Chapter Nine
SHAY
“Shouldn’t you be at home in bed already?” The deep whisper right into my ear had me tossing my phone. “Shit!” Matt cursed, quickly tucking his clipboard under his arm and cradling his hands together just in time to catch the flying projectile.
My shoulders relaxed, and I let out a huff of laughter. “Goddammit, Matthew.”
He grinned, handing my phone back. “Sorry. I didn’t expect you to be so jumpy.” Honestly, I was pretty sure that jumpy was my natural state of being at that point. “Though my question remains, why are you still here and not at home?”
It was 5:37 a.m. Friday morning. My shift ended at five o’clock and I was still sitting at the nurses’ station because the sun wouldn’t rise for another thirty minutes.
“It’s the only time I’ll have today to text check in on Calli since she’s just getting up to go to work, and I’m just going home to sleep.”
Not exactly the truth but also not a lie.
Calli was two weeks into her internship, and they were really pushing her hard with the workload they’d handed her. She was so tired that when she wasn’t working her ass off, the only other thing she was doing was sleeping, meaning we didn’t get to chat much, so I had to take the opportunities when I saw them.
But I was so proud of her, I didn’t care.
“And you couldn’t have texted her when you got home?” he questioned, reaching for the handheld tablet on the desk and tapping away at the screen with a heavy frown.
“I could have,” I admitted, leaning into the wall with my shoulder.
He paused and looked up. “But?”
But why would I drive home in the dark to an empty apartment and text her when I could just sit here under the bright fluorescents, surrounded by people and do it.
“But… I was just so excited to hear how she was doing that I didn’t want to wait.”
My fear of the dark wasn’t something I discussed with many people, firstly, because it sounded stupid as hell coming from a twenty-six-year-old, and secondly, because when people found out, they asked why.
And if I told them the truth, it would mean revisiting a time in my life when I had lived through events that no child should ever have to experience.
No human should ever have to experience.
“I know you’re in there, Mikayla!” my dad’s voice roared, even through the thick wooden door. I wasn’t sure how it was still in one piece with how hard he was pounding on it, but I was thankful for its resistance as Mom and Ali hurried to pull what she called our quick bags from underneath my bed. “I know you’re fucking in there!”
Our quick bags were for emergencies. They had a spare change of clothes and some snacks, enough to tide us over until we got to a hotel or a new house.
“Open the fucking door, you stupid bitch!”
His voice was getting louder and angrier, and all I wanted to do was sit on the floor with my fingers in my ears and cry until it all stopped. This was exactly what I would have done a year or so ago, but I was twelve now and needed to be strong.
“Come on, baby girl,” Mom urged, hooking my backpack over my shoulders and turning me back to face her. “It’s time to go. You remember the plan?”
We’d practiced the plan every few weeks since we moved in here last summer. I actually thought this time I might even make it a whole year at our new school without us having to make a run for it, but here I was, preparing to climb out a second-story window and down a strategically placed lattice.
“All right, out you go,” she urged, her eyes flickering from the window to the bedroom door and back again. “It’s going to be okay. I promise.”
That night, she was right.
We made it out before my father could bust down the front door and get to us. But that had been the last time.
Dad got arrested that night and put away for eighteen months for violating the permanent protective order my mom had against him and resisting arrest when the cops showed up. It had given us another two years of peace before he managed to find us again.
And by then, he’d gotten smarter. There was no banging, crashing, or deafening abuse. No warning.
He came in the dead of the night, and Ali and I woke to Mom’s screams as Dad dragged her from her bed.
“She’s my girlfriend, so you better step out of the fucking way so I can take her home!” a voice roared from down the hallway, and my body jerked at the sharp tone. “Get out of the way!”
“Dammit,” Matt cursed. “We had this OD come in. Had to pump her stomach, and it looks like this guy is already trying to take her home. She’s barely fucking conscious.” He rushed down the hall where a couple of orderlies were attempting to stop the young guy from rolling his girlfriend out in a wheelchair.
“Sir, she needs medical treatment,” Matt called as he hurried to put himself between the guy and the girl. The aggressive young man was dressed in a three-piece suit, although he couldn’t have been much older than twenty-two or three. The girl wore a tube top that barely covered her breasts, her clearly battered and abused body on full display, the bruises and tracks in her arm making my stomach churn. The denim mini skirt she had on was even worse, as it was currently up around her waist from how he’d obviously dumped her into the chair with absolutely no regard for her dignity.
“Do you know who the hell I am? You need to fucking move,” the guy snapped, but Matt didn’t move.
“I can’t let you take her out of the hospital without her permission, and she can’t even speak, sir,” Matt explained calmly, though I saw the slight shake in his hands grow as they argued back and forth.
No doubt the cops were already on the way, though they would need to be quick because the look in this guy’s eyes was one I’d seen before. It was possessive and violent, and I knew I needed to get that girl out of there.
I crouched in front of the wheelchair as Matt and the others attempted to keep the guy back. Her eyes weren’t open, and she was slumped awkwardly, but I could see her breathing, so my first concern was getting her the hell out of there, then I would assess her.
As I shimmied her skirt, trying to cover her up, I noticed a tattoo on her hip.
A heart with Mom written through it on a fancy ribbon.
I paused.
I was sure there was no way, but when I looked up and brushed the long, matted dark hair away from her face, I knew it was her. The girl Bishop and the club were looking for. There was no mistaking it.
“I swear to God, doc.” The suited man had lowered his voice, but now, there was a more dangerous tone to it. Less angry, more deadly. “You better fucking move.”
I needed to move fast.
Pulling my phone from my pocket, I quickly scrolled, finding Bishop’s number that Calli had put in there just for emergencies. I hadn’t seen or spoken to him in over a week, trying to avoid the awkward energy swirling around us.
But at that moment, I had no choice.
I hit dial and tucked the phone between my shoulder and ear, listening to it ring as I grabbed the handles of the wheelchair and spun it around, walking with the young girl at speed in the opposite direction.
The roar that came from behind me was almost deafening. “Hey! Get back here with my girlfriend, you bitch!”
“Yeah?” Bishop answered, his voice gruff.
“It’s Shay. You know that girl you were looking for, she’s here at the hospital. I—” I screamed, and my phone went flying as someone pulled on the back of my shirt, dragging me to the floor, where I landed with a hard thump on my back. The wind was knocked from my lungs, and I twisted and turned as I fought to suck in a breath of air.
I turned my head just in time to see the shiny black shoe pull back, then drive hard into my ribs, once again forcing the little air I’d managed to draw in straight out again and sending pain shooting through my body, forcing me to cry out.
“The fuck do you think you’re doing!” he screamed at me from above. Blood dripped from his nose, and his well-put-together suit was now a little disheveled. “Stupid whore.”
He stepped over my upper body, and I turned my head, looking back to see the carnage he’d left behind.
Matt was on the floor, as were the two orderlies, and anyone who wasn’t trying to help them was just watching on, their mouths open in absolute horror.
They weren’t trying to step in to help me. Or to help this young girl. A girl I knew he was using and abusing.
She had a family. They were looking for her.
And if I let him walk out with her at that moment, they might never get her back.
I clenched my teeth and kicked out my leg, catching his knee as he tried to step over my legs. It sent him tumbling to the floor, stunning him for a few seconds and allowing me to clamber to my feet, fighting through the pain I was sure could be broken ribs, but I didn’t have time to stop as he was already groaning and attempting to get to his feet.
I pulled a pen from the pocket of my scrubs and pushed the tip out before leaping onto the bastard’s back and pushing the point of it to the back of his neck.
He froze.
“I have a needle full of morphine hovering directly over your spinal cord,” I growled, trying to keep my breathing even and not let him hear the pure deception that was falling from my lips. “Unless you want to be a floating head, I would stay very fucking still.”
Bullshit. Straight bullshit. But it worked.
“You don’t know who the fuck you’re dealing with,” he spat while keeping completely still. “I’m going to kill you.”
I scoffed. “If this is the best you’ve got…”
I knew in my gut there was something seriously more sinister going on, but I pushed it to the side when the cops came in and relieved me of my position.
What I didn’t realize, though—was that ignoring that feeling was my first mistake.
And I was going to pay for it.