Page 62 of Running Feral

My eyes snap open and I look at Gunnar. He’s seething, grinding his teeth and barely able to hold back his own rage. I’ve never seen him like this. He looks like he’s ten feet tall, even though he’s crouching on the ground next to me and my puke.

Even the cops are taken aback.

“We need a statement, sir,” Sympathetic Cop says, exhaustion evident in his voice.

“Then you can talk to him respectfully. He doesn’t have to go to the hospital if he doesn’t want to, he doesn’t have to have a rape kit, and the two of you standing over him, bossing him around and asking rude questions isn’t fucking helpful.”

He spits the words out one at a time, like he’d rather be chewing fire than explaining this to them. It warms me a little, even more than the hoodie he put on me when I arrived that I’m still swimming in.

They have a stare down for longer than I think is necessary, but I guess I’ve never thought of myself as an ‘alpha male’, so this isn’t exactly shit I participate in.

Eventually, the cops seem to relent. Gunnar helps pull me back up on the bench seat, while I work on walling off all the thoughts that made me dive off to puke my guts out in the first place. The cops shuffle awkwardly to the side, and everyone seems content to leave my stomach lining on the floor for the foreseeable future.

After that, the cops ask their questions in a dull monotone, and I answer them in as few words as possible. I think I float off somewhere, because I don’t absorb most of the things I’m saying. I can feel the leatherette of the seat underneath me, especially the cracked part where it tucks into the wood, because the cracks are sharp and itchy and digging into my thigh. I can feel Gunnar’s hands on me, weighing me down, because we’re back in the same position as before. And I’m almostoverwhelmed by the scent of liquor and commercial cleaner that makes the bar seem similar but also different.

That’s it. That’s all my senses feel like taking in. Everything else is a haze. I think I give the cops a more detailed timeline, as well as a description of the motel. I tell them about how I was able to leave and the threat he made against Gunnar. I tell them how many weapons he has. I tell them I don’t know where he would go, because he’s so fucked up right now and on the outs with the Banna, he could be anywhere.

They make their notes, punctuating the conversation with unnecessary sighs but not saying the words ‘rape kit’ anymore. Eamon is never going to get caught, and if he is arrested, there’s about a million things he’ll get charged for before anyone gives a good goddamn about whether I technically gave or possibly implied consent before he used me.

It’s irrelevant. I’m not talking about it ever again.

I let them take pictures of the worst of my bruises, lifting up my shirt and tilting my face into the light for them, but only to get it over with as quickly as possible. At least no one has to touch me for pictures.

They’d sent someone else to the motel as soon as I gave them the description, so before we’re even done with the questioning, we have news that Eamon isn’t there and the room has been cleaned. Immaculately cleaned. I don’t know what that means, and my brain is too fuzzy to speculate.

The ambulance shows up without sirens, thank god, because for whatever reason I feel like that might have been the thing to throw my last vibrating nerve into a catatonic state. They park by the door and turn on a few blue lights, then pile into the bar.

I unclench a little when I recognize Tristan. The pool of EMT staff in this area is small, and I know almost all of them from how often I’ve had to call an ambulance for Lola, by this point. Tristan has something about him that’s comforting, though. Idon’t know what, because his bedside manner is non-existent, and he always looks like he both can and possibly will bench-press me.

Maybe it’s because of the way he seems to dote on her. They’re always whispering to each other like they’re fucking friends, and she needs as many of those as she can get. Distantly, I hope he’s been checking on her in the hospital while I couldn’t, but examining that feeling too closely also opens up the door to more shame than I’m prepared to process right now, so I lock it shut.

And behind Tristan is… Cade. Fuck. Who I barely know but tried to choke me out the last time I saw him.

I deserved it, to be fair. His boyfriend got stabbed, and I was part of the robbery-gone-wrong that caused it. But none of it was ever supposed to go down like that. It was another one of Eamon’s brilliant plans that inevitably ended in everyone but him getting fucked over.

They walk in and immediately scan the scene with sharp eyes. I expect Cade to glower at me, but his face is as neutral as Tristan. They’re both the picture of professionalism.

Which I kind of hate. I don’t want more professionals clomping around and making snide fucking comments. That’s the petulant child in me talking, though.

“Boys,” Tristan says as a greeting, his arms crossed over his chest as he gives both us and the cops a once over. “Everyone having a good day, I take it?”

“He needs to go the hospital,” the dark-haired cop says, tossing his head in my direction.

You wouldn’t notice it if you weren’t acutely attuned to watching men for the small warnings in their body language, but I can see the way Tristan bristles at the command.

“We’ll see. You have everything you need from him?”

The cops both nod.

“Good. You can go.”

Bored Cop looks taken aback, like he’s about to argue, but the other one makes eye contact with him and shrugs. They don’t want to be here any more than I want them here. Take your get out of jail free card and go, assholes.

Tristan and Cade both muscle forward, not-so-subtly occupying the space where the cops were and encouraging them to move away. As soon as they’re standing in front of me like a wall, I feel like I can breathe. Even though I don’t know if I can trust them, I know for sure I can’t trust the men behind them.

They relent. Cop One and Cop Two promise to be in touch, a statement they make with negative enthusiasm, then wander out of the building and back to their cruiser like they have no place better to be.

I take a deep, full breath and let my ribcage expand.

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