Page 92 of It's You
After about thirty minutes of driving, Jack pulled over onto the shoulder of the road and dialed Willow’s office number, hoping she’d still be there.
She picked up on the third ring.
“Doctor Broussard’s office.”
“Willow?”
“Jack.” He heard the tired sigh in her voice. “Let me close my office door. Unlikely anyone would come at this hour, but just in case.”
“How’s Darcy?”
“She’s sad. Fragile. She’s also getting pretty angry at the whole situation. I checked on her this afternoon. I don’t think she’s left that damn window seat since she got home from your place yesterday morning. She’s pretty much a mess.”
Jack clenched his jaw, feeling his chest tighten. Darcy, Darcy, Darcy.
“So…listen,” Willow continued. “I tapped into the New Hampshire medical system records, and using the date you gave me, yes, I found a very, um…unusualcase matching the dates and location you gave me.”
Jack took a deep breath and refocused his attention on the conversation with Willow. “Just to be sure we’re on the same page, can you describe the injury you were alluding to?”
“Severed, um…limb. Neatly severed.”
“Any other details?” she asked.
“It had a tourniquet. Tied with dental floss. Green.”
“Goddamn it,” murmured Willow, and he could hear the grudging acceptance under layers of shock in her voice.
“He was going to rape her, Willow.”
Willow didn’t speak, and Jack went on in a rush.
“He was a scumbag piece of shit, and he was cheating on her. He came by one night to see her, late. And she let him in, and he was drunk. And she made him tea, and he started to assault her. I was out on her fire escape, so I shifted into Roug form, and I broke through her kitchen window and…Well, I…”
“You cut off his dick.”
“Yeah.” Jack sighed. “He’s lucky I didn’t kill him. I wanted to. Darcy was lying on the floor?—”
“You called the ambulance?”
“Yeah. I put that shitbag in the back of my truck and waited until the ambulance got there, then we drove north. Check the almanacs. It was a waxing gibbous moon that night. I had to be back up in the Bloodlands before?—”
“Before the following night. Full moon.”
“Yeah,” Jack whispered. “I am who I say I am, Willow.”
She ignored this. “But Darcy never mentioned seeing you.”
“She never saw me. I spent three nights on her fire escape. In the corner. Frank saw me. Didn’t like me much, either. I followed her to and from school. I watched her. I was there on the fire escape when fucking Phillip came that night, and I?—”
“You rescued her.” Willow breathed.
“I’d doanythingfor her.”
“Anything else? About that night?”
“I took something. I just…I just wanted something that belonged to her. It was a silver necklace. A Métis eternity symbol. You know, the figu?—”
“I know the necklace you’re talking about.”
