AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She answered and the relief flooded over him. “Mari. I need your help. They won’t let me take Opal, because I’m not a guardian. Do you still have that paperwork that Vanessa gave you?”
“Yes.” Her voice sounded weak.
Then it hit him that she probably just found out that her parents were killed. “I know this is a hard time, but they want to put Opal into CPS custody for the night. After all she’s witnessed, I can’t let that happen.”
“I’ll be right there.”
Hunter gave her the address, then hung up and explained to the officer that Mari had been the safe house for Opal and that Vanessa had set it up legally to be covered if something like this happened.
Hunter waited with Opal. Nicholas was there, probably because CPS had been called, but Hunter didn’t feel like talking to him. He was still pissed at the fact that he’d been there when Vanessa was taken and had done nothing to help her. No way was Hunter going to let him be the one to protect Opal. No. Fucking. Way.
Mari arrived within a half hour. Her cheeks were red and her eyes puffy, but she ran to them and hugged Opal tight. She took several minutes to talk to her, to make sure she was okay. Then, she showed the officer the paperwork from Vanessa.
They finally let them all leave together. Hunter drove them to the hospital.
“I think we should have her looked at,” Hunter said, glancing in the mirror at Opal, who was staring out the window like she was in a trance.
“Didn’t the EMTs check her?” Mari asked. She turned in her seat to look at Opal, then turned back around.
“I mean a psych eval to make sure she’s okay.” He tapped his temple. He didn’t want to say out loud that he was worried it might make her go crazy or fall into some sort of mental instability because of all this. Shock was a powerful thing and it affected children deeply.
Mari nodded. “Good idea.”
When they got there, Hunter explained what they had just been through. The nurse already knew of the situation and they already had Vanessa. They ordered someone from psych to come to the ER. Then they sat to wait.
Hunter had been told when they first arrived that Vanessa was in critical condition and they wouldn’t be able to see her for a while. He sat in a chair beside Mari while Opal was in the other room with the doctor. At least this evaluation wasn’t keeping them from time with Vanessa, but that didn’t make his heart ache any less. He needed to see her and know she was okay.
They had survived it. For now, they were all alive and doing okay. Vanessa should pull through this, they’d told her. Once overdoses start to respond, they almost always recover. And she didn’t have a history of drug use with chronic conditions to contend with. She was young and healthy, and this should be easy for her to bounce back from.
He believed in his heart that she would survive. The joy and comfort was outweighed by what they’d been through. So much blood and so many deaths. He might kill for a living, but that didn’t mean it didn’t affect him at all. It did. And knowing how Opal had been affected, and having to look at Mari as she sat crying quietly, it was all too much. He wanted nothing more than to go home and curl up with Vanessa and sleep for hours. But he wouldn’t be able to do that anytime soon.
For now, he tried to focus on the fact that she was alive, Opal was alive, and he was alive. And that was the most important thing.
