Page 60 of Five Fingers of Death

“He’s on the way.”

“Don’t let her past you,” I said, shifting to the back door.

“Please,” Isabelle pleaded.

“Vira, go outside and make sure FNG knows what’s going on.”

She nodded and ran past Johnny, but the moment she left, Isabelle freaked out. Jumping away from the counter, she bolted. With the strength of one of us, she ran at me, slamming her fist into my face. I took the hit, wrapping my arms around her as gently as I could. She struggled hard, fighting me with everything she had.

“Let me go! You can’t do this!”

“Isabelle, just calm down. I’m not going to hurt you,” I whispered.

“Don’t! Don’t! You don’t understand!”

Her screams tore through me as she broke my hold, swinging her elbow back into my stomach. I grabbed her again, this time applying more pressure. I hated to hold her this tight, but if she got loose…

“Why are you doing this?” she screamed. “Let me go!”

“Isabelle,” I whispered, trying my best to stay calm. “Shh. It’s okay.”

She screamed and cried, kicking at my shins and twisting as much as she could, but her fight was draining a little. FNG came rushing into the room. He quickly pulled out a syringe and got to work.

“Johnny, get over here and hold her down on the floor.”

“You want him on top of her?” I asked.

“I need her steady,” FNG said. “I’m sorry.”

Fuck, I really didn’t want to do this. I slid down against the cabinets, taking her with me, then laid down, allowing Johnny to get on top of us to hold her down. She was panicking, freaking the fuck out, but it only lasted a minute as FNG got in there and gave her the sedative.

Johnny was off her the second he was done, but I stayed down, whispering in her ear that it was okay. Her whimpers slowly died down and I loosened my hold on her until her eyes drifted shut and she finally fell asleep.

“Goddamnit,” Johnny hissed, taking off his cowboy hat and shoving his hand through his hair. “What the fuck? What the actual fuck?” he shouted.

I sat up, repositioning Isabelle in my arms. Her breathing was even, but fuck, she looked so broken. I hauled her up into my arms and carried her into the living room, laying her on the couch.

“What the fuck are we gonna do?” Johnny asked. “This is way more fucked up than Knight led us to believe.”

“I doubt he realized it was this bad,” FNG said, taking his place beside her to clean up her hand. “We need to get Eva over here. She needs to go with you to the hospital.”

“Me?” I asked. “Why the hell would you need me to go?”

FNG turned, his eyebrow crooked curiously. “Because you witnessed all this. You knew. They’ll want to talk to you and find out what you saw.”

I took a step back, looking at Isabelle laying on the couch. Fuck, I didn’t want to get involved. I had my own shit to deal with. I was about to bury Leah. My daughter had only started living with me a few days ago. How the hell was I supposed to leave her right now?

“It’s not like you’re gonna be gone for long,” he said, as if reading my thoughts. “But she needs this.”

Jack walked through the door, his eyes flicking to Isabelle. “I called Kate. I thought she would want to know what happened. She said she’d try to contact Knight, but he’s been laying low.”

“What did you tell her?”

“Just that Isabelle was having some issues and we’d call back with more details when we knew more. I didn’t want to say too much until we got her to the hospital.”

I wasn’t even aware that he had seen anything. Then again, my focus had been on Isabelle. He could have been standing in the room the whole time and I wouldn’t have noticed a thing.

“We should get going,” FNG said, his eyes focused on me. “We need to get her to the hospital. She needs treatment.”

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