AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He was happy with the arrangement. Happy to help people who’d been hurt by people like Damiano.
He’d done his digging, too.
Another thing I liked about him—smart enough to do background checks on this place and the motives of those who worked here.
I kicked from the wall, took Cat’s hand, and pulled her up from the chair, ready to leave.
“Would you like a lollipop?” the girl in the room, who’d remained quieter than her boyfriend throughout the past hour, finally spoke.
Woody turned to me, his eyes pleading, and I knew exactly what he wanted, and fuck, my date with Cat was officially over, or gatecrashed, at least, because I couldn’t refuse.
“He’d rather have ice cream, but thank you, and I look forward to seeing you around.” I directed my attention to Novaletti, now standing with a confident, borderline arrogant smile on his face. And if it weren’t for the calm he’d brought to Woody, I’d have been tempted to backhand it straight from his lips. But, instead, I said, “Thank you. You can count this as your first day. I have a very special patient currently in the psych ward if you’re unsure how to spend the remainder of your day.”
“The one we met earlier?” the robotic voice asked.
“Yes. She doesn’t see many people, and she doesn’t leave her room,” I told him stuff he probably already knew. “She’s high-risk but probably very bored. So, it might be nice to have a visit from someone who isn’t a shrink.”
I was halfway out the door, posse in tow, when Feebee spoke again. “I’m happy to spend some time with her if she needs some company.”
The robotic voice followed, “We’ll head up there right now.”
And that eased my nerves a little more.
***
“I’m sorry part two of our date didn’t happen.”
“Well, this is kinda like a date. A double date.” Cat, being Cat, was admiring the beauty around her, feeling the individual strands of grass where we sat, twirling her finger around a daisy.
My eyes left her for no more than a second, and I saw Jolie smile, having never been on one of those before.
A double date.
We were in a park, a park I saw from below my hood. Screaming kids played in the distance, making me almost wish I didn’t have the new hearing aid when a deafening shriek shot through the air.
No one was hurt.
It was just one brat screaming at another because it was playing on the swing that he deemed better than the one he had just jumped off.
Luckily, Woody didn’t want to play there, always happy to keep to himself, which was good because I didn’t need to explain to any concerned parents that he wasn’t some creep who just liked hanging around kids.
“You good, buddy?” I asked, following his eyes to the drama. He was playing with the daisies, too, using them to keep himself calm.
“I don’t like all the noise,” he mouthed, not bringing his magic wand to his throat because he wanted to eat his ice cream.
He licked at the chocolate chips and minty flavor before downcast eyes landed on the cone.
I licked at my own, and the strawberry tasted sweet.
His sad eyes moved to Jolie, his nerves kicking up a notch.
His fingers wrapped around a daisy growing at his side, and he plucked it, mouthing, “I have a reason for pulling it.”
Jolie and I both knew what that meant.
“It’s okay, baby. If you need to escape, you can. If it’s too loud, you don’t have to be here.”
“I don’t know which one you’ll get.” His words were silent again.
