Page 77 of Hey, Daddy

“No,” she croaked. “Where?”

Uncaring of the dried blood in her hair, I continued to pet her.

“Centuries ago, in middle-aged England, a woman rode down the road completely naked to protest her husband who raised taxes on the poor. All of the people agreed to look away but one,” Haze said quietly.

“Tom,” she guessed. “He’s the one who peeped.”

“Yep,” I confirmed. “It’s said that he was struck blind for looking.”

She snorted. “I don’t think that’s necessarily a killing offense. The lady did ride down the street naked on a horse. All those bits bouncing and jiggly. I’m not sure that any man wouldn’t have taken a look.”

She finally turned to look at me, and it was then that I saw the light back on behind her eyes.

She was with me.

“Tell me about your family,” I suggested. “Why was it, after you ate that food to get your blood sugar up, and then went to the bathroom, they talked about you like you were killing them?”

She seemed to finally come back to herself at that question.

So, while we were showering, she told me all about how she felt suffocated by her family. How, when her sister went missing, her life had turned into one huge vacuum that felt like she could never pull away from. How, when she’d been diagnosed with diabetes, the hovering had only gotten worse.

She then told me about running away, and refusing to come back until her family treated her like a person, and not a caged animal.

As she spoke, I used some kind nurse’s shampoo to wash Nastya’s hair.

I washed her body off with a man’s body wash that was in the shower stall and didn’t stop until the water was running clear.

I took care of myself next, then got both of us dried off and dressed in a set of hospital scrubs.

Mine barely fit, while Nastya’s were so big that they hung off of her.

When we opened the door to the breakroom, two uniformed male officers were waiting for us.

That’s when she started to scream.

“You will not, under any circumstance, bring another male officer in here until I have released her to your custody,” the doctor, Felix, announced.

I could see the anger rising off of him in waves.

He was pissed.

The suited man was also there, but it was only when a man came up and addressed him as Senator Kennedy that I realized who he was.

And why Daniels was acting like he was a nut job who forgot how to do his job.

“She’s a murder suspect,” Daniels snarled.

“She’s a traumatized woman that needs medical care,” Dr. Felix interjected. “Now get out of this hospital before I have you taken out.”

Daniels looked ready to argue, but that’s when I’d had enough. “Get the fuck out. Right now.”

I was done playing by the rules.

The next fucking way he was getting out was by me knocking him unconscious with a fist to the face, then dragging him out by his ear.

Daniels finally saw the seriousness in my eyes, because he backed away, his chest puffing up. “You are officially suspended.”

I snorted. “Who cares?”

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