Mia

Seventeen

Pierce

Two beers were already in my system. After sending her that last text, I had tried to stay away from any form of alcohol, but I couldn’t stop myself. I was too tense to think straight, and the two measly beers had done little to help. She was gone. I had dreaded this moment—knew it was coming, we had talked about it multiple times. She had even said she didn’t want me to help with the actual running, because she didn’t want to drag me any deeper. The problem was, I was already in so deep I was drowning. 

            The days I had gone without seeing her, knowing it would only make it harder, were pure hell. Work was the only thing I had. Finding this drug lord before she left became my mission. And we were close, so close. Part of me rationalized that I couldn’t share those kinds of details about the case with her. Even if she didn’t want to tell them, if anything happened to her, she wouldn’t know to tell them we were closing in on the operation. We were even sending in a team the next day to the warehouse I was certain was their main operation. 

            It was barely past nine when I considered texting her again, just to make sure she got on the train okay. On my way to the kitchen for another beer, I pulled my phone out but stopped short at the light tap on the door. Very few knew where I lived; even fewer ever came to visit anymore. With how often I had been scouting out the warehouse and how careless I had been in my haste to close this case, I could have easily been followed home. 

            With the storm raging outside, I could only see a dark figure through my peephole. By the time I grabbed my firearm from my room, there was another tap on the door. My heart pounded in my chest when I cracked it open with my gun at the ready. 

            My heart dropped to my stomach. She stood there, sopping wet in the rain with her arms wrapped around her middle. I couldn’t see her face since the hood of the giant sweater she wore mostly covered it, but I knew it was her. 

            “What are you doing here?” I asked like an i***t, swinging the door open. 

            The light from inside shone on her face, revealing a giant bruise on the left side of it. Her eyelids were puffy, her eyes wide and bloodshot. A fire lit inside my chest, rage pounding through me. She blinked, then swayed. I was barely able to catch her with the gun still in my hand, but I held her up and pulled her inside, closing the door behind me. 

            After setting my gun on the counter, I moved the hood from her face and wiped the rain and tears away, while still trying to hold her up. A far-off look was all I got, as if she couldn’t even see me.

            The couch was where I ended up with her, not knowing how badly she was hurt. She sat but didn’t make a sound or say a word. “Mia, what happened? You have to tell me what happened.” 

            I kept brushing my hands over her clammy, ashen face, trying to avoid the swollen, bruised area. Her pulse was out of control. She showed all signs of shock; something had to be done. The drenched sweater needed to come off; the rest of her wet clothes would have to stay put until she was aware. 

            When I went to pull the sweater off, I noticed her backpack and slid it from her shoulders first. I got the sweater off and tugged her wet shoes and socks off next. She didn’t protest or make a sound when I inspected the blood on her hands and her cut and swollen wrists. Whoever had touched her had tied her up, but I didn’t know where the rest of the blood came from. 

            My heart was going to explode. I might have actually vomited up my two beers if I didn’t force myself to go into work mode. I cataloged every part of her that was hurt as I laid her on the couch and put her feet up before covering her with a blanket. Get her warm, keep her calm, get her heart rate to come down. I repeated that over and over, hoping the method would keep me calm. I could only thank God that none of her clothing was ripped, but that didn’t mean… I couldn’t go there. Not if I was going to help her. 

            I was going to kill someone. It had to happen. This girl, she didn’t deserve this s**t. Someone had touched her. I wanted to know who, and I wanted to know where they were. I would rip the world apart to take vengeance for her. Being a detective, I actually could go after them and do whatever was necessary to make them pay. 

            At some point while I retrieved some first aid supplies from the bathroom, she had closed her eyes. Her even breathing helped ease some of the stress. The shock was wearing off, so I wouldn’t have to take her to the hospital… yet. But when it wore off completely, she would probably be right back in the horror of whatever happened. 

            I took the brief peace to try calming myself down. Apparently, rummaging through her backpack was the way to do that. The ridiculous amount of money in it made me sick to my stomach. How long had she been dealing and saving all her earnings? She had a week’s worth of clothes, a box of hair dye, and a bunch of crushed bags of snacks. At the very bottom of the bag was a set of keys that were still wet with blood. They belonged to a Honda. 

            I saw red. Had to take several deep breaths to keep myself from hunting him down and murdering him that moment. 

            I replaced everything in the bag but kept the keys out. I sat there on the corner of the coffee table with my elbows on my knees, my head in my hands. With another deep breath, I glanced back at her to meet her wide-eyed stare. My knees thudded to the floor in front of her.

            “Mia,” I breathed. Her eyes stayed wide. “What did he do to you?” 

            She jerked back, shaking her head rapidly. My body vibrated with anger, with sorrow, with so many emotions I didn’t know what else to say. “How are you feeling?” I finally thought to ask the most rational question. What the hell was wrong with me? Situations like this were part of my life, they were my job, but with her, with someone I cared so much about, I couldn’t think straight. “Can I get you anything?” 

            After clearing her throat, she went to sit up. I sprang up to help her to a sitting position before sitting on the coffee table in front of her. “Water,” was all she said. I placed the glass of water I had gotten for her in her shaking hand, forcing myself not to say another damn word. Let her work through it. Let her decide when to get it out.

            After a sip of the water, she glanced around the living room, then met my gaze, eyes still wide. “Where’s my sweater?” she croaked. 

            “I had to take it off. You were soaking wet and in shock. I had to get you warm.” 

            She nodded once and pulled the blanket I had put on her around her shoulders. There was complete silence, only the sounds of our breathing, for the longest time. I almost lost it, almost started shouting, but she cleared her throat again. I kept my hands clasped in front of me to keep from fidgeting. 

            “He was waiting outside my house,” she said, and I kept my face straight, kept myself from showing any of the anger that was coursing through me. “He made me get in his car; then he hit me. Twice. Told me not to talk and put a zip tie on my wrists. I thought he would take me to the warehouse, but he drove to this shitty neighborhood over here. He said—” 

            She broke off, her bottom lip quivering as she drew in a deep breath. I wanted to wrap my arms around her or hold her hands or show her I was there with her in some way, but I had to keep my hands to myself. She shook her head. “He said he was going to get what he wanted before taking me to Noah. When he stopped the car, I hit him in the face as hard as I could with my forearm. His nose broke and blood got everywhere. I climbed on top of him and choked him with the zip tie. When he passed out, I turned off the car, changed into my sweater in the back seat, and took the keys with me when I got out. I knew your house was closest, so I just started walking here.” 

            She got through it, almost sounding like a robot reciting a script, but I got it. I understood. She was probably in shock still, but she was working through it. Me, I wasn’t working through s**t. I was on fire with rage. I wanted to kill him; I wanted to beat him to death with my own hands. But what she had done to him…she was amazing. 

            “You could have called me; I would have come for you,” I told her when I had my breathing under control.

            “I didn’t think. I couldn’t think. I just walked. I knew where I needed to go, and I just walked here.” 

            She rubbed her eyes with her palms, smearing her face with some of the blood on them. Then she looked at them, as if just noticing the blood and the damage done to her wrists. She stared at them with a horrified look until short gasps of breath were dragged in, turning into heartbreaking sobs. Her hands dropped to her lap as she cried and cried. I didn’t know what to do for her. I couldn’t take back what had happened; I couldn’t fix this. 

            Just sitting there, unmoving, while she sobbed didn’t sit well. I had to touch her, had to hold her, before I decided to go hunt Kenny down. I moved to the couch and wrapped my arms around her. She didn’t protest but leaned against me, keeping her hands resting in her lap. This seemed to be our thing, and I was okay with that. She needed this, needed to know someone who knew all her closet s**t still cared. 

            It was why I couldn’t be a cop with her; she needed me, a person who had also been through s**t and made bad choices. I cared so deeply for her. If I was smart, I would have taken her into the station to get a statement and officially go looking for Kenny, but she messed with my mind in a diabolical way. 

            “I just wanted to escape,” she whispered when the crying calmed. “I just wanted to leave. I didn’t tell anyone besides you. I didn’t steal from them. I didn't do s**t aside from not dealing a few times, and he still did this. He hurt me, just because I wanted to leave.” 

            I pulled back, looking down at this wreck of a girl who went through one hell of a night, and I loved her, loved her so much I wanted to take care of her for the rest of her life. 

            “You’re looking at me weird,” she grumbled. 

            “You’re kind of a mess,” I told her to cover up my thoughts for both our sakes. She shrugged. “You stopped him, Mia. You did what you had to, what most couldn’t have, and you stopped him. You’re amazing.” Another shrug drew an impatient noise from my throat. “Can I clean you up now and make sure you really don’t need a doctor?” 

            She nodded, so I got to work. A doctor wasn’t necessary. Her wrists were bandaged after washing his blood off, and all that could be done for her face was ice. She stayed quiet while I methodically cleaned her up, and I was glad for that. The battle raged inside me. I wasn’t sure I could have an actual conversation without yelling at the wrong party. Seeing every part of her that he had damaged and not being able to do anything to rectify this wrong was going to drive me mad. 

            How she had been conscious enough to take his keys with her was beyond me. She herself was methodic in her process of escaping him and making sure he couldn’t follow her, at least not with his car. She told me about where the neighborhood was that he had driven her to, and I made a note to check it out, maybe his car would still be there. But I couldn’t leave her just then; I had to make sure she was actually okay. 

            Once she had the chance to use the restroom after I was done with her, she sat back on the couch—having changed into a giant T-shirt and sweats—with the ice on her face. On the seat next to her, I placed her legs over mine without asking. The warmth of them, the reality of what she escaped, all of it bombarded me from all sides. 

            The world she lived in didn’t have room for my career. Because what really could I do to beat the bad guys here? Even if we were to catch Noah, it would be court dates and court dates and court dates, until we finally came to a verdict, and there wasn’t a guarantee it would be in our favor. And if Kenny really was the boss’s nephew, he would have a good lawyer. Short of locking her in my house and not letting her go anywhere, there was no way I could keep her safe all the time. That was my rationalization for not reporting this horrible thing that had happened to her.

            With the blanket draped over her and her legs hung over mine, we relaxed on the couch, her silly show playing in the background. But she just stared at me, and I stared at her, rubbing a hand up and down her leg. 

            “Could you drive me to the train station tomorrow?” she asked. 

            My heart wrenched. 

            I knew I couldn’t keep her, she couldn’t stay with me, but it still hit me like a ton of bricks. My gaze held hers, my hand coming to a stop on her knee. “You’re welcome to stay here until the bruising is gone. You’ll be noticed pretty easily with that, especially if Kenny tells them what happened.” 

            She looked away from me, swallowing three times. “Thank you,” she whispered, a tear running down her cheek. “I don’t know what else to do.” 

            We fell silent, not looking at each other or the TV, both of us lost in our own thoughts. At least she left her legs where they were, the warmth of them reassuring me. Even though I was up s**t creek, even though I shouldn’t have wanted her or needed her in my life, I wanted to keep her. I wanted her to be mine. I wanted to love her. If nothing else, I could help her get through this and escape in a much safer fashion.