Page 214 of Shhh…It’s A Killer Story

"Will you let me take care of you at the cottage?"

This time she looked up. Jesus Christ. I'd been so focused on keeping her breathing inside that warehouse I'd barely allowed myself to look at her. The floodlights caught every injury in merciless detail.

Her left eye had swollen almost completely shut beneath a dark purple bloom spreading across her cheekbone. Blood had dried beneath her nose in cracked crimson lines. Her lower lip had split almost clean through, the flesh pale where it had swollen around the wound. Angry finger-shaped bruises circled her throat, already turning black where Collins had crushed her airway. Smaller bruises disappeared beneath the collar of my jersey she still wore, and the skin around both wrists had been rubbed raw until fresh blood mixed with the older stains left by the rope.

Someone had done that to her. Someone had stood there...and kept going. Yet somehow… She still looked at me like I was the safest place she'd ever known.

"Only you," she whispered.

The words hit somewhere beneath my ribs. Deep. Painfully deep. I swallowed once before answering.

"Only me, I promise, Seraphina."

My thumb brushed gently across her shoulder.

"Always."

The paramedic quietly reached into his trauma kit before holding out a compact emergency medical pack, the plastic crackling softly in the sudden lull between sirens.

"I want her in a hospital bed, Detective."

My answer came immediately.

"So do I."

"But if she's refusing transport..." He glanced between us before lowering his voice. "Watch her closely tonight. Head injury protocols. If she starts vomiting, loses consciousness, becomes disorientated, struggles to stay awake, or her pupils change..." His eyes locked onto mine. "...you bring her straight into Capital General. No waiting until morning."

"I will."

"I mean it."

"So do I."

It took almost twenty minutes before she finally agreed to leave the storage yard. Even then… It wasn't because she wanted to. It was because I promised her I was going to look after her and no one else. She finally released the front of my vest after several careful attempts, only to immediately slide her hand down my arm until her fingers found mine instead.

One condition. She could hold my hand. The entire walk across the broken gravel toward my truck, her cold, bruised fingers never loosened around mine for a single second.

Neither did mine.

The drive back up the mountain road settled into a silence so heavy it almost became another passenger in the cab. It wasn't uncomfortable, and it sure as hell wasn't peaceful. It was simply... quiet. The heater hummed softly through the vents, pushing dry warmth against the freezing air still clinging to our clothes, while the tyres rolled over the wet gravel with a slow, rhythmic crunch. Max lay stretched across the back seat without making a sound, his ears pinned low against his skull, his dark eyes never leaving Seraphina for more than a heartbeat. Every now and then he'd let out the smallest whine, as if checking she was still there too.

I couldn't stop looking at her.

Every few seconds my eyes drifted away from the road long enough to watch the steady rise and fall beneath the oversized blue jersey hanging from her shoulders. Breathing. Still breathing. I watched the tiny movement of her fingers around mine. The slow blink of her one good eye. The slight tremor ran through her jaw every time she swallowed. I wasn't checking because I doubted she was alive.

I was checking because I needed to keep proving to myself that she was. When the truck rounded the long bend overlooking her little clearing, I felt her entire body seize beside me. Not flinching. Freeze.

Her breathing stopped altogether, the air catching somewhere behind her teeth. Even her grip around my hand became painfully rigid. I followed her stare through the passenger window. Her cottage looked nothing like home anymore.

Portable floodlights washed the little porch in harsh white light while bright yellow crime-scene tape fluttered between the birch trees, snapping softly in the mountain breeze. A county patrol vehicle still sat crooked near the garden beds, its emergency light bar dead now, but the radio inside continued to spit bursts of static into the empty night. Evidence markers dotted the yard she'd spent weeks tending, and boot prints scarred the flowerbeds she'd once complained were finally beginning to bloom.

It wasn't a cottage anymore. It was evidence. Her fingers tightened around mine until my knuckles protested beneath the pressure.

I didn't say anything.

There weren't any words in any language that could make that sight hurt less.

Instead, I simply pressed my boot down on the accelerator and drove straight past the turnout without slowing once.