“I’m going to leave my cut in your car, I don’t want to traumatize this poor girl any more than she already is,” he says when he pulls away from my kiss. I help him out of the vest and then drop it over the back of the driver's seat.
I have never seen one of the guys take their cut off to make sure someone isn’t uncomfortable. Wearing the club’s leather is a sign of power, and every single man that is in the club is proud of that power. To an extreme. It also lets the sheep know that there is a wolf in the room. It’s sweet of him to be worried about making this any harder for her.
Scar pulls a file out of the back of his pants, and I take the time to read through it before we go in. I don’t want to ask her anything that she has already answered, and I don’t want her to have to tell me the whole story and relive it once more. When I shut it and put it in the car Scar takes my hand and pulls me toward the building.
He walks close to me, his body brushing mine now and then, I try to keep my thoughts appropriate but it’s hard when he smells so damn good and is so close to me. We go into the building, up the stairs, and directly to room 307. The nurse at the station on this floor gave us an odd look but her phone rang right in time for us to walk by her. There is a cop placed outside the door, but he just smiles at Scar and steps out of his way.
I raise my hand to knock on the door but stop before it makes contact, if she is asleep, I don’t want to wake her. I push the door open a little and when I see that she is sitting up I step into the room.
“Kate?” She turns toward me slowly. I have never been so glad to be able to control my face and my emotions before.
Both of her eyes are black, her nose is broken, there are sores on her wrist, teeth marks on her neck… I am sure the list goes on but everything else is covered by her gown or the blanket that she is under.
“Do I know you?” Her voice is hoarse and that’s when I notice the few marks under her chin and neck.
“No. I go to the same college as you, but I am working with some people to find the guys that are doing this, and I thought it might help if I spoke with you. Sometimes victims don’t feel safe speaking to a bunch of men after something like this happens.” She looks behind me at Scar and the officer and I see her start to pull away.
“Why don’t you two wait in the hallway? We will be okay in here.” Scar nods to me and pulls the officer out of the way, shutting the door between us.
“Do you work for the police?”
“No, Kate. I don’t. The police are not the only ones that want to catch these guys,” She nods along.
“This has happened before. I am not the first one?” Her eyes get big, and her hand goes to her chest.
“I’m sorry. You aren’t. We are going to get them, anything you can tell me will help.” I fold my hands and fidget with my thumbs, I hadn’t thought about the fact that she wouldn’t know about the other girl.
She tells me everything that she can remember about where she was, what she was doing, and even what she was drinking. Most of it was in the police report but there were new little tidbits of information. A few times she starts to tear up and I pace back and forth to avoid crying myself. I didn’t want her to have to relive anything that was in the report but once she started talking, I didn’t want to interrupt her.
“What happened to the other girls?” She asks when she is done telling me everything that she can remember.
“There was one other that we know for a fact was the same guy,” I know she isn’t going to leave it at that, but a girl can dream.
“Was?” She croaks. I see her heart rate start to rise on the monitor and I sit on the edge of her bed.
“She was worse off and died from her injuries. Both of you were drugged with the same thing, but you had more of it in your system than she did. We think that she might have been able to fight back…” I cut my words off abruptly because I don’t need to remind her what she didn’t fight off. She will never forget.
“The school knew, and they didn’t do anything about the parties?”
“I think,” I admit with a growl. “I won’t let them brush it off again, I promise.”
“Who do you work for?” She asks after staring out the window long enough that I thought she might have fallen asleep sitting up.
“I won’t be telling you that, but I promise these men won’t get away with this.” I can tell that she wants to ask more but I don’t let her, I open the door and grab the cop by the arm.
“Do you know who I am?”
He nods.
“Good, who is your partner on our side?”
“Waller, Reese Waller ma’am.”
“Okay, officer Sal, I want you or officer Waller outside this door. No one else. Do you understand me?” He turns to Scar and questions him with his eyes.
“She’s my boss too, man.”
“Yes ma’am.”