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Noah nodded curtly. "Wouldn’t be here if I didn’t need your help."

"There are hospitals in this city, Noah–"

"Yourhelp, Max," Noah repeated, reiterating the word 'your' very clearly.

Max stared hard at my uncle's face for a long moment before nodding stiffly and swinging the door inwards. "Bring her inside."

Cold to the bone, I stepped inside, and when Noah moved to follow me, I stopped him with my hand.

"No," I whispered, eyes burning into his. "I need you to keep him…" I cut myself off, afraid to say too much in front of Teagan's uncle.

Noah, ever the perceptive one, got my drift, and nodded curtly. "Done."

With that, he turned around and jogged back down the porch steps and across the street to my parents' house.

"I thought that little gang of yours was trouble when you were kids," Max said in a resigned tone as he inspected my wounds. "I was wrong; you're all much worse as adults."

Choosing to ignore that particular jibe, I followed Teagan's uncle into his kitchen. Sitting numbly on the chair Max pulled out for me, I wrapped my arms around my stomach and implored my knees to stop bouncing while I watched him disappear from the room.

Max returned a few moments later with his dark leather medical bag in his hands. "Is it starting back up?" he asked. Pulling up a chair in front of me, he sat down and placed the instruments he needed. He pressed some gauze to my face, cleaning my wounds. "You don’t have to tell me. I just…" He cleared his throat and reached for the needle. "I just need to know she's safe."

"Teagan is safe," I whispered, biting down on my lip as the sting of the needle cut through my nerves. "This is nothing likethat."

Lie.

Lie.

Big fat lie.

"This is a personal issue," I decided to say, the urge to comfort him strong, but not as strong as the urge to lead him off track and protect Hunter. "Mypersonal issue."

Max arched a brow. "A domestic issue?"

"Something like that," I lied, flinching from the pain.

Max paused and craned his neck back to look at me. "Jordan?"

I shook my head.

"Someone else? Another man?"

I didn’t deny it.

Instead I said, "It won't happen again," praying he wouldn’t push for more that I didn’t have in me to give.

I think deep down inside he knew something was wrong, but he chose to lecture me on the dangers of involving myself with a man who would put his hands on me in anger.

"If a man did this to you then you need to report him," Max continued, not giving up. "If it happens once, you can be guaranteed that itwillhappen again."

"It won't," I assured him, feeling dead inside. "He won't be hurting me again."

"Your father is going to hit the roof when he sees this!"

"He doesn’t need to know about this," I was quick to shut him down, the thought of my father knowing what happened tonight, and the need to protect him from the actions I knew he would produce in order to sate his thirst for vengeance, was overpowering.

"You can't miss that face," Max grumbled. "And your father is not a stupid man." Sighing, he dropped the needle and picked up some gauze. "He's going to take one look at your face and lose his ever-loving mind."

Of course I already knew that. And it scared the hell out of me, but not nearly as much as the thought of something happening to Hunter did.

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