Rough Hard Fierce

by Skye Warren

  God. Bailey.

  Chapter Six

  Even though we’d taken different vehicles, Shelly and I ended up at the same place. The county hospital was surprisingly cheery, for all that it was populated with the no-healthcare segment of the population. The blinding yellow lights and ridiculous sea-green walls said we might die here, but we’d die brightly.

  Although it looked like we wouldn’t die. Shelly had gotten out of surgery and was stable. The bullet had missed her major organs, only nicking her intestines. She’d been lucky.

  They’d patched up my scrapes and treated me for smoke inhalation, but it was my head that was the problem. I had a Grade III concussion, they said, and I’d stay in the hospital in case I kicked the bucket overnight. Ironic that my main injury was sustained when Colin had pushed me down out of the gunfire to protect me.

  They knew about Bailey, and a social worker was to check on her and decide what to do. Supposedly, but no one knew anything, and I wasn’t allowed to use the phone. Trust the system, the nurse said. I laughed aloud, an ugly sound. That had been two hours ago. It would be breaking dawn soon, and I still hadn’t heard anything.

  Oh, and that guard at the door would make sure I didn’t get any bright ideas. Thanks, system.

  My head pounded as if my old upstairs neighbor’s music was blaring into my brain. I was afraid to tell them, though, in case they’d give me something that would knock me out before I heard from the social worker.

  The door clicked open, and I tensed.

  Philip walked in, looking aggravatingly clean and fresh in a suit despite his black eye.

  “You bastard,” I said. The gravity of the night had settled in. I’d almost died because of him. I swung out of bed, ready for what would have surely been the feeblest ass-kicking ever. But it was worse than expected, because I hadn’t counted on the dizziness, despite the nurse’s warnings, and I ended up in a tangled heap on the floor.

  He was at my side, lifting me, and I took full advantage, swinging my fists. They glanced off the slick, tailored fabric with no injury to him, though I felt every blow reverberate in my skull. “You stupid, sick bastard. I hate you. You’re such a fucking bastard.”

  He dropped me back onto the bed and gave me a raised eyebrow that questioned my skills at insults. “Are you finished?”

  I glared at him. Bastard. “What are you doing here?”

  “Came to check on you,” he replied smoothly.

  “Uh-huh, and the guard just let you walk in here?”

  “He’s there to keep you in, not others out. Besides, despite what happened earlier, most of the cops are my friends.”

  “Friends or employees?” I asked.

  “What’s the difference?”

  I snorted, and a small smile cracked on his face.

  “Actually,” he said, “I thought you’d be glad to see me, since I bring news of Bailey.”

  I sat up so hard my head spun. “How is she?”

  “She’s fine. Relax. She’s with Colin back at home. I just came from there, and she’s still sleeping. When she wakes up, she’ll stay with him.”

  “Really?” I narrowed my eyes. “Is that what the social worker said?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Don’t mess with me,” I warned.

  He nodded. “At first she had other ideas, but then…let’s just say we became friends. Colin assumed that’s what you would want, rather than her being placed—”

  “That’s what I want.” I should no longer be surprised at the problems that could be solved with money. But well, the world had looked very different when I didn’t have any. I was glad of it now, though I still didn’t trust Philip. “Why didn’t Colin come himself?”

  Philip looked down, kicking his Italian leather shoes into the gray rubber tiles. He looked suddenly like a little boy who’d gotten in trouble, overgrown and overdressed. “He didn’t want to leave in case Bailey woke up. She knows him, so she wouldn’t be scared. And also…well, I am supposed to apologize.”

  The silence stretched.

  “So,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

  “For?” I asked.

  “For getting you almost raped and almost killed,” he mumbled. Then he added quickly, “I didn’t know he would hurt you. He was just supposed to pick you up. And the explosion, you weren’t supposed to even know about it if you weren’t spying on us—”

  “I just don’t understand why,” I said, baffled. “I didn’t do anything to you.”

  “I suppose I owe you an explanation.” He paused, a long, reluctant minute. “Our childhood wasn’t…easy. The three of us, we weren’t always together back then. And later I considered it my responsibility to make sure it stayed that way, no matter what. I’m sure that sounds like an excuse, because it is. It was wrong and paranoid, but it’s just that once a woman knows his name, what he’s worth…”

  He seemed to be waiting for me, reassurance maybe. “It’s a nice restaurant,” I finally said. “Seems like it’s doing very well, but that’s not why I was with him.”

  He looked faintly puzzled. “It does okay, sure, but where do you think he got the money to build it in the first place?”

  Ah, more guilt. “From you?”

  Definitely confused now. “No. From us, from what we—” Suddenly he laughed. “He didn’t even tell you, did he? He was in business with me. He’s probably got more banked than I do.”

  I frowned. “He said he did work for you.”

  Philip snorted. “We went into business together. I didn’t even come up with most of the ideas; he did. I was the strategist, but he was the dreamer. He was the one who wanted to get out. Settle down, he said, try to be normal. Then he hooks up with some girl from a nightclub, and she happens to have a baby but no father for it. A ready-made family, no offense.”

  “None taken.”

  “So you can see why I was worried. And then I hear that someone’s talking to the cops, giving them information, and I assumed it was you.” He sighed. “I’m truly sorry.”

  If he was lying, I couldn’t tell. The normally harsh lines of his face had smoothed, making him look so much younger. I felt very motherly, then, having to put aside my righteous anger in the face of a sincere apology. It sucked.

  “Are you going to throw money at someone so I can get out of here?” I asked crossly.

  He looked relieved I’d changed the subject and snapped back into his usual, brusque self. “We’re working on it. The cops want to hold on to somebody just so they can look like they’re doing their jobs. Laramie’s on it, and we should have you out of here in a few days—tops.”

  “Days?”

  “Tops,” he repeated. I rocked my head back onto the bed in frustration and immediately regretted it as my head throbbed in retaliation.

  He turned to leave.

  “Wait,” I said, and he looked back. I’d been hesitant to bring her up, but he was my only source of information. “Have you seen Shelly?”

  His eyes flashed briefly before they chilled. “No,” he said, like ice. He paused at the door, sighed. “Room 504,” he muttered before slipping out.

  I could have laughed. Why have her room number if he wasn’t going to see her?

  I was sure everyone thought I’d be comfortable enough here. Colin and Philip and even the cops probably thought it was a favor that I was here and not in jail, but I’d have preferred that. This room upturned too many memories. The smell, the thin, rough fabrics, and, when I forgot myself and looked up, the same bumpy ceiling tiles.

  I fell into a fitful sleep and woke up huddled against the cold plastic railing, drenched in sweat. The clock said it was morning. Muffled footsteps and voices came from outside the door, doctors and nurses bustling about their day. I got up and used the bathroom, then wrapped the sheet around me like a robe.

  I poked my head out. The guard stood up when he saw me. The skin on his face was as smooth as Bailey’s bottom. He had to be around my age, but he seemed so young. Had I ever been
that wide-eyed?

  “Hi,” he said. “Are you okay? Do you need something?”

  “Actually,” I said in a low tone, and he leaned forward. “I need you to go and get me the morning-after pill.”

  “What?” he practically squeaked. He glanced to the nurse’s station, which was empty.

  “Yeah,” I said. “There was a little accident last night.”

  “But”—he swallowed hard—“shouldn’t the doctors be the ones to…you know…”

  “They could,” I said. “But they’d ask all sorts of questions. I figured you wouldn’t want that. What with—well, considering it was your colleague and all.”

  His eyes bulged. “My colleague?”

  “What did his badge say?” I pretended to think. “Sham. No, Shaw.”

  His mouth worked, but nothing came out.

  “Yeah, so I just figured you guys wouldn’t want that going around. About a cop and all. Well, it’s up to you. I’ll just be inside.”

  I shut the door and waited five minutes, then poked my head out. He was gone.

  With my sheet trailing behind me like a robe, I strode through the hallway. So long as I looked like I knew where I was going, no one would bother me. I passed a few people in regular clothes and scrubs, but they only spared me a glance, despite my hospital gown and bare feet.

  Room 504.

  I slipped inside and saw why Philip may not have stayed, if he’d come by at all. Detective Cameron sat on the bed, his hair mussed and suit rumpled.

  He looked up at me with bloodshot eyes.

  “How is she?” I asked, letting the door fall shut behind me.

  He tried to speak, but nothing came out. He cleared his throat and tried again. “She’s doing well. Unless she gets an infection, she should make a full recovery.”

  I nodded, hanging back near the door. He was a cop. He might just send me back to my room. “That’s what they told me.”

  “Here,” he said. “You can sit.”

  He got up and stood by the window. I went to stand by the bed.

  Shelly lay there, sleeping. Her skin was pale, with a flat, grayish tint. The only movement was a slight rise and fall of her chest under the blankets. More blankets than I’d had, and I supposed she could thank her cop for that.

  Shelly had fallen for a cop. And if the way he looked at her was any indication, he’d fallen right back. It stung that she hadn’t told me, but I understood. What a match. A modern-day tragedy.

  The chair behind me felt too far away. I climbed in beside her. The hospital bed groaned ominously, but it would just have to deal with it. I wrapped my arm across her from atop the blankets. Her body felt so slight, almost childlike. I rested my chin on her shoulder. She slept on.

  Wind whispered across me, followed by a blanket, and I was covered up too.

  “Thanks,” I whispered, without turning my head.

  He grunted his welcome, then pulled the chair around to the other side of the bed and even farther away, and sat down. Somehow he knew he made me uncomfortable. More than that, he felt inclined to help me, stepping away so that I could be near Shelly without fearing his proximity. He was a strange one, this cop.

  I rested that way, calmed by the scent of Shelly’s peach shampoo and the steady thump of her heartbeat. A nurse came in to check Shelly’s machines. She started to ask me to move, but Cameron cleared his throat, and she worked around me. Then it was the three of us and the machinery, steadily beeping away.

  “Shelly said you had a problem with a cop,” he said.

  I tensed. The smell of alcohol and sickness. Rough hands pulling, prodding.

  “She said someone threatened you. I’d like to hear what happened if you’ll tell me.”

  Ah. She’d told him about his partner, or the gist of it, anyway. Not that.

  Still, I wasn’t sure I could. It was too raw, too related.

  Maybe Colin or Shelly, maybe. I trusted them, but I barely knew this guy. He seemed nice enough for a cop. And the way he’d been with Shelly, that counted for something. But trust was a rare and precious thing, like a jewel. When I found it, the thing to do was lock it up tight, where it would be safe. The very worst thing was to lose it. It would have been better not to have it at all.

  He stood slightly and took off his jacket, then draped it over the back of the chair.

  He removed his jacket and pulled out his notepad. Then he came to stand by the bed.

  Shelly whimpered in her sleep, and I realized I had tightened my arm around her. I loosened it and moved it close to my body, resting at her side.

  “It will be okay,” he said. “I just want to help.”

  “That’s right. I can help you.”

  I shuddered.

  What would happen if I told? It was such a foreign idea.

  Almost like thinking, what if I jump off a cliff and try to fly? After all, it might work.

  I opened my mouth to tell him nothing happened or, hell, to tell him the truth about his partner, but something else came out. Everything.

  I told him how I’d grown up riding in the cab with my dad. While my dad was in the bathroom, one of the other truckers called me a “little lot lizard.” I’d thought it was funny, but when I’d told my dad about it, he’d beat the guy up. I didn’t know then it meant a hooker.

  I told him I’d met Andrew in third grade. This one boy had kept picking on me. It even got physical, pulling my hair, pinning me down. Well, I’d always been small. One day at recess Andrew shoved a handful of poison ivy leaves down the boy’s pants. Andrew ended up getting the rash all over his hand, and he got detention too, but the other boy never messed with me after that.

  I kept talking, lost in my own world. I said what Andrew had done. What the cop at the hospital had done. And then finding out about Bailey. How I’d raised her, and how Shelly had helped me do it.

  I talked about Colin and that first night. I’d have blushed if I’d been thinking, telling this guy about our sex, but I wasn’t thinking, I was talking.

  I told him about how Andrew came back and my fear and about Colin and Philip and, finally, about Detective Shaw. All the way up until last night. I told him everything dark and shameful, and probably even incriminating.

  It wasn’t really a conscious choice. Something about this place, this cop, my fear for Shelly, had destroyed my barriers. The dam had broken, the one that was supposed to keep me from spilling my soul to people I didn’t know and who didn’t care.

  Maybe also it was a kind of therapy. I’d wondered before how people ever talked. How did someone share something dark, something secret, with a stranger? Now I knew. When the time was right, it just came spilling out, unstoppable.

  It did help. He hadn’t given me any psychobabble or cop talk. He hadn’t said anything throughout my monologue of a regular girl’s life, but it had helped to let it out. Someone knew now. Someone knew it all. I felt lighter, like I’d given a bit of it away.

  When I got the courage to open my eyes, his head was in his hands. I thought he might have fallen asleep. It would be for the best. I almost giggled, that’s how giddy I felt.

  He looked up, and his bloodshot eyes looked haunted. My spirits fell. Of course I felt lighter. I’d just dumped it on him. He’d only asked what had happened with his partner, and I’d given him my life story.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t know why I did that.”

  “No, don’t be sorry,” he said. “I just—I think that might be the saddest story I’ve heard.”

  Then I did laugh. “I know a better one, but I’ll spare you for now.”

  It was quiet. I drifted into a dream state. I’d lost everything, at least for the moment: Bailey, Colin, almost Shelly. I was stuck in a hospital room with a cop—a nightmare if there ever was one. But somehow, strangely, there was peace.

  Chapter Seven

  I woke up to the soft sounds of the nurse fussing over Shelly’s bandage.

  “Good morning, sleepyhead,” Shelly said quietly f
rom beside me.

  I rubbed my eyes. I’d fallen asleep in Shelly’s bed and had one hell of a crick in my neck. I glanced around the room. Her detective was gone, his jacket missing from the chair. “Sorry,” I muttered. “I don’t think these beds were made for two.”

  “I’m glad you came, though,” she said.

  She looked better. Still wan compared to her usual self, but it seemed the indomitable Shelly could bounce back from even a bullet.

  I slid from the bed and wobbled on my feet.

  Shelly snickered softly. “Nice ass.”

  I waved my hand at her, leaving my hospital gown to gape open as I shuffled to the bathroom and shut the door. I only came in to use the toilet, but now that I was here, a shower seemed even nicer. I should probably have gone back to my own room, but walking was so hard today.

  I stood under the hot spray for a long time. Just how big was the water heater of a hospital? It was a question that needed an answer, I decided. So I stood under the steamy spray even longer, letting the warmth seep into my bruises.

  The hot water hadn’t run out when I heard voices murmuring outside. A knock sounded on the bathroom door. I shut off the water and wrapped myself in a thin towel small enough to be a hand towel for Colin.

  Ah, my jailer, come to cart me back to my cell.

  He stared at my body. His gaze lifted, paused, drifted down, then snapped up to my face. Red bloomed across his smooth cheeks when he saw me watching him.

  “I, ah, Detective Cameron told me you were here,” he stammered. “And…I thought you might need this.” He waved a small brown bag, presumably containing a morning-after pill I didn’t need, but just as quickly withdrew, as if realizing the proximity of his hand to my almost naked body.

  It was cute, really, but I yearned for Colin’s unshakeable composure. “Thank you. I’ll also probably need clothes.”

  I took the bag from him. “Bye, Shelly.”

  “Bye, hon.” She waved me away.

  I walked through the hospital halls in the thin, short towel. My personal cop danced attendance behind me, making strangled sounds of protest at my state of undress.