Page 174 of Show Me

“Anything else?”

“Not that I noticed.” Checked the pigs, fixed the window, and got Ruby out of there. Those were my priorities.

“This isn’t good.” Ben’s jaw tightens as he hits a name on his phone. I don’t have to look to know it’s Jake.

Ruby flinches when a cabinet closes in the kitchen. Her eyes snap toward the sound before she catches herself. Something sharp twists low in my chest.

Sam comes back with a glass of water and presses it into her hands. “Drink.”

“You guys are hovering,” she murmurs.

“Yeah,” Sam says. “We are.”

Nobody apologizes for it as Ben paces between the kitchen and living room with the phone plastered to his ear. Every few seconds, he asks one of us a question and relays the information to Jake.

Sam starts cleaning counters that are already clean. I march to the front door, checking the lock that I’ve already secured five times in the last ten minutes.

Nobody says anything about it. But we all feel it.

Ruby curls deeper into the corner of the couch while Squirt snuffles noisily against her leg before flopping onto the rug with a grunt. Now and then, Ruby reaches down to keep a hand against his side.

Sam glances toward the hallway. “We can make up the guest room.”

“She’s staying with me,” I say. Too fast. Too automatic. Ruby’s head lifts. “Until we figure out what the hell this guy is doing.”

Sam’s eyes flick toward me for half a second before he looks away again. “Alright.” But something in his expression suggests he heard the first part more loudly than the second.

I step into the kitchen and call Dad before I can think too hard about any of it.

He answers on the second ring. “You alright?”

News travels fast. “We’re okay.”

“Ruby?”

“She’s here.”

A short pause. “Good.”

I lean against the counter, lowering my voice even though everyone already knows everything. “We’ll probably be late tomorrow.”

“Don’t worry about work.”

“We’re heading back to her place in the morning. Need to board up the window. Clean the glass.”

Dad grunts once. “She scared?”

Ruby is listening to Jake now, fingers wrapped too tightly around Ben’s phone.

“Yeah,” I admit.

Another pause. “Take care of her.”

“I will.” And I mean it. I have no intention of letting anything happen to Ruby. It doesn’t matter what I have to do to keep her safe.

When I walk back into the living room, I drop onto the couch beside her. Close enough that our legs touch. “You cold?”

“A little.”