“Yes, sir.”
“Good.” His voice lowered and I wasn’t sure who he was talking to, but then the nurse stepped forward and the room spun.
“Stay back!” I warned, holding my own hands up. They were my only line of defense. “I mean it,” I told her, wishing my tone was harsher than it was, but all it came out like was a broken sob.
“I can come back,” the nurse said, her voice low. “Or we can just sit for a minute and—”
“Where is she?” Another voice mixed in with all of the others and I slammed my palms down onto my face, trying to pretend like I wasn’t here right now. If I pretended I was in the dance studio, everything would be okay. Calm. I needed calm. I needed silence to try and work through all of my emotions. I needed time. Time I didn’t feel like I had.
“Elodie,” another voice said, but this was a voice I recognized, a voice I’d heard only a few hours ago. Had it really only been that long?
“You can’t be in here,” the nurse said.
“It’s okay, Elodie,” the voice continued, ignoring the nurse’s words. “We’re here now.”
I slowly let my hands drop from my face and my gaze immediately landed on Brody and Lola. Had they come here to make sure I let them gather the evidence? Were they here to make sure Asher was—
“She’s refusing,” the nurse said as Jenette walked back into the room.
“She doesn’t have to do it if she doesn’t want to,” Lola told them and stepped toward me. She held her arms out as if she was ready to catch me and didn’t hesitate for a second as I curled in on myself even more. “It’s okay, lovely. I’m here now.” She halted in front of me and I winced, but nothing I did s
topped her from wrapping her arms around me and holding me tight. And it was the contact and safeness of her arms that had me falling apart.
A sob unlike any other escaped my throat and tears streamed down my cheeks, but all the while, Lola held me, refusing to let go. “That’s it. Let it all out.” She swayed us back and forth, her hand rubbing my back in a soothing motion. “Nothing is going to get you now. I promise that.” She placed a kiss on the top of my head. “I promise.”
I shivered at her words, so much like Asher’s, and my stomach dropped. He wasn’t here. They’d taken him to jail, and it was all because of me. “Asher?” I whispered, pulling back a little so I could see Lola’s face.
“He’s fine,” a deep voice answered, and I flicked my gaze over Lola’s shoulder to Brody. A man stood beside him, and from the uniform he was wearing, I was guessing this was the chief Jenette had greeted in the hallway. “He told us a little about what happened. So, we’ve come to get you and take you home.”
I tried to swallow past the building lump in my throat, but it was proving harder than I thought. “I…” I backed away from Lola, but she didn’t move away from me. She was a wall of steel. A wall of protection—my protection. “I’m scared.” I wasn’t sure who I was talking to: myself, Lola, Brody, or just the universe, but my words were out there for them all to hear.
“I know.” Brody stepped forward, his height imposing but all it did was make me think of Asher. “You don’t have to do this. We can take you to our house and forget about all of this.” His gaze flicked over to Lola. “Or you can let them do what they need to first. It’s entirely up to you.” He paused, his chocolate-brown eyes not moving off me. “We’re here for you, not for anyone else. Okay?”
My hand fluttered to my neck, and I glanced around the room and all of the people inside it. There were too many bodies in here. Too many people staring at me. Too many things to try and think through.
“Why don’t you all leave apart from the nurse?” Lola said, her hand rubbing my arm. “We don’t need all of you in here.” At her words, they all disappeared from the room with Brody last. He took one last look at me, smiled the kind of smile Asher did, and closed the door behind him.
“Brody’s right,” Lola commented. “You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.” She paused, waiting for me to look at her, and when I did, she continued, “But if this piece of shit is gonna go down, they’re gonna need the evidence.”
“I…” I pulled in a breath. “Go down?”
“Yeah.” Lola pushed her shoulders back. “He doesn’t deserve to be a free man, not after what he did to you.” She pointed at the cart the nurse was standing next to. “All it will take is whatever the nurse needs to do, and then it can be over.”
“But…what about Asher?”
“Asher will be fine.” She smiled, the kind of smile that told me everything would be okay, but would it? “All that matters is that you’re safe now.” She nodded. “Okay?”
“O…okay,” I whispered. I wasn’t sure if I was agreeing with her, saying yes to the tests, or both. But I knew I had to do this. I had to let them gather everything they could. I had to stop the cycle. I had to halt Knox. I had to do this for myself. For my own sanity. For every woman who could come after me if I didn’t do this. “I’ll do it,” I said, this time more confident. Lola nodded and turned, but I darted forward and grabbed her arm. “Don’t leave me.”
“I wasn’t going to,” Lola replied. “Ain’t nothing that could get me out of this room right now.” She took my hand, gave it a squeeze, then led me to the nurse. “Let’s get this done and then we can get out of here.”
ASHER
I sat on the last attached stool on the table, my back to the wall, and my eyes on the entire pod. Every bed was taken, and I was currently sleeping on the floor with my mattress, but I didn’t care, because at least out here in the open, I knew what was happening around me.
I’d spent the night in intake and been brought here at 5 a.m. promptly after my shower and new uniform of an orange jumpsuit. I went through the motions, waiting and waiting for my number to be given to me to let me know I had credit to make a call. I didn’t know why I thought it would have only taken hours, but now we’d all had our trays of food for dinner, and still I hadn’t been given my number.
My thoughts were constantly on Elodie and how she was doing. Had Dad managed to find out where she was? Were they making sure she was okay? Was she okay? Or had she gone so far inside herself that it was almost impossible to come back out? I was stuck on a loop of unanswered questions, and the only thing which would stop them was making one goddamn phone call. But I couldn’t even do that. Not until—