Page 107 of To Professor, with Love
“No!No, no, no.”Shoving away from us, Pick nudged Reese aside and squatted in front of Eva.“Tinker Bell?”he said as gently as I’d ever heard him speak to anyone.
Eva lifted her face and stared at him from large, water-stained blue eyes.She looked so frightened and full of pain, I gulped down my own rising panic.
“Pick?”she whimpered his name in confusion as he slid his arms under her.
With a forced smile, he nodded.“Hey, beautiful.You want to take a ride with me?I got a real fast car, and we can get you taken care of in no time.”
She sobbed and moaned, then buried her face in his shirt as her fingers clutched fistfuls of his sleeve.“It hurts.”
“I know, baby.I know.”Crooning, he pulled her a little closer and scooped her into his arms before standing up and turning toward me.“Well?”he demanded when no one moved.“Let’s get her to the hospital.”
“But…” I shook my head and glanced at the possibly unconscious guy slumped on Lowe’s garage floor.“What about him?”
“Fuck him.”Pick glared at Alec.“He can rot there and die for all I care.Did you not see him punch herin the stomach?”
“Yeah, but…shit.”I ran my hands through my hair, not used to dealing with this kind of mess.“Shouldn’t we call the police or something?”
“Someone can call them on the way to the hospital.Now let’s go.She’sbleeding.”
That seemed to startle Lowe into action.“Come on.”He grabbed Reese’s arm, and they dashed toward Pick’s car.“Jesus, I can’t believe this is happening.”
That made two of us.I hurried along behind them, abandoning the half-dead baby daddy.
Reese rushed ahead to open the door for Pick and Eva.Gnawing on her lip, she glanced back toward the garage.“What if he’s gone by the time the police show up?”
Pick glanced at her before he ducked his head and slid into the backseat with Eva.“Then I guess I won’t have to go to jail for beating the shit out of him, will I?”
Reese swerved her attention back to me, her blue eyes wide with fear.“Will he really go to jail?Fordefendingher?”
“Umm...”I winced and scratched the side of my neck.“Heison parole.”
“Shit,” Lowe muttered.“Fine.I’ll stay here and clean this up.”Grasping Reese’s shoulders, he spun her to face him.“I assume you’re going with Eva?”
She nodded and rose up on her toes to give him a quick kiss on the cheek.“I love you.Be careful.”
Seeing them like that immediately made me think of Aspen.The crack in my chest broke open a little wider.Slapping the roof of the car as I opened the driver’s side door, I called, “Let’s go.Time’s wasting.”
Reese hurried into the front passenger seat, and I turned the key.When the engine roared to life under me, I met Pick’s gaze in the rearview mirror.
He nodded in silent permission.“She’ll go as fast as you tell her to.”
So I put the pedal to the floor, and we screamed down the street in the direction of the nearest hospital.
Across the bucket seat from me, Lowe’s woman was silent, chewing on her fingernails as Pick murmured something every once in a while from the back to the girl curled in the fetal ball on his lap.
“What is he on parole for?”Reese finally asked me a quiet voice.
I shrugged.“Beats the hell out of me.”
She nodded and went back to biting her nails.
We made it to Ellamore General in record time.I pulled up to the emergency room entrance, and a couple orderlies came out with a wheelchair when they saw Pick drag a bloody Eva from the backseat.They swept her off, and the three of us left to wait loitered helplessly in the entrance.
Reese paced the floor, sending text after text on her phone, while Pick—his shirt and jeans a bloodstained mess—slumped in a chair and closed his eyes, his face pale and mouth drawn taut.I camped out against a nearby wall and crossed my arms over my chest.
And we waited.
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