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“I was dealing with the brother,” he admitted. “And she didn’t cry out in pain or anything every time Elliette hit her, so I didn’t know what was happening at first. When we came in, I hadn’t even realized that she’d been hit by the door. My sole focus was Costas because he tried to run from me. I was busy subduing him, and only when Costas yelled about us hurting her did I notice that she was on the floor with Elliette.”
Horrified thoughts started to fill me.
When I’d first learned that Shayne couldn’t feel pain, I’d thought it pretty cool. Until the one night we were out to eat, she’d stumbled on a rock, and had started to tip over onto her backside.
I’d caught her, and we’d walked for a bit longer before she said she was having trouble walking. Not because it hurt, but because she kept hearing the bones in her ankle crunch.
Low and behold, after getting her to the hospital to get her ankle checked out, we found out that not only had she hurt herself and didn’t know it—continuing to walk on it for another fifteen minutes—but it was so badly broken that she had to have surgery on it.
From that point forward, I made sure to always be aware of her and her body.
I closed my eyes.
She hadn’t cried out at all as Elliette had assaulted her.
“She can’t feel pain,” my dad said to Boseman. “Her not crying out wasn’t because her body wasn’t experiencing pain, it was that her wires are crossed, and she physically can’t ascertain what pain feels like.”
“I pulled Elliette off of her,” Assman babbled rapidly. “Then so did Ameer. She wasn’t listening to any of us.”
He was wringing his hands, clearly just as uncomfortable.
“Where’s Ameer?” I shifted my neck from side to side, trying to alleviate the tension already building there.
“With Shayne at the hospital,” Assman crossed his arms over his chest, clearly pissed still. “I asked him to stay with her.”
“Hospital.” I tried to steady my breathing, but it was clear that I wasn’t going to accomplish that without laying eyes on her and making sure she was okay.
I drew a deep breath, trying to contain my rage.
Surprise, surprise. It didn’t work.
I gritted my teeth before turning back toward my father. “I’m leaving for the rest of the day.” I paused in my stride toward my desk and looked at the men in the room one by one. “Find her,” I growled to no one in particular. “Before I do.”
“Understood,” Dad said. “It’s already cleared with the chief. You have the next week off.”
I nodded once, then finally collected all my things before heading out the door.
“Did you at least get what you were looking for?” I heard my father ask carefully.
“Actually, more than,” Assman admitted. “That whole entire house was full of drugs. No women, but fuck. The garage was stacked to the goddamn rafters.”
Fuck.
That meant damage control.
No matter how badly I wanted to keep Shayne out of it, she would be implicated just by living there.
Unless Costas threw himself under the bus, that was.
Did I trust him?
No.
But I knew he loved his sister.
She was protected no matter what, whether or not she liked the protection he offered. Costas, down deep, was a good guy. He loved his family. He’d just taken a turn, leading him down a dark and dangerous path when he was young that he hadn’t fought his way out of.
He’d protect her, even if it implicated himself.
