Page 10 of Full of Wrath

“Thank you again.”

When the door is shut and I’ve watched him leave, I finally start taking off the clothes Sadie brought to the hospital for me to change into. When I catch my reflection in the mirror, I become hyperfocused on a scratch on my chest. One of the branches I ran into must have caused it. It’s red and looks angry, not very deep but something that bears witness to the fact I’ve been through some shit…and that’s when the tears start to come.

Fuck this! I can’t stay here by myself knowing everything I’m pushing out of my memory might rise up and swallow me. I grab my bag and head out the door before I can catalog another bruise or cut.

***

It’s late when I come back. Later than I would have liked it to be. I spent some time at the library and then went to hang out with Neve for a little while so we could talk about her hot artist neighbor who is out of town this week for an art show. Lucky bitch! She gets to have a normal, healthy crush while I’m left thinking of midnight blue eyes that haunt me and won’t leave me alone. And it just happens to be her brother. Talk about guilt.

Still, I can’t tell her how appreciative I am that for a few hours I got to be normal Waverly. Hanging out with her friends and acting stupid and silly bing watching that reality TV show where everyone stabs each other in the back and votes faithful people out of the castle. Now, I’m having to go back to a dark apartment and figure out how to not dream tonight. It takes me a little while to actually work the key in the lock since I usually do it with the hand now in a cast. I end up dropping the damned keys before I can push them in. As I’m bending over to grab them, someone comes running at me out of the darkness in the hallway.

“Oh shit!”

I ball myself up to it hard for him to get a good grip on me. Then all hell breaks loose behind me. A second guy comes out of nowhere, and my heart drops as my fear spikes high. I don’t think I can fight off two grown men. And I can tell they are men even though both of them have featureless masks over their faces, making them the scariest things I have ever seen. Uncanny Valley is real for a reason!

I try to be dead weight when they finally grab me. It doesn’t really work out when there are two of them, though. I kick out and catch one of them in the shoulder, causing him to drop my legs and yell out a string of curse words. Then I find my feet and try to spin out of the other guy’s arms, but the move doesn’t work, and I end up face to mask with him. I turn around again and use the wall to kick off of, sending both of us falling back.

Out of the shadows comes another man, but this one isn’t wearing a mask.

“Memphis!”

I yell for him even as he plows into the second guy while I grapple on the floor with the first one. At one point, the guy is on top of me trying to choke me, and the only way I can think to get him off me is to hit him with my cast. The guy hits me across the cheek, causing my head to ring and my vision to blur. All I can do is pray I hit him as I put all my strength in the slap.

I am painfully aware I make contact with the guy when fire shoots down my arm and plaster falls on him and me. He loosens his hold, and I scoot out from under him enough that I can kick him hard in the chest. He goes back with a loud wheeze as things start to clear up for me.

“Gun!”

I turn and watch the second guy take off running when Memphis points his gun at him. When I turn around, the other guy is gone too, leaving the hallway eerily quiet. Memphis rushes over to me, and I take one look into those deep blue eyes and burst out crying. I’m not made for this kind of stuff!

Chapter Ten

Memphis

Iwatch as a crime scene guy processes Waverly’s fingernails, digging under the long nails to find out if the two fuckers left anything of themselves behind. I’m betting the answer is yes if memory serves me right. I’m pretty sure I saw her rake her nails across one of their arms. She’s not said much since I called it in after scooping her up and holding her while she cried. I rocked her back and forth while little pieces of my heart seemed to fall with every tear she shed. It damn near broke me.

“Maybe protective custody isn’t such a bad idea, huh?” I don’t say anything but turn my hard stare back to the chief who has stepped up beside me. “Her apartment was ransacked. They flipped, broke, or cut everything in it.”

“Damn it.”

I should have stayed with her. I should have been quicker noticing her light didn’t come on right away. I hung back when I followed her to the library and my sister’s place because I didn’t want her to think I was stalking her or that she didn’t have a certain amount of freedom. I shouldn’t have held back and followed my gut, which was telling me the only place to be was right beside her.

“You need a vacation, Memphis.”

My attention snaps back to the chief. He didn’t call me Wrath like he normally does. I know he isn’t about to hand me some crap about being too close to the case.

“The best vacations I ever had were the ones I took with your parents up at that old cabin in the woods no one knows about.” He looks at me with serious eyes that have made a lot of criminals break. “You know where I’m talking about, don’t you, son?”

Ah.

I give him a nod. “Should be nice this time of year.”

“Nice and secluded and easy to protect.”

Son of a bitch. Chief is smarter than people give him credit for. If I take Waverly up to my family’s cabin for a nice romantic vacation, we don’t have to file paperwork saying where she’s at. No one will know except me and him. And maybe mom and dad, but they’re not going to tell anybody.

“Tonight.”

“Sounds like a good time to me. In fact, I’d say as soon as possible isn’t fast enough.”