But, from what I’d been able to gather from other people, the conditions in which Malachi were found were dismal at best.
My dad had some knowledge of how he’d been found, and he’d informed me that knowing wouldn’t be a good thing for me.
So, I’d let it go.
Because if my dad said it wouldn’t be a good thing for me to know, I was willing to trust him.
And since he knew that I had a very vivid imagination, and would assume the worst? Well, then it had to be truly worse than anything that I could ever imagine.
“He’s back.” I paused, feeling something inside my throat thicken to the point that I could barely breathe. “Cora… he looks so bad.”
Bad wasn’t even the right word.
Terrible.
Awful.
Horrifying.
Horrific.
Think the worst, then multiply it times ten.
“I heard that, too,” she said softly. “What did he look like?”
I swallowed hard at how Malachi had looked last night.
“Truly he looks terrible. It’s hard to even look at him,” I admitted. “And that was only what I could see.”
She waited patiently.
“He used to have a tattoo on his forearm,” I whispered. “It’s gone now. There’s nothing left but scarring. Horrible, awful scarring.”
The scarring.
Holy shit, was it bad.
So bad, in fact, that it had to be painful.
It was all still red, as if it was still healing, even after six months.
There was no way in hell that he wasn’t in pain.
“He still has his black silky hair,” I found myself saying. “But that’s about the only identifying feature he has left. Even his eyes have changed colors.”
“What?” That caught Cora’s attention. “His eyes have changed colors?”
“Definitely depigmentation of the eye,” I said. “I learned in medical school that trauma can cause it. They’re not the same color anymore. They’re mostly this whitish-gray color. It’s super disconcerting. And a big change from his old eye color of hazel.”
Cora blew out a breath.
“I heard his face is the worst,” she said. “That he has a lot of scarring there.”
It was.
He’d been hiding mostly in the shadows yesterday at the police station, but I’d seen enough.
“Structurally, his face is fine,” I admitted. “But as for the skin of his face? It’s all puckered and misshapen. As if it was broken and healed. Broken and healed. I don’t… I can’t even explain it.”
She made a sad sound in the back of her throat.
“I’m sorry, Frankie,” she said. “That’s just awful.”
I was sorry, too.
“You doing okay?” I asked my almost-would’ve-been-sister-in-law/stepmom.
Not anymore.
The word was Luca was officially dead.
Luca was officially categorized as a prisoner of war missing in action.
Or whatever way Gabe and my father had put it.
But, not wanting to hear either of them say that Luca wasn’t ever coming back, I chose to always change the subject before they could say it aloud.
As if once they said it, put voice to the words, that it was forever going to be reality.
I preferred to think that one day he would come back to me.
Tomorrow. Ten years from now. Twenty.
I didn’t care.
I was going to wait for him.
He’d never give up on me, and I wasn’t going to do the same for him.
“I’m doing okay,” Cora said softly. “I’m just… sad.”
I was, too.
At least Cora had my dad, though.
Me? I didn’t have anybody.
I was an hour and a half away from my parents. It physically hurt to see Gabe and Ember. And the only friend I had was a fellow resident that was just as busy as I was.
Meaning we never saw each other unless we happened to be on shift at the same time, which almost never happened because my boss, Cromwell was a dick and didn’t like more than one female working with him at a time.
Apparently, we were high-maintenance.
Though, he’d never come out and said specifically that. He might as well have, though.
“Are you going to hang out with him?” Cora wondered.
Was I?
I didn’t know.
Probably not.
But, as I said those words in my head, I immediately regretted them.
Luca would’ve wanted me to.
“Yes,” I finally settled on. “Luca… he loved Malachi. He would’ve wanted me to spend some time with him for sure. Especially now that he’s so… broken.”
Cora made a non-committal sound.
“Do you want to talk to Mackie?”
I grinned.
“Of course, I do,” I said instantly.
“Jackie is asleep.” Cora sighed as if she was thankful for that.
I grinned wickedly.
“Jackie is a sweet baby bird, Cora,” I teased. “You should treat that baby like the angel that she is.”
Cora and I lasted all of three seconds before we both started laughing.
Jackie was the polar opposite of me and Mackie.
Brash, loud, unforgiving and a goddamn lunatic.
I loved the little lunatic, too.
My father deserved it, though.
He’d had good children up until Jackie was born.
Then everything went to hell.
“Here Mackie is,” Cora said.
“Hello?” Mackie said.
“Hey, baby,” I said, loving how Mackie sounded over the phone. Like a cute little cherub child.
“Frank!” she cried. “What’s up, buddy?”
I loved my little sister.
Even more, I loved her enthusiasm for life.
“I heard something about you today from Dad,” I said, sounding just as amused now as I was earlier when Dad had texted me. “He told me you sleep next to a bag of Doritos every night.”
There was a long pause, then Mackie said, “So?”
I snorted. “Why do you sleep next to them every night?”
She sighed.
“Like I explained to your father,” the little smart-aleck said. “Seeing the Doritos when I first wake up in the morning makes me happy. Is it so bad that I want to wake up with a smile on my face?”
I burst out laughing.
How could I not?
It was even funnier coming from Mackie’s mouth than it had been coming from Dad’s explanation earlier.
“I love it,” I said.
There was a long silence and then Mackie hesitantly said, “Frankie?”
I sobered instantly.
“Yeah, baby?” I whispered, knowing where this was going.
“Are you happy today?” she asked.
Mackie, God bless her little sweet soul, didn’t like when I was sad. And I also didn’t like lying to her. She didn’t want me to lie, either.
So, I told her truth, no matter what, because Mackie was one of my closest confidants.
“I’m… okay,” I admitted.
Okay was exactly how I was.
I wasn’t happy.
I wasn’t anything.
I was numb.
“Is that better than sad?” she whispered.
I didn’t know.
Probably not.
At least if I was sad, I’d be feeling some emotion.
But I wasn’t sad anymore.
At least, I didn’t allow myself to feel that unless I was at home, and wasn’t leaving the house for three days.
Because if I allowed those emotions to surface, then I would start crying.
And I wouldn’t stop.
“Time to go, Mackie,” Cora said, breaking into our conversation. “We need to be at g
ymnastics. Give the phone to Daddy.”
Only, before I could talk to my father, or Mackie could pass the phone over, Tornado Jackie woke up.
“Sorry, Frankie,” Cora apologized. “I’ll get him to call you back, okay?”
With a promise of answering the call, I hung up, then got ready for work.
Hoping that today wouldn’t be as bad as yesterday.
Chapter 3
I thought she liked coffee. Turns out she just likes creamer.
-Riel’s secret thoughts
Malachi
“I saw you on a plane not too long ago,” Jonah said, eyeing me. “Did you escort a fallen soldier home?”
I remembered the incident he was speaking of.
“I was on the plane, yes.” I nodded. “But I didn’t escort him home. I just happened to be on the same flight.”
Jonah nodded. “That was bad.”
I agreed; it was.
“I think he came from Germany where I was, though,” I admitted. “I’d heard of a soldier being sent home to his wife in Texas.”
“I did a little research after I got out and helped the widow,” Jonah said. “Was a twenty-three-year-old Marine. He was in a helicopter accident. Shot down by a missile.” Jonah scratched his head. “He had three kids. A five-year-old, an almost two-year-old, and one on the way.”
My stomach knotted.
“Even worse,” I muttered. “At least I didn’t have anybody here.”
“You had your parents,” Jonah corrected me.
I shrugged. “I did. But… from what I’ve been told, we were never close. I moved out of the house at seventeen. Got them to sign me up with the military. The day that I shipped off to bootcamp, they moved to Florida. Didn’t even come to my graduation.”
Jonah grunted. “Sounds like your parents are douches.” He paused. “What did they do when they heard that you were alive?”
I rubbed my face, right underneath my eyes.
“Nothing,” I admitted. “They called my mom, but they were away on an Alaskan cruise. Luca’s parents were the ones to pick me up from the airport.”
Jonah stared at me as if he couldn’t believe what had just come out of my mouth.
“You’re joking,” he said finally.
I shook my head. “Nope.”
“Shitty,” he said. “Do you know how they were…”
The light turned green, and Jonah cut off his question mid-sentence.
Taking my feet off the ground one at a time, I accelerated through the green light and headed back with him to the station.
Only, when we got to the station, it was a fucking madhouse.
There were reporters, protesters, and even police officers filling up the usually calm and quiet lot.
Luckily, we were able to park around the back where the officers parked instead of the front lot where visitors parked.
At least, that was what I was telling myself as I pulled around to the back.
However, before I could get into the lot, three young kids practically ran out in front of me.
I hadn’t been going too fast, but I’d been going fast enough that I had very few choices on how to proceed.
I either allowed myself to run into the teenagers—which would be another media circus seeing as there were cameras everywhere—or I lay the bike down and hope that it went far enough in the opposite direction that it didn’t hurt the kids.
I laid the bike down.
Jonah, who’d had a bit more warning since he was on the outside, was able to get into the parking lot before my bike hit him.
The kids screamed and jumped.
I, on the other hand, hit the pavement hard.
My body that was still healing protested the new hurt as I hit the ground hard.
Luckily my helmet did its job, protecting my head.
As did my uniform.
However, my elbows didn’t fare quite as well.
Neither did my forearms.
But, when I finally came to a stop on my back resting against the curb with the teenagers all now pointing their phone at my face and laughing, I didn’t fucking care.
I laid there for a few seconds, getting my bearings.
And Jonah used those few seconds to get off his bike and practically shove all three kids onto the ground as he got them away from me.
They fell like a stack of dominos, and I would’ve laughed had I not been hurting.
“Fuck, man,” Jonah said, sounding frantic. “You okay?”
I gave him a thumb up.
“I now know why the uniform is so ridiculously hot,” I admitted. “Because it’s thick, and meant to protect you.”
“Did it?” Jonah asked, offering me his hand.
I took it and came to my feet, instantly feeling the rush of blood running down my forearms to drip down onto the concrete.
Suddenly there were even more people surrounding us, quite a few of those people shoving cameras in both mine and Jonah’s faces.
“We saw what you did to those kids!” a man shouted. “We got it all on video!”
Jonah didn’t look like he gave one single shit what the man did or didn’t have.
“How about you take that video camera and shove it up your fat—” Jonah started.
But I slammed my hand down onto Jonah’s shoulder, momentarily startling him.
“Help me get this bike up and out of the road,” I ordered, hoping that he would let it go.
He did.
But barely.
Before Jonah or I could get the bike up, though, people started to surround us. Most of those people being teenagers and young adults that were incensed over something we had no clue about.
“What the fuck is going on?” I asked under my breath.
Jonah shook his head. “No fucking clue.”
He helped me stand the bike up between shoving people away from him, and I pushed it into the parking lot into the space that it normally occupied.
I studied the bike, thinking that despite laying it down, it didn’t look too worse for wear.
“Fucking morons,” Jonah muttered, parking his bike beside mine.
Secretly, I agreed.
But I didn’t voice my opinions. To do so would incite the group that had now flooded into the back parking lot.
“Let’s go inside,” I ordered.
“Need to get the gate closed,” Jonah muttered.
I agreed, but without more manpower, it wasn’t going to happen.
I had a lot of confidence in my abilities, but there were about thirty-five or so teens back here.
Some of them were slamming their hands down onto the police cars, while there were a few brave souls that were actually standing on one.
Honestly, I thought they needed to go, too, but I didn’t want to risk my life to get them gone.
I was contemplating what I was going to do when two armored vehicles rolled in and parked. One at the front of the lot, and one at the back.
They had to dodge some teens on their way, but they didn’t stop or slow.
They just drove, knowing that the teens would move or be hit.
All of the teens chose to move.
They did, however, crowd the two vehicles, rocking them back and forth as they began to do their ‘peaceful’ protesting of whatever they were objecting.
The back doors were suddenly kicked open on the closest vehicle.
A red-headed older man decked out in Kevlar and tactical pants stepped out, causing Jonah to breathe a sigh of relief.
“That’s my brother, Downy,” he mumbled. “It’s the SWAT team.”
I watched as the teens around us forgot all about us in order to go to the crowd that was quickly growing around the two vehicles.
“Time to go, children,” Downy drawled, sounding jovial despite the hostile teens that surrounded him.
“We’re not going anywhere!” a young boy spoke up. “You can’t make u
s.”
“I can,” Downy disagreed. “But I’m hoping I won’t have to.”
“You can’t make us do anything,” a stupidly brave young girl pointed her finger at Downy’s chest.
Downy looked down at the finger poking him, then back up at the girl.
The girl took a hasty step back at the look on Downy’s face.
Downy moved then, allowing the rest of the men behind him to disembark.
All in all, there were six men in the vehicle. One of those men being the chief of police, Luke Roberts.
I’d heard from quite a few of the men on the motorcycle patrol with me that Luke had once been on the SWAT team, but a couple of years ago he’d switched to full-time chief—something in which he hadn’t been altogether happy about.
“We’re going to give y’all until the count of ten to get out of here before we do anything drastic,” Luke bellowed.
Just then, the other armored vehicle opened, and twelve more men poured out.
All of these men were dressed much the same as the ones closest to us, only in tip-top shape and about my age.
Considerably younger than the first group.
I felt another drip of blood roll down my arm, and looked at the offending evidence, momentarily distracting myself from what was going on in front of me.
When I looked up again, it was to find the brave kid pushing at Downy.
That’s when all hell broke loose.
The shove that Downy returned knocked the kid on his ass.
More kids decided to be brave after that, and in the end, we had over twenty kids arrested, and even more in custody to wait until their parents could show up to bail them out.
I handed back a handful of zip cuffs that we’d been using to detain the kids to the chief, and he nodded his thanks.
“Get that looked at,” he ordered.
I looked at my hands, then shrugged. “It’s fine.”
Luke shook his head.
But I should’ve known better than to think I’d get out of getting checked out.
Before I’d made my way to my bike an hour after my shift ended, it was to find Captain Morgan waiting for me to exit.
“Ready?” he asked.
I frowned. “For what?”
Chapter 4
After this, hell should be easy.
-Coffee Cup
Malachi
I didn’t want to go to the hospital.
In fact, I wanted nothing more than to go home, fall into bed, and never move again.
If You Say So (KPD Motorcycle Patrol Book 6) Page 3
