Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 74078 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 370(@200wpm)___ 296(@250wpm)___ 247(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74078 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 370(@200wpm)___ 296(@250wpm)___ 247(@300wpm)
“Seeley’s girl, Ama, she’s a doctor. Runs a clinic not far away. She will see you without paperwork or questions. Just to be sure. This is the only thing we really need to worry about.”
“Just an ultrasound?”
“Maybe some bloodwork,” I added.
“Okay,” she relented, likely just as concerned about it as I was. Internal bleeding was nothing to fuck with.
“Okay. Good. I will shoot her a text, and we will probably head over before the clinic opens in the morning.”
“Okay,” she agreed, nodding, and taking her slushie over to the couch.
I quickly put the cold stuff away, then walked into the bedroom to call Ama instead of text.
“Hey, is she okay?” Ama asked.
The grapevine worked fast in our wold. Levee to Seeley, Seeley to Ama.
“I think so. But I wanted to see if I can get her in for an ultrasound of her abdomen tomorrow morning?”
“An ultrasound looking for a heartbeat, or…” she hedged.
“She’s not pregnant,” I said, shaking my head even though she couldn’t see me. “She was clearly kicked in the stomach. I just want to make sure there’s no damage.”
“Yeah, of course. I mean, if anything looks off, she will need a CT. Maybe with contrast. But we can cross that bridge if we come to it.”
“Thanks, Ama. Just one thing… she doesn’t want to talk about it. But…” I stopped, sighing hard, not sure how to phrase it.
“But you’re worried there might be other abuses she’s endured,” she said, and I was grateful for the careful way she worded that. Because I was having a hard time wrapping my mind around that possible scenario.
“Yeah.”
“Okay. I’ve been there before, Cato,” she said, voice sad. “I will see what she can tell me, but I have to remind you that I can’t tell you about that. That’s her place to decide.”
“I know. I just want to make sure she has someone to talk to if that’s the case,” I agreed, stomach twisting at the idea that she’d been put through that on top of everything else.
“I will be at the clinic at six. We open at eight. Anytime before that will be fine.”
“Great. Thanks, Ama. I really appreciate it.”
With that, I hung up, and made my way back out to the living room where Rynn was curled up with a movie on the TV.
We didn’t talk.
We watched movies.
She ate her slushie and ice cream, then we went to the bedroom. She passed out after taking an old pain pill she had in a bottle in her medical kit.
Eventually, I slept too.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Rynn
I thought it wasn’t possible to feel worse than I had right after the beating took place.
I’d been so incredibly wrong about that.
The following day had been infinitely worse.
I couldn’t move without my stomach screaming in objection. I couldn’t so much as swallow my own spit without feeling like I was gargling glass. My legs and arms felt too sensitive and sore from the cuts.
And to top off that shit sandwich, I had a blinding migraine that made it impossible to do anything but try to sleep it off after taking one of the pills I’d gotten almost a year back after falling off a stupid fire escape and onto the corner of a dumpster, fucking up my shoulder, and landing in a brace for a few weeks.
That pill had to be why I hadn’t heard Cato knocking. I wasn’t a light or heavy sleeper. I was, you know, normal. I could sleep through some sounds—especially the repetitive shit like the garbage trucks knocking around the dumpsters on trash day, the car horns, the sirens, the loud sounds of the city—but always woke up to something off—a knock at the door, the buzzer, something falling in the apartment because the cats decided they wanted to jump on a shelf they weren’t supposed to be on.
It wasn’t like me to sleep through someone knocking, then forcing their way into my house, into my room, calling my name, then touching me to wake me up.
And, yeah, I’d been sleeping with a knife.
In fact, that wasn’t all I’d been sleeping with.
I had a knife under my hand on the mattress, a bottle of mace on my nightstand, a bat under the bed, and a couple of tools—hammers, screwdrivers, a mallet, shit that could do some damage—placed strategically around my apartment.
I wasn’t normally paranoid. Not even after a job didn’t go to plan.
But that had been close. Way, way too close. As I replayed it over and over in my head, I saw all the ways that I could have been hurt, abused, violated, before someone finally decided to put me out of my misery, and dump my body somewhere.
And I’d been face-to-face with the guy for a long time. Long enough that I was worried he saw through my wig and makeup. Or that I could have been followed.