stool when he saw me.
“Miss Williams, I’m glad you could make it,” he said.
“Do you have those security tapes for me?” I asked.
“I sent it up the chain of command as fast as I could, ma’am. But it’s going to take some time to-”
“I’ll call Mrs. Lowen once I’m done talking with my client. Your chain-of-command can deal with her,” I said.
“That won’t be necessary, Miss Williams, I can assure you.”
“Then have those tapes ready for me by the time I’m done with my client. Otherwise, I'll wash my hands of this and you can talk to Mrs. Lowen,” I said.
I walked through the metal detector and kept going when it didn’t go off. I flashed my identifications to anyone who needed to see it as doors were opened for me. Guards were looking me up and down and one of them even whistled after me, and I spun around to make sure he knew I’d heard.
“I’m not sure where you get off thinking you can catcall me when I’m about to talk to my client, but if you ever do it again I’ll find a reason to put you on the other side of these bars. You understand me?”
I glared at the man as his back stiffened, his gut hanging over his belt like he was something special.
I turned on my heels as I followed the signs for the infirmary.
I had only one thing on my mind. I had to make sure Knox was okay.
I wasn’t going to wake Mrs. Lowen from whatever slumber she was resting in until I knew the extent of the problem.
She would want details on how Knox was as well as details on what the fuck had taken place.
But nothing could have prepared me for what I saw when I came into the room.
Knox was lying in a rickety hospital bed underneath some dim fluorescent lights. His eyes were bruised and there was a ring around his neck. Tubes were flowing everywhere and there were two separate I.V. bags feeding into his body. There were bruises on his forearms, overshadowing his tattoos.
He hadn’t just been attacked.
He had been beaten within an inch of his life.
My heart shattered into a million pieces.
I felt tears crest my eyes as I started walking towards the bed.
He was sleeping soundly, his chest rising and falling with his breaths.
His orange jumpsuit was rolled down and in its place was a plain white t-shirt.
It gripped to his body and I got my first decent look at the strength his body boasted of.
He was a strong man. Stacked with muscle he obviously took care of. This attack wasn’t taken out by just one person.
There would’ve had to have been multiple attackers to take a man of his stature down.
“Miss Williams?”
I jumped at the voice as I spun around on my heels. There was a small woman standing in front of me in a white coat. She was holding a clipboard and looking up at me, waiting for me to compose myself.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Your client was beaten pretty badly. Multiple attackers, I’d say. Two, maybe three people.”
“How do you figure?” I asked.
“When you work in the prison system long enough, you start to learn how bruising works. One attacker usually means uniform bruises no matter where they are. Relatively same size and shape, though there’s some room for error.
But there are three very distinct bruising patterns on his body. From head to toe.”
“Do you have pictures of all these bruises?” I asked.
“I have to take them for legal purposes as well as medical purposes. I’m already compiling a folder for you to take with you.”
“Thank you, Doctor.”
“He was out cold when he came to me and he still hasn’t come out of it. He’s got a severe concussion. There was stomach vile mixed in with the blood he was coughing up.”
“I thought you said he was unconscious when he got to you,” I said.
“Well he wasn’t at one point. And when he was conscious, he was coughing up blood tinged with stomach bile. He’s got four fractured ribs, cuts and scrapes from head to toe, bruising on at least twenty percent of his body, and swelling in his brain.”
“From the concussion,” I said.
“That’s what we’re most concerned about right now. If the swelling doesn’t go down, I’m not equipped to drain it. We’ll have to transport him to the nearest hospital for a procedure like that.”
“When will you know if you have to move him?” I asked.
“Within a couple hours. The swelling can’t get any worse, otherwise we risk permanent damage.”
“Is there a chair I could sit in?” I asked. “I want to be here when he wakes up.”
“Even if he does wake up, he’ll be in no condition to talk. I’ll have to run tests and check his eyesight. Poke around and make sure he’s still stable. He’ll be nauseous and it’ll make it hard to talk.”
“Doesn’t mean he should be waking up alone,” I said.
The doctor eyed me curiously and I kept my gaze pinned to hers.
I didn’t want Knox waking up alone, but I also didn’t want to leave him vulnerable.
Having me in this room provided a witness in case someone tried to sneak in here and pull something else.
I didn't like the fact that the doctor was leaving him alone in this room to suffer while he was unconscious.
I was staying with him until he was awake.
“I’ll go get you a chair to relax in,” the doctor said. “Be back in a few minutes.”
I nodded my thanks before I turned back to Knox.
There was so much more he wasn’t telling me.
There were so many other things in play that, for whatever the reason, he wouldn’t come clean with.
And the thing was, I wasn’t sure he’d come clean with Rose, either.
I think he was holding his most important cards close to his chest in case we couldn’t get him out of this situation.
In case we couldn’t get him out of this hellhole.
The doctor brought in a chair and I thanked her profusely.
I scooted it up beside Knox’s bed, and I watched him as he slept.
The way his chest rose and fell. The way his body seemed peaceful, even though I knew the kind of pain he was in.
I looked at the fluid bags and tried to decipher what was on them, and I had enough sense to know that they had him on the smallest of painkillers.
That kind of stuff wasn’t going to touch his pain once he woke up.
At some point in time I must’ve nodded off, because I was startled by a noise.
A grunted and a groaning before something started to move.
My head shot up and I saw Knox open his eyes.
I saw those dark brown eyes bloodshot with pain as his face grimaced.
I felt tears of relief fill the backs of my eyes as I shot up, thrusting my hand out to curl around his.
My touch caught his attention and his gaze fell to meet mine.
“Knox? Can you hear me?” I asked.
But all he did was grimace. Like he was about to vomit.
I heard a door crash open and I removed my hand.
I reached for the bucket next to my feet as Knox reared up off the bed.
He threw his head over to the side and I placed the bucket up to his face, catching the puke he catapulted my way.
The doctor was trying to get him to settle down as Knox continued to growl with pain.
His legs were trembling and his hands were grasping the side of the bed until his knuckles turned white.
“Knox? Can you hear me?” the doctor asked.
“Uh huh,” Knox said.
“I need you to lay back. If you cooperate, I’ve got something that’ll help you with the pain.”
“Seriously?” I asked. “You’re holding pain medication over his head because you think he won’t cooperate? Give him the damn drugs. He’s in pain.”
“I can’t until he cooperates.”
“That the jail’s protocol, or yours?” I asked.
The woman looked at me as Knox fell to the bed.
My jaw clenched as I stood, my tall stature looming over hers.
She sighed and shook her head before she moved to his I.V.
, then she uncapped the needle and injected the medicine into Knox’s tubing.
After a few seconds of deep breathing and Knox’s heart rate flying through the roof, his body began to settle down.
His heart beat evened out and his legs stopped shaking.
And he stopped gripping so tightly to the bed.
“Now, you can do your exam. Doctor.”
I watched as she ran test after test. Asking Knox where he was and if he knew who I was.
She flashed a light in his eyes and poked at his toes.
She asked him to wiggle certain parts of his body and started feeling around his head.
She asked him idiotic questions like ‘how are you feeling?’ and ‘how does your head feel?’.
I wanted to bash her head into the wall then asked her how she felt.
“Well?” I asked. “How is he?”
“For now, he’s as good as he can be. The swelling of his brain hasn’t impacted his memory recall or his response time to questions. The room isn’t spinning for him after throwing up the way he did, which is a good sign. He might not need a hospital, but the next two hours are important.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“I’ll be back with more pain medication for him in a little while. In a place like this, we can only give out so much at once,” the doctor said.
“I’ll be here.”
“I don’t doubt you will be.”
I shot her a look before she walked out of the room. I listened as the door shut behind her, then I turned back to Knox. I found him staring at me from behind his bruised eyes. I could tell he was confused, but there was also something else.
There was a bit of relief in his eyes.
I reached back down for his hand and took it within mine.
I bent over his body in bed, my free hand lightly cupping his cheek.
I wanted to make him feel better. Something inside of me wanted to take this pain away from him.
I bent closer and closer to him. So close that I could feel his breath pulsing against my nose.
“Knox,” I said with a whisper.
“Hello, Miss Williams.”
My lip began to quiver and my head grew heavy. My forehead fell to his, and he caught it without a second thought. His hand slid from mine and rose to my neck, cupping the back of it to steady the shaking of my body.
I closed my eyes, trying to choke back my tears as I took in the touch of his hand against my skin.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Can’t tell ya that,” Knox said.
“As your lawyer, I’m telling you to tell me.”
“You don’t look much like a lawyer right now.”
“That’s what happens when you interrupt my Friday night plans,” I said.
“So, you did have plans.”
I opened my eyes and found Knox staring at me as my thumb traced his cheek.
“Not really. I was going to see what kind of nightlife the hopping city of Redding provided. But if all else failed, I was going to get some food and go home,” I said.
“Pretty dressed up for food,” he said.
“Pretty dressed up for Redding,” I said with a smile.
Hearing him snicker was the greatest sound in the world. I pulled back from him and reached for my chair, then sat down next to him. My hand fell to his forearm, draping around the bruising he had on his tattoos.
Then, I got serious.
“You need to tell me what happened.”
“I can’t do that,” Knox said.
“Doesn’t matter if you can’t. You have to. I’m your lawyer, and if I’m going to keep you safe I have to know what’s going on.”
“You can’t keep me safe in here, Miss Williams. No one can.”
“Then you have sorely underestimated me,” I said. “And if you don’t tell me now, I’m just going to find out when they release the security tapes to me.”
“Then you’ll find out somehow,” he said.
“Why won’t you talk to me? Why won’t you let me help you?”
“Because you can’t,” he said.
“There’s more to it than that,” I said. “Why aren’t you telling me the entire truth?”
“Because I have to keep you safe, Monroe!”
The tone of his voice caused me to jump and the doctor slammed into the room. I whipped my head around and saw her readying a syringe, but I stood and held my ground. I shook my head at her, making sure she understood we didn’t need any more of her ‘help’.
Then I held her stare until she left the room again.
“It is not your responsibility to keep me safe,” I said as I turned around. “I can keep myself safe.”
“I don’t doubt that for a second. Don’t mean I’m not gonna try,” Knox said.
“Talk to me. Let me help you.”
“No,” he said.
“Trust me. Please.”
“No.”
“Damn it, Knox. Give me something to help you.”
“I said… no.”
He was an immovable object. Unwavering in his convictions and his dedications. But this man was about to find out that I was an unstoppable force.
And when the two of us finally collided, he would find that I could move him. No matter what his convictions were.