Page 67 of Renard's Deliverance

She sighed. “I wasn’t very fair to him. I can be . . . challenging.”

“Don’t care if you’re a rooster dressed as a chicken, the guy had no clue. And if he didn’t think he could do the scene, he should’ve told you. I take it you told him what you wanted.”

“I did. But I didn’t tell him about my back.”

“Which you need painkillers for.” He stood, glancing around. “There a reason why there’s a bed in your living room?”

“You noticed it, then?”

“Kind of hard to miss, Gem.” He folded his arms over his chest. “This the reason you have a sore back?”

“Sort of. I decided I wanted to get rid of the carpet in the spare bedroom. So the other week I moved all of the furniture out of the bedroom and into here. Then, last night, I couldn’t sleep so I decided to rip up the carpet. I rolled it up and got it outside to the shed. It was when I was trying to get it into the shed that something kind of pinged in my back.”

“Kind of pinged? Did you happen to think that might be the time to stop carrying around a heavy roll of carpet?”

“I did,” she said slowly. “But I also wanted to get it into the shed.”

“And you didn’t think to, oh, I don’t know . . . call someone?” he asked.

“It was around three in the morning by that stage, so no.”

He muttered something to himself which sounded a lot like a prayer as he ran his hand over his face. “Swear to God, girl . . . why didn’t you leave the carpet where it was? Someone else could have moved it today.”

“I didn’t want it to look messy. Everyone on this street is so . . . neat. It’s infuriating.”

“Don’t think anyone is going to have a coronary over a bit of mess for a few hours,” he told her. “I also didn’t think you were the type of person to worry about what others think.”

“Neither did I until I moved into a cult. I swear they hook you in with all these wild promises . . . and then they follow through on those wild promises.”

He shook his head. “You got some drugs?”

“Nope.”

“What? What painkillers have you been taking?” he asked.

“None.”

“What?” He gave her a shocked look. “Why haven’t you been taking painkillers?”

She swallowed heavily. “I don’t like them.”

“What? You don’t like taking pills? You got some liquid stuff?”

“Um, no. I don’t keep anything like that in the house.”

“Does it make you feel sick? Have you been to the doctor? They might have some alternatives you can take to Tylenol or whatever.”

“No . . . I . . . shit. I don’t want to tell you this.”

“Gonna need you to tell me. Because I’m this close to calling one of the docs and getting them over here to do what they can to ease your pain.”

“It’s not that bad. Just a pulled muscle or something.”

He moved back to crouch in front of her. “Why don’t you like taking painkillers? You’re obviously hurting and what happened tonight didn’t make it any better.”

“It really wasn’t Dean’s fault,” she told him.

“Don’t speak his fucking name,” he growled.

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