35. Scott
CHAPTER 35
Scott
A pollo’s in the shower. I fell asleep on his couch, and he left me where I was. When I came to, I helped myself to a midnight snack of a pint of ice cream from his well-stocked freezer and turned on his enormous TV.
Edith isn’t home, so she can’t get cranky at him for having a friend staying over. Though she’s been around all of us for so long now, she’d probably have encouraged me to stay anyway.
Apollo’s phone vibrates on the coffee table. I’m verging on ignoring it until Athena’s picture on the screen catches my eye.
“Hey, Bright Eyes, Pollo’s in the shower. I can get him to call you when he gets out.”
Silence.
My stomach hardens.
“Athena?”
Still nothing.
The clock on my phone screen tells me it’s after one in the morning. Every single thing in this moment feels wrong.
I’m on my feet putting my jacket and shoes on in a fraction of a second. “Athena? Baby? Talk to me.”
She sniffs. My heart splinters into a gazillion pieces in an instant.
“Sc-Scott?”
She never calls me Scott. It’s Scottie, Gizmo, hardly ever Scott.
“I’m here.” I try to keep my voice warmer than the artic chill freezing my insides.
“I-i-i” She bursts into a fit of sobbing, and my blood surges in my veins. Whoever made my girl cry is about to die.
“Tell me where you are, Bright Eyes. And what I’m walking into.”
“Library,” she whispers. “I think. I’m hurt.” Her voice shakes so hard she’s either cold, or in pain, maybe both. “Bring a Ziploc and a spoon.”
The fuck? “I’m going to call you back on my phone, okay? I’m on my way.”
Before I’ve even hung-up Apollo’s phone and dropped it back onto the coffee table, I’m dialing her with mine. There’s nothing but silence and the occasional sniff and whimper down the line as I make the quick trip across campus to the library.
I park next to her car under the streetlight. Finding her keys a few feet from her bumper sends more dread coursing through my body. I don’t know what I’m about to find, but I know I need to steel myself, steady my emotions, and help her before all else.
Pulling our locator app up on my phone, I’ve never been gladder that the five of us have each other. I keep talking to her in hushed, level tones, telling her I’m on my way, assuring her that I’m close while I make my way toward her icon on the screen.
For some reason, she’s behind the library. Everything about this entire situation is wrong, my body is crawling with anxious energy, but I can’t let my fear and anger take over. I need to figure out what’s actually happened and deal with it instead of letting my brain run to the worst-case scenarios.
Maybe she fell. Hopefully, she fell. Hopefully, she dropped her keys out front, and somehow fell around the back, and… this isn’t working. The rational part of my brain can’t see anything other than danger.
Her leg is sticking out from behind the building as I approach, and my stomach curdles. I know for sure it’s her leg because there’s a motion detected light that switches on as I walk toward her. Her fancy-pants shoe is off, it’s lying a couple feet away in the grass. Her pants are down below her knees and bile rising in my throat makes me cram my fist in my mouth so the wail that wants to break free stays inside.
I can’t panic. I can’t react. I need to be strong, to keep it together, and get through what I’m about to see with minimal reaction. I don’t have time to react. I need to get her to safety.
I swallow a dozen times as I close the distance between me, and her limp body. Her eyes snap open as I approach, wild with the terror of a cornered animal. The relief in them as recognition of who I am clicks shatters my heart even further.
I make a move to rush to her, but she shakes her head. “Photos.” She’s got a lisp, struggling to speak, the dark purple bruise spreading on her jaw suggests someone punched her, and despite the warring in my chest, the demanding animal inside my body yearning to rip someone apart limb by fucking limb, my first priority is my girlfriend.
Always.
I hate that she’s right. I hate that we need to even think about photos, and my stomach sours as I pull my phone back out and turn on the camera function.
I take a picture of her whole body. She’s like a broken doll. Her pants are around one ankle, her legs slightly apart, bruises that are very clearly from human fingers on her thighs.
Rage boils my blood as I snap pictures of her shoe a few feet away, a puddle of vomit near her face. Tears trickle down her face as I lean closer to her to capture the bruising on her face and around her mouth and neck.
Whoever did this to her is going to die.
I snap so many pictures I start to wonder if it’s overkill. And when I move to back up, I step on something hard.
It’s a phone.
I take even more pictures of the phone on the ground, pull out one of the three Ziploc bags I brought with me, and turn it inside out. Without handling the phone with my own hands, I coax it into the bag through the plastic. I don’t know what might be on it, or not, but if nothing else we’ll at least be able to figure out who her attacker was since I assume it was him who left this trusty little clue.
Athena watches me seal up the bag and gives me a stiff nod, satisfaction pooling in her chocolate-brown depths right there with the terror and the agony that aren’t leaving her haunted stare.
A bolt of agony of my own spears into what’s left of the somehow still beating organ in my chest. My poor Athena.
“I should call an ambulance.” I pick up my phone but her trembling jaw and quick shake of her head says no.
“Can’t risk it getting out.” Her speech is slow and through gritted teeth like each word physically hurts her to say. Having had a busted-up face before, I can confirm that it likely does.
Again, not wrong. She’s connected to a high-powered father, if the press got wind of this, she’d be under a limelight neither of us want her to be under right now.
“Your brothers?” My voice cracks on the two words. At the end of the day, she called Apollo first, maybe she didn’t want to see me like this, maybe she didn’t think I could handle this situation. Either way, my phone didn’t ring, and I can’t ignore that.
Another shake which makes her groan. “Later.” She tries to pick up her arm, but it doesn’t get very high off the ground. “Rape kit.”
I nod, it’s stiff but it’s all I can manage. Hearing her say the word rape, confirming that the worst assault imaginable to a woman has happened to my girlfriend, triggers some part of my brain. This isn’t something I have time to react to right now. I need to keep pushing forward, and if I let myself process that word and what it truly means, I might collapse into a heap and never stop crying.
Kneeling next to her, I want to soothe her pain. I want to cover her broken and damaged body and take her into my arms. I want to protect her from everyone and everything, but right now, I’m afraid to so much as breathe on her.
I’ve never seen her looking so frail, so scared, so traumatized.
That haunted look in her eyes will, in turn, haunt me for the rest of my life.
Covering her, I decide, is the next thing I need to do, but she points to the pool of vomit. Shit. That’s evidence, right? In every crime show they always collect the vomit. That explains the spoon.
Ziploc number two comes out of my pocket along with my spoon. Stupid me thought she meant a small spoon, so this may take a while, but I know it needs to happen. “Wait, should we leave it for the cops?”
She shakes her head. “Animals.”
Every word makes her wince. There’s dried blood on her face, the bruising is darkening even while I’m kneeling here, and I just want to take care of my girl.
I nod and go about picking up as much of her puke into the bag as I can without bringing any of the grass or dirt with it. I can’t say I’m very successful. When I try to pull up her pants, she stops me again.
“Like this.” She must be in so much pain.
I hand her the bag of her own puke to hold while I scoop her up off the ground. Despite the overwhelming urge to snuggle into her, I don’t want to upset her any more than she already is, nor do I want to contaminate her. Right now, she’s the crime scene.
I think she sleeps while I drive to the emergency room, when I open the door, she jerks awake then cries out in pain.
“Gurney?” I ask into the backseat.
She shakes her head. “You.”
Abandoning my car, I slide her out of the backseat. When a security guard tries to come at me for leaving my car there, he takes one look at Athena in my arms, his eyes go wide, and he ushers me inside.
I don’t give a fuck if they tow my car. It’s the middle of the night; the ER is largely empty when we walk in. “It’s okay, Bright Eyes, I’ve got you. Just hang in there, okay. Help!”
She twitches in my arms as my voice raises, but I have no idea where to go with her and there’s no one at the intake desk in reception.
“I need some help here.” My voice breaks. It’s like the adrenaline that has kept me moving this far, is wearing off, leaving me a shaking pile of emotions.
Tears spill down her cheeks again, and what’s left of my battered heart aches for her. She hates being helpless, and right now, that’s exactly what she is.
Someone must spot me because they yell for a gurney, and everything happens all at once. Athena is pried from my reluctant hands, and we’re ushered back into a closed room.
I hold my hands up. “Before anyone asks.” I swallow, trying to control the battle of emotions happening inside me. “I didn’t do this to her.” My voice shakes, my eyes fill with tears. “I know you have to check, but unless someone forcibly removes me from this room, I’m not leaving her.”
“It wasn’t him.” Athena manages between sobs as she’s jiggled on the bed. “Not him.” She hisses as someone bumps into the bed.
“Sorry,” the nurse soothes. “Has someone called the police?”
Someone else confirms they have.
“We need a rape kit in here.”
Athena winces at the word rape, just like I do, but no one needs to ask. We all see the same things, her pants still clung around one ankle, her bare lower half covered in bruises, her fucked up face. Shit. It’s really fucked up under the harsh glare of the fluorescent hospital lights.
“My name is Seren; can you tell me your name?”
My Bright Eyes does.
Seren nods. “Do you want your friend here for the exam?”
Athena nods, sending droplets of tears from the end of her nose onto the bed. “Boyfriend.”
Seren looks at me, a world of sympathy on her face. “Okay…”
“Scott,” I supply.
“Scott, we’re going to do a full work up on Athena. The police are on their way, they’re going to have questions for both of you. I know this is hard, but we’re going to take care of you both, okay?”
As she finishes her question, Athena whimpers on the bed and a wet patch spreads under her body as she pees. I’m not sure if there’s blood in her pee, or if the pee washed some dried blood off her body as she went to the bathroom or what, but her eyes are scrunched closed, and her mouth moves but nothing’s coming out. Her face is twisted in pain, her body’s trembling, and I know Athena, she’s feeling grossly uncomfortable about even being here, never mind being so fucking vulnerable. I need to advocate for her, because right now, she can’t advocate for herself.
“Seren?”
The nurse turns to me.
I gesture at the two other people in the room, one is taking Athena’s vitals. “Do we really need everyone here?”
Her face softens as she nods. She holds up one finger, indicating I should give her a moment. She does a blood draw, labels everything and once the samples are dealt with, she returns her attention to me.
“Can you give her something for the pain now? Please?” My voice cracks again, and I want to slap myself for being so goddamn weak when Athena needs me to be strong.
“Tulia’s going to do just that. She’s going to get you hooked up to an IV as soon as she’s done taking pictures, okay, Athena? Then we’ll give you some fluids and something for the pain.”
They’re all women. Is that on purpose? To protect the victim? I’d wager, yes. Which makes my stomach churn even harder.
How could someone do this to another person? Everyone has a woman in their life. How could someone do this when they likely have moms, and sisters, and aunts, and grandmothers…? The question blocks my throat, and the bile that’s been rising higher and higher threatens to fizz at the blockage until it bursts. My poor Athena.
Between Seren, Tulia, and the third person in the room, they clean up Athena’s accident without a word, they get her hooked up to an IV, and we can all see the exact second the pain meds hit her.
Her body sags, and her eyes get glassy. She reaches for me, but Seren holds out her hand. “Let us collect samples first, okay? Then he can hold your hand.”
Athena’s nod is stiff but the understanding in her eyes says she gets how important the process is.
I stand as close to her as I can without getting in the way. “Do you want me to call your brothers?”
“No,” she whispers, another torrent of tears coursing down her face. “Not yet.”
Seren starts to explain the entire process, what they’re going to do in what order, why, how the imaging and treatment is going to work, she’s very thorough, and when she speaks, she addresses both of us.
My back cramps with what is bound to be stress and tiredness, but as much as I want to curl up in bed next to my girl, our night is just beginning.