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“I’m not sure if she was cut or bitten, but her skin looks like it may have been molded together.”
Rodregez couldn’t look me in the eye, and the weight of my stare had him finding support from the door. He didn’t witness the bed vibrating as my anger became harder to contain. But he noticed my sneakers as the gentle tap against the tiles became a pounding.
“That’s fucking wrong!” I seethed.
“It’s not as uncommon as you might believe.”
I let him go on, turning to Cat, who was still picking through the minimal pieces of food she had put in her mouth.
“Such a brave girl,” I whispered as she remained quiet, chewing on the side of her mouth that didn’t need dental work.
“Very brave indeed. The mutilation also affects both breasts.”
Yeah, I fucking saw it. And it had made me feel evil, and so did the next thing Rodregez came out with.
“There’s a relatively big scar along the abdomen that she doesn’t like to talk about and preferred for me not to examine that area.”
“I saw that.” The grinding of my teeth let up for a few seconds. I’d seen so many of her scars. The poor girl was fucking covered. “What do you think that could be from?”
Rodregez came back into the depths of the room. His eyes flicked from mine to Cat, who didn’t look up, and she no longer ate, either. Her head and mood were low. Her appetite was gone completely, proven when she pushed away the food with a shaking hand.
Her skinny leg jumped under my touch and continued to wiggle when my fingers skated up her thigh.
“Likely, an abortion that was later than it should have been.”
I was fucking furious. The hatred was a hard lump in my throat that was difficult to swallow.
But I forced it fucking down, not wanting to let it loose in the room, where it would destroy everything in its path and scare Cat to death.
She had been through enough.
Too much.
It’s all your fault, my conscience spoke to me, and it wasn’t lying, and it wasn’t as easy to ignore since giving up alcohol.
There’d be alcohol here on this premises, and my skin itched with the need to go hunt it down.
Trying to force that thought and all the more awful ones from my head, I took a breath. A long fucking breath that I didn’t deserve.
“So strong, my girl.” My touch moved up and down on her narrow thigh, my hand completely covering her limb. It managed to soothe her enough for her to lift her head and witness my lip curling in disgust.
“Anything else?”
Cat squeezed the panda’s head like it was a stress ball, and I wanted to steal the damn thing, but I didn’t because she stopped shaking. All her vibrations passed over to me. I rocked with fucking rage.
If it weren’t for the look on her face, I’d have to get out of this fucking room and do something I shouldn’t, to get out of my own head.
The alcohol still called to me, but so did something else, and my need for her was stronger. Understanding passed between us, and I calmed for her. She didn’t know me. She didn’t know my history or our story, thank fuck. But my brave girl needed someone, if only for a moment.
My hand locked in hers.
“The ECG picked up that she suffered a minor heart attack earlier today.”
I stopped breathing, my hand growing sweaty in hers.
“Fuck.” I wiped my face with my other hand.
“You were right about the hole in her heart. However, we did a scan, and that isn’t her only issue. She has a narrowing of her central valve, and I’m honestly surprised that wasn’t picked up on when the hole was discovered and why neither was taken care of. Neglect, maybe?”
