Chapter 20
Twenty
Apparently when someone says “get a grip,” by the throat is not what they meant.
—Odin to Black
Odin
Anger coursed through me as I listened to the principal explain the incident to us more fully.
“We were outside for the final recess of the day. This is fairly normal as long as the weather is decent. All the kids had their jackets on, and we were heading outside. To get to the playground we kind of have to walk around the school because the back door is getting a new sensor put on it. There’s a brick wall on one side, and the metal slatted fence on the other.
It’s narrow, about four feet. And this man came out of nowhere.
Pulled up, got out, and reached for several kids before the teacher could react.
He yanked the kids forward, slamming their little heads against the bars. I have a video if you want to see.”
Constance gave a single, jerky nod, and the principal pulled up her phone with shaky fingers.
Constance leaned forward so that she could see Judith’s phone once the principal had finally managed to get it out and the video pulled up.
We both watched as exactly what Judith had described had happened, happened.
A man wearing a face mask, dark clothes, and gloves got out of the truck, stalked to the kids, and yanked two of them by their jackets into the bars. Wendy and another kid.
When both kids sat stunned, the man let them go, muscled himself up half over the fence, and leaned down to pick them up.
That’s when the teacher kicked into gear and started fighting the man back.
The kids scrambled, and the guy left in frustration.
“Did the cameras pick up a better view of the truck?”
“Unfortunately, no.” Judith sounded pissed.
As she should be.
There was never any scenario that the cameras shouldn’t have picked this up. I’d say she was rightfully pissed off. That was a huge fuck-up in the security. Probably one that would get fixed quickly, too, if I had to guess.
“This angle is all that we have of the vehicle. And the teacher was way too frazzled to really get a good look at the truck. She was worried about all the blood.”
I could see that.
Head wounds bled heavily. They always looked way, way worse than they actually were.
And both of the kids that’d been attacked had suffered a head wound with the force in which they were yanked against the metal slats.
Wendy’s had happened right over her left eye. The other kid’s happened over his right.
Even worse, when Wendy had fought back, she’d caught her wrist on a rusty part of the fence, partially tearing open a vein there.
I looked over at Wendy, who was in the hospital bed, looking pale but in good spirits.
She was a smart kid and knew that she was safe.
She laughed at something her grandmother said to her, then pointed at her grandfather.
“Ma’am,” a doctor that I recognized but couldn’t put a name to the face, interrupted the principal. “Do you have a moment?”
Judith stepped away, going to talk to another administrator in the lobby as Constance and I waited for what the doctor had to say. I never thought about leaving, and she never thought about telling me to go.
I knew what was about to come out of his mouth before he said it.
“Ma’am.” Dr. Garza turned, finally allowing me to see the stitching on his coat pocket. “Wendy is going to be just fine. However, out of an overabundance of caution, I’d like to give her a unit of blood just in case, due to her anemia.”
Hell.
“Oh, no.” Constance’s face went white as a sheet. “I can’t…”
“It’s okay.” I squeezed her hand as I looked to the doctor. “Wendy has Rh-null blood. You’ll have to take the donation from me.” My eyes went serious. “And if you share this information with anybody, I’ll make you regret it. I’m serious. This better not even show up in any charts.”
A swift inhale and then, “What?”
The doctor frowned. “Protocol…”
“I regularly donate to her already,” I said. “You can check with her doctor, Dr. Pendelton, if you don’t believe me.”
Constance made a sound in the back of her throat that sounded like panic.
The doctor nodded. “I’ll check with Dr. Pendelton, and then we can proceed.”
The doctor went to the nurse’s station, and I was left with Constance, who was starting to hyperventilate.
I took her face in my hands and leaned close before whispering, “Breathe.”
She gasped, big, hulking breaths as she stared at me with hope and awe.
Then she threw herself at me and kissed me.
It was by far the best kiss I’d ever had in my life.
Not even with my ex-fiancée, Madalyn, had I felt this kind of connection.
I returned her kiss, leaning my entire being into it.
She threaded her arms around my neck and pushed into me.
It was when I tasted the salt of her tears that I realized she was crying.
I pulled back and asked, “What’s wrong?”
“You’re what’s wrong, you silly man.” She sniffled. “How could you not tell me?”
I shrugged. “I didn’t want whatever we had going on to be tainted by what I was doing for Wendy.”
She shook her head. “You’re crazy.”
I’d been burned by my ex.
It was hard to trust people and their feelings when you were caught up in your own.
Not to mention, I still had one more huge secret that I’d need to share with her before this got any further.
But it was a double-edged sword. On one hand, I needed to share it with her, to let her know that she wanted a murderer. The sooner I told her, the better it would be for all involved.
However, if I told her, she might leave.
She might not want anything to do with me.
However, this was a huge freakin’ secret. One that meant life and death for me.
What if I couldn’t trust her?
What if I…
“Are you even listening to me?”
Her cold hands smushed together my cheeks, causing my lips to pucker.
“Kind of,” I admitted.
“Are you freaking out?”
I nodded.
Though not for the reason she thought.
“I won’t tell anyone your secrets,” she whispered. “Everything you care to share with me will stay in this steel vault right here.”
She let one of my hands go and knocked on her skull.
I snorted. “You’re a weirdo.”
“I know,” she said. “You’re stuck with this weirdo, unfortunately.”
“Okay.” The doctor came back. “Dr. Pendelton confirmed. I’ll just need to see some ID to confirm you’re you.”
I showed him my ID, albeit fake.
He glanced at it, nodded his head in confirmation, then said, “You can go to this room right here, and we’ll get you set up.”
I squeezed Constance’s hip before letting her go.
“Go,” I urged. “I’ll be back.”
She went into the room with her daughter, and I went into the room right next to it where a nurse who had no freakin’ idea what she was doing took my blood.
Or tried to.
She was on the third poke in when Sage walked in looking bored. “Marin, how’s it going in here?”
I tried not to wince when Marin was startled and completely missed my vein.
I took the needle from her and asked her to step back.
The nurse, who had a “student” next to her name, looked at me wide-eyed before taking a healthy step back.
While Sage and the student nurse were watching, I stuck myself, got the bag flowing, and removed the tourniquet from my arm that was way too tight.
Sage shook her head. “I’m guessing that means it didn’t go well.”
The student nurse winced.
“You can head to the room next door and…”
“She will not be taking blood or giving the blood to Wendy,” I barked.
I was all for student medical staff.
What I was not for was making children suffer.
Willing adults was one thing. Children who had no concept of learning students and pain didn’t need to be experimented on, no matter if the student needed to learn or not.
Sage snorted. “We’re not that crazy. I only sent her in here because I figured she’d be able to get you stuck. You have massive veins.”
I nodded, watching the blood spill from my arm into the bag that would then be transferred to Wendy.
The nurse squeaked. “I’m sorry!”
I shrugged. “You have to learn somehow. I think it’d help if you were more confident in yourself. It was obvious that you hadn’t done this before, but you’ve learned how to do it. You’ve likely practiced it on other people. Just go with your gut, and don’t overthink it.”
“O-okay.” She smiled timidly at me. “What did you need me to do next door?”
“Get the room cleaned up and the tray table set up. We’ll head in there to start this IV as soon as he’s done bleeding for us.”
I smirked. I squeezed my hand into a fist since I wasn’t given anything to squeeze.
The nurse left, and Sage suddenly got very serious. “I think I know who did it.”