“I…yes, sir, I have her with me right now.” My breaths came faster as her gaze met mine. She was talking about me. But why? What was happening? And why—
My shoulders drooped, and my panic escalated. Knox’s dad had pull in this state, so had he already heard about what had happened? Was he trying to cover it all up? There was no point in me going into that hospital because his dad would twist and turn it all on me so his son would get away with it, just like he did with everything else. He never had to pay for his sins.
I yanked on the door handle, but it wouldn’t give. I was trapped inside the car with this policewoman and had no escape in sight. I needed to get out. I needed to leave. I needed to save myself from all of this.
“Elodie,” Jenette called, but I couldn’t listen to her. She’d end up being part of a coverup, that was if she wasn’t already. “Elodie, stop,” she said, this time louder, but I just pulled at the door handle harder.
“I have to get out,” I gasped, feeling like I couldn’t quite pull in a full breath. My fingers tingled and my vision blurred. “I need to…I have to…”
“Shit.” Metal banged against metal and seconds later my door flung open and I threw myself out of the car. My knees hit the hard asphalt and my palms scraped against the rough ground, but I didn’t care. I needed to be able to take a breath and—
“It’s okay,” Jenette said from right next to me, but all I did was shake my head in response. It wasn’t okay. None of this was okay. “It was just my boss checking where we were.” I had no idea why she was telling me that. “He wanted to make sure you were safe.” Safe? Why would he want to make sure I was safe? Or maybe he wanted to see if I’d already gone into the hospital. If Knox’s dad could stop me in my tracks, I had no doubt he would—
“You have family on the way. He just wanted to know where to send them and—”
“Family?” I interrupted, turning my head to look at Jenette. In the bright lights of the front of the hospital, I could make her face out properly. Her dark eyes looked sad, and her almost black hair was pulled into a low bun. She meant business, but there was no keeping her emotions at bay. I wondered if she could see the pain reflected in my eyes. I wondered if she could sense the need to escape from me.
“Yeah.” She smiled small. “They’re coming to take care of you.” She crouched down beside me and it was on the tip of my tongue to tell her my family would never want to come and take care of me. They wouldn’t drop everything to help me, but I couldn’t quite get the words out, because once I’d said them aloud, they’d be all the more real. “They’ll be here soon. But first…” She tilted her head to the side to indicate the main entrance to the hospital. “Let’s get this over with, yeah?”
I swallowed and desperately wanted to say no. I wasn’t sure I could go through with this. Besides, it wasn’t like it would go anywhere. I’d have all of the tests done and then what? Knox would get away with it. Men who did what he did always got away with it.
“They don’t,” Jenette said, and I blinked at her. Had I said that out loud? “I promise you, Elodie. They don’t. This is the most important part: gathering the evidence. And right now, the evidence is on your skin and under your nails.” She paused and held her hand out. “Even if you decide after this that you don’t want anything done, at least you’ll have the option.”
I glanced over at the main entrance again, then closed my eyes, trying to center myself. Asher would want me to do this. Asher…oh god, Asher. He needed me to do this. Without this evidence, he wouldn’t have a reason to have come in and done what he did to Knox. Asher needed me. He was relying on me. And that had me standing up, my shoulders back with a renewed vigor. I may not have been able to do this for me, but I could do it for him. I hoped.
My determination lasted all of five minutes until I was in a room alone, waiting for a nurse to come inside and take the clothes I was wearing and everything else she needed to do. I’d never had anything like this happen, so I had no idea how far all this testing would go, but I knew I had to do it. For me. For Asher. For every woman out there, who hadn’t been able to. But it didn’t make it any easier.
I stood in the corner of the room, my gaze focused on the door, waiting. Waiting. Waiting some more. Time passed, and voices echoed from the hallway, then finally a knock rapped on the door and it opened.
“Hi there,” a woman’s voice said, and I knew right away she was a nurse from the scrubs she was wearing and the cart with several things on it she was wheeling inside. Was all that for me? A huge encased package sat on the top, and a gown on the second shelf. Did I have to get undressed? I wrapped my arms around my stomach at the thought of exposing myself to a complete stranger. I’d never been the kind of person ashamed of my body, but right then the thought of her seeing me had terror running through my veins.
“No,” I commanded, my voice brooking no room for argument. I shook my head and backed up even more, knocking something over in the process, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t do this. It was okay in theory when I’d been outside, but now…now it was a reality smacking me in the face and threatening to knock me over. She’d see what he did to me. She’d witness the pain shadowing my body. She’d see a part of me I was scared for anyone to know about.
“It’s okay,” the nurse said, leaving the door half-open. She raised her hands in the air. “We can take our time. There’s absolutely no rush at all.”
“I won’t do it!” I shouted, wincing as my voice echoed around the room. I huddled in on myself until my back hit the wall. I tried to make myself as small as I possibly could, but I still felt like I was a red alert light going off that everyone could see. I was used to being invisible and only being seen when I wanted to be. But now…now I didn’t have a choice. She knew why I was here—knew what had happened to me. There was no escaping it and—
“Chief,” I heard Jenette say from outside my door. Her voice was different now, no longer the calm soothing one it had been with me. There was an edge to it.
“Officer Dellwater,” a gruff voice greeted, and I saw the shadow of his body through the half-open door. My breaths came harder and faster, the nurse was trying to say something to me, but I couldn’t understand what she was saying, not when I was trying to hear what was happening in the hallway. “Is she in there?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good.” His voice lowered and I wasn’t sure who he was talking to, but then the nurse stepped forward and the room spun.
“Stay back!” I warned, holding my own hands up. They were my only line of defense. “I mean it,” I told her, wishing my tone was harsher than it was, but all it came out like was a broken sob.
“I can come back,” the nurse said, her voice low. “Or we can just sit for a minute and—”
“Where is she?” Another voice mixed in with all of the others and I slammed my palms down onto my face, trying to pretend like I wasn’t here right now. If I pretended I was in the dance studio, everything would be okay. Calm. I needed calm. I needed silence to try and work through all of my emotions. I needed time. Time I didn’t feel like I had.
“Elodie,” another voice said, but this was a voice I recognized, a voice I’d heard only a few hours ago. Had it really only been that long?
“You can’t be in here,” the nurse said.
“It’s okay, Elodie,” the voice continued, ignoring the nurse’s words. “We’re here now.”
I slowly let my hands drop from my face and my gaze immediately landed on Brody and Lola. Had they come here to make sure I let them gather the evidence? Were they here to make sure Asher was—
“She’s refusing,” the nurse said as Jenette walked back into the room.
“She doesn’t have to do it if she doesn’t want to,” Lola told them and stepped toward me. She held her arms out as if she was ready to catch me and didn’t hesitate for a second as I curled in on myself even more. “It’s okay, lovely. I’m here now.” She halted in front of me and I winced, but nothing I did s
topped her from wrapping her arms around me and holding me tight. And it was the contact and safeness of her arms that had me falling apart.
A sob unlike any other escaped my throat and tears streamed down my cheeks, but all the while, Lola held me, refusing to let go. “That’s it. Let it all out.” She swayed us back and forth, her hand rubbing my back in a soothing motion. “Nothing is going to get you now. I promise that.” She placed a kiss on the top of my head. “I promise.”
I shivered at her words, so much like Asher’s, and my stomach dropped. He wasn’t here. They’d taken him to jail, and it was all because of me. “Asher?” I whispered, pulling back a little so I could see Lola’s face.
“He’s fine,” a deep voice answered, and I flicked my gaze over Lola’s shoulder to Brody. A man stood beside him, and from the uniform he was wearing, I was guessing this was the chief Jenette had greeted in the hallway. “He told us a little about what happened. So, we’ve come to get you and take you home.”
I tried to swallow past the building lump in my throat, but it was proving harder than I thought. “I…” I backed away from Lola, but she didn’t move away from me. She was a wall of steel. A wall of protection—my protection. “I’m scared.” I wasn’t sure who I was talking to: myself, Lola, Brody, or just the universe, but my words were out there for them all to hear.
“I know.” Brody stepped forward, his height imposing but all it did was make me think of Asher. “You don’t have to do this. We can take you to our house and forget about all of this.” His gaze flicked over to Lola. “Or you can let them do what they need to first. It’s entirely up to you.” He paused, his chocolate-brown eyes not moving off me. “We’re here for you, not for anyone else. Okay?”
My hand fluttered to my neck, and I glanced around the room and all of the people inside it. There were too many bodies in here. Too many people staring at me. Too many things to try and think through.
“Why don’t you all leave apart from the nurse?” Lola said, her hand rubbing my arm. “We don’t need all of you in here.” At her words, they all disappeared from the room with Brody last. He took one last look at me, smiled the kind of smile Asher did, and closed the door behind him.
“Brody’s right,” Lola commented. “You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.” She paused, waiting for me to look at her, and when I did, she continued, “But if this piece of shit is gonna go down, they’re gonna need the evidence.”
“I…” I pulled in a breath. “Go down?”
“Yeah.” Lola pushed her shoulders back. “He doesn’t deserve to be a free man, not after what he did to you.” She pointed at the cart the nurse was standing next to. “All it will take is whatever the nurse needs to do, and then it can be over.”
“But…what about Asher?”
“Asher will be fine.” She smiled, the kind of smile that told me everything would be okay, but would it? “All that matters is that you’re safe now.” She nodded. “Okay?”
“O…okay,” I whispered. I wasn’t sure if I was agreeing with her, saying yes to the tests, or both. But I knew I had to do this. I had to let them gather everything they could. I had to stop the cycle. I had to halt Knox. I had to do this for myself. For my own sanity. For every woman who could come after me if I didn’t do this. “I’ll do it,” I said, this time more confident. Lola nodded and turned, but I darted forward and grabbed her arm. “Don’t leave me.”
“I wasn’t going to,” Lola replied. “Ain’t nothing that could get me out of this room right now.” She took my hand, gave it a squeeze, then led me to the nurse. “Let’s get this done and then we can get out of here.”
ASHER
I sat on the last attached stool on the table, my back to the wall, and my eyes on the entire pod. Every bed was taken, and I was currently sleeping on the floor with my mattress, but I didn’t care, because at least out here in the open, I knew what was happening around me.
I’d spent the night in intake and been brought here at 5 a.m. promptly after my shower and new uniform of an orange jumpsuit. I went through the motions, waiting and waiting for my number to be given to me to let me know I had credit to make a call. I didn’t know why I thought it would have only taken hours, but now we’d all had our trays of food for dinner, and still I hadn’t been given my number.
My thoughts were constantly on Elodie and how she was doing. Had Dad managed to find out where she was? Were they making sure she was okay? Was she okay? Or had she gone so far inside herself that it was almost impossible to come back out? I was stuck on a loop of unanswered questions, and the only thing which would stop them was making one goddamn phone call. But I couldn’t even do that. Not until—
“Easton,” someone shouted, and I whipped my head around to the main door as it unlocked, and a guard walked inside. He held a piece of paper in his hand and glanced around the room, waiting for someone to answer him.
“Me,” I ground out, trying to keep my cool and not seem too eager as I stood and moved toward him. He held the paper out and I took it with a nod of thanks. I didn’t bother reading it, playing as if I was unbothered, when in reality I was fuckin’ ecstatic to get this lone piece of paper with my number on it.
I stared up at the TV and made as if I was still watching the show playing, but I was just biding my time. Waiting for the best moment to call. The door locked shut, leaving us all in here again, and it was only a matter of minutes until someone sat at the table with me. I’d learned a lot about politics inside county jail in the short time I’d been in here, and there was one thing I knew not to do: get involved.
“So, Easton, huh?”
I raised a brow at the voice next to me but didn’t look away from the TV screen. “Yeah.”
“I knew an Easton once.” My stomach dropped at his words, and my palms started to sweat. My dad had put countless criminals away while he’d worked for the DEA, and I was just hoping to God no one would find out who he was, and in turn, who I was.
“That right?” I asked, acting indifferent.
“Yeah, man. I had this teacher when I was in high school like twenty-five years ago. He was the coach too.” He laughed and slapped his palm on the table. “Turned out he was fuckin’ his student.” He clicked his fingers and made a humming noise. “What was her name? What was it—Aria! Her name was Aria. Oh, man, it was the talk of the school.” My lips quirked on one side at his words. “He was cool as shit.” He paused. “You know him?”
I knew most people asked this and expected the answer to be no, so I took great fuckin’ pride in turning to face him and saying, “Yeah. He’s my brother.”
His eyes widened, the tattoo on his temple stretching. It was badly done and missing half of the ink in the letters. “No shit.”
“Yep. Cade Easton.”
“That’s him!” He pointed at me and stood. “Holy shit, what a small damn world.” He shook his head and stared around the pod as if he wanted to share this revelation with someone else. “Whatever happened to the student he was fuck—”
“They’re still together,” I interrupted, not wanting him to be crass about it. I could curse like a sailor all day long, but I really didn’t want that damn imagine in my head.
“Fuck me,” he breathed out. “This is some epic love shit, then, huh?”
I chuckled, not knowing what else to say. It was hurting my eyes to look at him and see his awful face tattoo. I itched to correct it or send him to go and get it lasered off.
“I’m Artie, by the way.” He held his hand out to me and I shook it. “What you in here for?”
I’d heard several people ask the newbies in the pod this, and each time they explained why they were in here and what charges they had. Even though I didn’t want any of these people to know why I’d done what I had, I knew I had to stick to the rules of county jail, so I told him, “Assault.”
“Figured as much,” Artie said, glancing down at my hands. I’d cleaned them the best I could when I had a shower before being brought t
o the pod, but what I really needed was a first aid kit. “How come?”
“Protecting my girl,” I said simply, not willing to go any further than that. It was all he needed to know, and from the way he nodded, he understood.
“Gotcha.” He tapped his knuckles on the table and stood. “We got a spare bed in our room if you want to join us.” He pointed to the last room on the bottom row nearest the phones.
“Yeah?” I liked being out in the open, but I had no idea how long I’d be here. It was Sunday evening, and although it was possible I could get in front of a judge tomorrow, it wasn’t guaranteed. I could be in here a few more nights yet.
“Yeah, man. Bring your stuff in and I’ll introduce you to the guys.”
I stood and hooked my thumb toward the phones. “Just gotta make a call first.”
“Okay, bro. Come in when you’re ready.”
I nodded and moved toward the three phones attached to the wall under the TV. I pulled the receiver off the one closest to the room Artie walked into and dialed in my inmate number and then Dad’s cell number and waited as it rang out. Two rings was all it took for him to answer, “Asher?”
“Dad.” A breath whooshed out of me. “How is she?”
There was a pause and then, “Not doing too good to be honest, son.” There was movement over the line, and I heard a door opening and closing. “We found her at the hospital.” My stomach bottomed out. “She let them do the rape kit but wouldn’t let your mom leave.” He huffed out a sad laugh. “Not that your mom would have anyway.”
I smiled at that because I knew what my mom was like when she went into Mama Bear mode, and no one wanted to get on her wrong side when that was activated. “Did they take pictures and—”
“Yeah, they took pictures.” He paused and I knew what was coming before he even said, “Tell me what’s been going on, son.”
I glanced around the pod, hyperaware of anyone being able to hear. “Her ex-boyfriend was…abusive.” I ground my teeth together at my words and my hand clenched harder around the receiver. I should have taught the fucker a lesson the first time I’d witnessed him laying hands on Elodie, but I hadn’t, and now we were here. “I found him beating on her outside the tattoo shop, and…let’s just say it wasn’t the first time.”
Deep Burn: (Asher & Elodie: Easton Family Saga) (Burned Duet Book 2) Page 3
