Page 80 of The Rut in the Road

“I need you to?—”

But whatever he needed her to do got cut off when several police burst through the door to the room.

“Oh, shit,” somebody said. A voice I didn’t recognize.

“Rayn?”

I turned to find the source of the familiar voice. Detective Maza.

He was frowning, his brows pulled together over dark brown eyes. “I need to look at your head, okay?” he said.

I stared.

“Rayn?” His frown got deeper.

I needed to answer him. I swallowed. Tried to nod, then winced, my hand going back to my head.

Maza’s hand caught my wrist. “Don’t touch it,” he said. “I need a yes or no, though. Can I look at your head?”

I swallowed again a few more times before my lips and tongue remembered how to move. “Y-yes.”

Strong, calloused hands touched my face. Something flickered over Maza’s expression, but I didn’t know him well enough to read what it was and I definitely wasn’t with it enough to interpret what it might mean.

Maza let out a grunt. “Shit,” he breathed. “That’s gonna need stitches.”

Raj was going to be mad.

So was Mason.

I looked over at Ward. At least he was safe. I hadn’t let him get hurt.

“We’re getting all of you out of here,” Maza said to me. “In fact,” he said, gesturing to one of the uniformed police who had come in with him.. “We’re shutting down the whole party. Get everyone out of here—the partyandthe damn protest.”

“Detective…” The woman sounded uncertain.

“Backup will be here soon,” he replied sharply.

All the faces in the room—the police and Ward and Vi—were grim.

Of course they were.

We had to get out of here, and the building’s main entrance was surrounded by the people who had?—

My mind was clearing a little, and I looked around, then located a few bricks in the midst of the shattered glass.

They’d thrown bricks through the glass. I knew that the windows were mirrored on the outside, that they couldn’t have seen me on the other side. The fact that I’d been there was nothing more than a really unfortunate—for me—coincidence.

The protestors had probably been hoping this was the séance room, or maybe the main party room. They’d wanted to make a statement.

Instead, they’d only hit me.

Despite the fact that this, yet again, meant I’d been a disappointment, I didn’t feel at all bad about it. Except for the headache that was starting to throb its way out of the injury on my temple. That did feel bad.

I was sittingin an alcove in the Emergency Department behind a yellow curtain with little chicks printed on it, my eyes closed against the light leaking in around the curtain. The nurses had shut off the lights on my side of the loosely divided room out of deference for the pounding headache that didn’t seem likely to abate any time soon.

I was waiting for someone to show up to stitch it closed, then they were going to send me home. They wanted Vi to come with me, to make sure I didn’t lose consciousness and be unable to wake up.

I hadn’t called Raj yet. I wanted to wait until I was home safe before bothering him.