Craving Redemption
Page 108

Her hand moved faster than I could catch, and in seconds, the .45 was resting against my sternum, her finger on the trigger.
She didn’t look away as she called quietly to Will. “Go over to Gram, Will,” she said gently. “Run on over to Gram.”
He climbed up to his feet slowly, wobbling a little in a way that had my heart lurching in my chest, but he made it to Gram as she stood from the bed.
“Get him out of here. Lock yourself in your apartment,” Callie ordered, never looking away from my face. “Go, Gram!”
Rose shot out of the room, and the moment we heard her front door slam, Callie’s hand dropped to her lap.
“Get your brother and get the fuck out of my house,” she mumbled tiredly as I heard someone small walk up behind me.
“We need to get you to a hospital, Callie,” I whispered, as I gently pulled the gun from her fingers.
“I’ll take her,” Farrah argued at my back.
“I love you so much, Sugar.” I ignored Farrah as I set the .45 back on the dresser and ran my finger up and down the top of Callie’s hand, the only place I was sure I wouldn’t hurt her. “Let me take care of you.”
She turned her head away from me, not saying a word as she pushed her forehead against the side of the dresser.
“Go, Grease,” Farrah ordered behind me. “Get your guys and get them out of our apartment. I’ll take care of Callie.”
“She’s mine,” I hissed, turning my head to Farrah. “Go make sure that Will’s okay.”
I started to turn from her when I noticed another gun, this time in her small hand.
“Will’s fine with Gram,” she told me seriously, her hand hanging relaxed at her thigh. “Now you need to get the fuck out of here before you make her worse.”
“She needs me,” I argued, my hand tightening on Callie’s. “I’ll take care of her. I always take care of her.”
“Look at her, Grease,” Farrah snapped sharply. “She doesn’t fucking need you.”
My head turned to Callie to see she was still facing the dresser, her swollen eye practically hiding the rest of her face from me.
“Callie?” I questioned gently, as her body started rocking in tiny movements.
“Please leave me alone,” she whimpered, never looking at me. “Leave me alone. Leave me alone. Leave me alone.”
I heard Farrah’s revolver as she snapped it into place, and I turned my head to see her pointing it directly at my head.
“I’m not Callie,” she told me calmly. “I’ll pull the trigger.”
I didn’t think she would, but it didn’t matter.
I nodded in defeat, knowing that she was right. I wasn’t making anything better.
I couldn’t stop myself from leaning forward one last time and kissing Callie lightly on the side of her head. “I love you. I’m not going far,” I promised.
I made myself leave the room as Farrah kneeled down to help Callie to her feet.
Chapter 73
Callie
The doctors told me that the psychological scars of the attack would be much harder to heal, and they were right.
Farrah had informed the police that my attacker had fled and she’d found me in our apartment. I didn’t dispute it. I didn’t say anything. Not to the nurses or the doctors or the social workers or the policemen.
I didn’t speak.
They grew frustrated with me, asking the same questions over and over, sometimes changing the words they used as if phrasing something a different way would make me answer. I listened to them argue as if I wasn’t there, sometimes stating that they needed to leave me alone, and other times fighting that someone needed to snap me out of the fog I was in.
I would have liked to see them try.
No one had known what happened when they’d found me because the Aces had taken Deke’s body instead of letting the police do their work. It was a clear case of self-defense, as my broken body could prove, but I was glad that I didn’t have to explain to anyone what had happened.
I was in a fog, not making a noise as they set my shoulder and checked out the rest of my body. My legs and stomach were bruised, my nose was broken, and they were most worried about my eye that was swollen so much that if I looked across the bridge of my nose, I could see the eyebrow on the other side.
They took photos that I knew they’d never need, but I didn’t fight them. I didn’t do anything but move when they moved me, and stared blankly as they tried to get answers.
At some point, Cody showed up at the hospital, and I could hear him in the hallway arguing with Farrah, but I didn’t care. I didn’t care about anything.
Not even my son.
Because when Asa’d left me, I’d successfully retreated to that special place where nothing mattered.
They kept me in the hospital for a few days to make sure I wasn’t going to lose my eye, poking and prodding, and asking question after question as I stared at them blankly. But even after they knew that I would keep it, they didn’t discharge me.
Instead they moved me into the psych ward.
They sent in a nice psychologist who asked me questions while I stared at her, and even though I could see the frustration in her eyes, she kept coming back. I guess she was getting paid for it, though, so it wasn’t surprising that she was tenacious. She had beautiful strawberry-blonde hair. I wondered how Farrah would look with hair that color.
Gram and Farrah rarely left my bedside, taking shifts with Will so I wouldn’t be alone, but they didn’t get through to me and neither did Cody when he showed up. Nothing was getting through—and sometimes I’d hear them quietly arguing about what to do.