Total pages in book: 67
Estimated words: 68243 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 341(@200wpm)___ 273(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68243 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 341(@200wpm)___ 273(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
I frowned.
“What are you doing here?” Ashe asked Luke.
He grimaced and gestured toward the end of the hallway.
“It was found that Lacy was there willingly,” he murmured. “She and the boyfriend moved in together. Lacy told us today.”
I grimaced.
“Well that makes sense, I guess,” Ashe said. “I couldn’t figure out why she was able to drop cats off at the shelter, and come and go at will, without being noticed.”
“Me either,” I admitted. “But, saying that, stranger things have happened.”
“The parents want to press charges against the man anyway. Statutory rape charges.” He sighed. “I was talking with the parents and Lacy. Lacy doesn’t want to press charges. The parents do. It’s a clusterfuck of epic proportions. I think they’re going to defer to Lacy, though.”
“We could talk to her about it…” Ashe began but trailed off when something caught her eye.
A loud commotion had us all turning to survey the area behind us.
I frowned at the man standing at the nurses’ station, waving his arms frantically.
I stiffened and made my way over there, reluctantly leaving Ashe’s warmth behind.
“There a problem here?” Luke asked as he and I walked up at the same time.
“This man says that his girlfriend is here, and he wants to see her,” a frightened nurse said.
The man must’ve been the twenty-something-year-old boyfriend of Lacy.
Son of a bitch.
“Sir, we’re going to have to ask you to come with us.” I gestured to the end of the hallway.
But Lacy, being a crazy, hormonal girl, came barreling out of her room and headed straight for the man.
“Jeff!”
Ashe was there to catch Lacy before she could get too far, putting her body in front of Lacy to stop her from going to the boyfriend.
“Do you mind if we talk?” Luke asked, being polite, but rather obvious with the demand formed into a request.
Luke’s hand on the Jeff character’s chest had Jeff stiffening.
Which was about when everything went to hell.
“Jeff! I’m sorry! They won’t let me come back!” she called out.
Jeff tried to get around Luke and me, but we used our bodies to stop his actions.
“Go back to your room and let us talk with him, Lacy.” Ashe ordered. “We can’t figure out what’s going on like this.”
Lacy looked pissed then. “I lied about everything. He made me lie. But I didn’t want to lie. I want to stay with him!”
Well, wasn’t this a basket full of crazy.
Wonderful.
“Lacy!” Jeff fought to get free, but it wasn’t happening.
“This isn’t helping,” Luke growled. “You’re making it worse. Listen, man. Calm down and listen!”
Jeff, just all of a sudden, stopped.
He went from fighting one second to pissed as hell but not moving a muscle the next.
“Okay, okay,” Jeff said. “Okay.”
Just as I was thinking things were looking up, a gunshot sounded from behind us.
Dread pooling in my stomach, I looked behind me just in time to hear Ashe cry out and fall to the floor, her hand on her thigh as blood started to pool on the white tiled floor.
Lacy picked the gun back up again and aimed it at Luke.
“Let him go!” Lacy shrieked.
Luke stepped back, hands in the air, just as Ashe moved with lightning speed and tripped the girl with a leg sweep.
Another gunshot sounded, this bullet going high and embedding in the ceiling.
Ashe moved until she was pinning Lacy to the floor, her bleeding leg held behind her while the other one pushed harshly into Lacy’s back.
She shoved the gun away just as Lacy’s parents tried to help.
“Get the fuck back!” Luke bellowed.
“Someone get me something to restrain her with,” Luke ordered.
I looked at the man staring in horror at Lacy.
“I don’t… I don’t…” He shook his head. “What is going on?”
I leveled him with a look that clearly said ‘stay where you fucking are’ and went to help my woman.
Chapter 21
I want a dog, but I don’t have time to manage its Instagram.
-A suspect to Ford
Ford
“Wait!” I said to the paramedic that was about to put on the latex gloves. “She’s allergic to latex.”
The woman on the stretcher in front of me snorted. “I would’ve told him, Ford. Calm down.”
I couldn’t calm down.
My pregnant girlfriend had just been shot.
In the thigh, yes. Sure, it was also in the fleshy part that didn’t have anything but fat, but still.
She’d been shot!
And I was freakin’ the fuck out.
“No, it’s okay,” the paramedic, one that I was beginning to know well, said.
I looked over at Tai.
“I thought you said you were retiring?” I asked, trying to get my mind off of the fact that Ashe had been shot. “And what the hell are you even doing here?”
He gestured to the break room.
“I was getting food,” he said. “Which they have on this floor for some reason. And I am retiring. In a year.”
I nodded numbly as he slipped on the gloves that better fucking be latex-free.