Page 66 of A Scandal in Homeroom
I needed a freaking hero.
15
Home
Monday Night
Locke
The doorbell rang and both Croft and I looked up from books we’d been reading. It was a rare night that Croft spent at home, and I found myself grateful for it after everything that had transpired this past weekend from Friday night on. A quiet Monday night. A cup of tea. A classic book in my lap. It felt normalizing.
Then I had to remember we weren’t exactly a normal family, and both of us knew there could be anyone at our doorbell for any number of reasons.
“I’ll get it,” I said, getting up from my chair. I looked through the glass at the side of the door and knew who it was immediately by her figure, although her face was turned away from me. My heart started to race.
“Irene, to what do I owe the pleasure?” I asked,smugly, as I opened the door. Obviously she wasn’t as done with me as she liked to think.
She turned with a lurch and practically fell into my arms. That’s when I saw the bruises, the horrible bruises on her face.
Instantly, I moved to lift her into my arms. She hissed and folded in on herself, so I knew there was more damage than just her face. I carried her into the living room.
“What in all goodness is this…” Croft said, seeing the ball of girl now huddled in my arms.
“Croft, I need ice. Now!”
“Hmph. Yes. And a bit of whiskey I’m going to assume.” With that he pulled his large frame out of the chair where he’d been reading and headed to the kitchen.
I laid Irene out on the couch and settled a pillow behind her head. Again, she whimpered, and I hated that I was hurting her.
“He can’t call the police,” she said stiffly, and I could tell it hurt to move her jaw.
“He won’t call the police unless I tell him to. What happened?”
She sighed like it was finally catching up to her what had actually happened.
“I got jumped.”
“Coyle?” I assumed.
She snorted. “Please. He wouldn’t have been able to do this much damage.”
My body tightened “There’s more than your face? Your body, too? I need to see, Irene.”
“You wish.”
Frowning, I knelt beside the couch and got in her face. “This isn’t a joke. If you’ve got a cracked rib, internal injuries—”
“I don’t,” she interrupted.
“You don’t know that.”
“Locke, I’ve fallen off enough pyramids during practice to know when something is just hurt or really hurt. I just needed a place to chill out. I can’t let the Sumners see me like this.”
“Because they’ll call the police.”
She shook her head. “Because they’ll use it as an excuse to kick me out.”
I wasn’t sure what to say to that. I knew she was a foster, but would her guardians be that cruel?
