Page 15 of Fight for Me

“Shit, Jen. You need to go to the hospital.” I start to straighten up to get my phone but am stopped by Jenny’s hand snatching me by the shirt with surprising strength.

She opens one of her eyes and slurs tiredly. “No hospital, you promised I could trust you.” Seeing the indecision on my face, she spits through clenched teeth, “No. Hospital. Or I’m fucking out of here.”

“Good luck with that. You’re barely fucking moving,” I growl, agitated.

“Watch me,” Jen replies before sitting up surprisingly fast and trying to get to her feet, almost falling from the couch in the process.

“Jesus Christ,” I mutter and help her move to her previous position. “Fine. Be that way. I won’t take you to a hospital. But you have to tell me what hurts.”

Jen lies back on the couch and exhales heavily. “How about everything?”

I scan her body, only now noticing that she is wearing pajamas and dirty tennis shoes. Her arms and wrists are covered in red marks. The shirt she has on is torn in one place and dirty from the blood that was dripping from her face.

After asking for permission, I lift the hem of her shirt slightly and hiss at the state of her belly as I move my eyes to her midriff. It looks terrible, the skin black and blue.

“Fuck, sweetheart. You could have internal bleeding.”

“I’ll be fine. I just need to sleep a little.” She waves me off and focuses on the ceiling as I sit on the coffee table in front of her.

“What were you thinking, jumping on buildings in your state? You could’ve seriously hurt yourself,” I scold, but there’s no real heat behind my words.

“I was thinking that there’s a camera at the front entrance to your building, and I didn’t want anyone to know that I’m here.” Her expression is unimpressed, as if she thinks I’m a dumbass for even asking.

“Jen, we’re on the third floor. How did you even know which window was mine?”

“I calculated my chances, and it turned out my calculations were correct. Get over it.” She smiles, which makes me focus on her skin wrinkling around the dried blood and on the swelling on the right side of her face.

With a grunt, I get up and mutter, “I’ll bring you some ice.”

When I get back with a bag of frozen vegetables, I find Jenny still staring at the ceiling as tears drip silently from her face and into her tangled hair.

“Here, put this on your face, it will help. Do you want to wash up?”

Jen shakes her head but takes the frozen bag and lets out a hiss as it makes contact with her tender skin. Her eyes close as she exhales deeply, relaxing a little more on the couch.

“Sweetheart, what happened today?” I have to ask.

She doesn’t answer me for so long, I think she’d fallen asleep, but then she mumbles. “We’ll talk tomorrow, okay, Brody? For now, I need you to keep watch.” Her eyes snap open, looking right at me. “Promise me, you won’t stab me in the back and call anyone.”

I’m not happy, but for the moment I would probably do anything she asked me for. “I promise, Jen. I won’t. You can trust me. You’re always safe with me.”

“Thanks, Damon.” Jenny sighs softly, using my first name for the first time since we met. She closes her eyes and falls asleep within minutes. The exhaustion visible on her bloodied face.

I take a blanket from the end of the couch and cover Jen’s fragile form.

How could someone do this to their own child? Scratch that. How could someone do that to anyone?

Today’s events only confirm what I knew all along. David Wallace has to be stopped and punished at all costs.

I slip into my bedroom and start pacing. My heavy breaths are the only thing I can concentrate on as I try to calm myself. If I don’t, tomorrow all they will be talking about in the news will be the sheriff’s remains splattered all over fucking Bell Ridge.

Damn it all to hell. I failed her. I made a promise to protect Jen and to get her out. After I tried so hard to get this fucking bastard before something like this happened, I still failed. The investigation progressed too slow. And now, almost two years later, Sheriff Wallace is still running his little underground empire. He’s still unreachable, and free to do what he wants. Free to hurt someone that I care about.

We are aware that he is involved in gun and drug trafficking. But proving that turned out to be a challenge. Or maybe I’m just shitty at it.

I never thought I would get so personally invested in this case, but when I saw Jen on the first night, something struck me. I couldn’t take her haunted eyes out of my mind. She looked small and breakable, but what disarmed me on the spot was the hate and fire in her eyes. Jenny wasn’t broken yet, she was a fighter. And I thought I need to do everything in my power to bring that monster down before her fire gets put out.

Despite my better judgment, I sought her out and tried to convince her to turn on her father and report him. At first, my supervisors were on board with the idea of bringing her on our side as an asset, after all, she could be a great source. But when there hasn’t been a breakthrough with the stubborn creature, my boss told me directly to stop engaging with her and to try to find another angle. So, there went my plan to pull her out through legal channels as an informant.

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