The captain doesn’t say anything else, just turns and leads us into the apartment that is still being ransacked by CSI. There are things overturned in the living room. Clearly, there was a struggle in here, but the officer doesn’t stop in the living room, I follow his path, not touching anything and stepping over the little tents with numbers on them. When he pushes the door to the bedroom open, silent tears roll down my face.
Bloody restraints are on the bed, and there is more blood on the sheets. The dress that she had put on this morning when she left the house is in rags on the floor in the corner. My stomach rolls and I push past the officer and race outside, barely making it before I empty my guts into the bushes.
“I’ve got you, sugar.” Scar’s voice tries to soothe me, but I don’t let it. I want to be mad, I want to keep this rage so that I can figure out what the hell to do from here.
“Captain Roger?” I call loudly. When he pops up behind me, I give him what I can only hope is a look that burns his soul. “You find these fuckers before I do, or I will kill them. Slowly.”
He could argue with me or say that if they go missing, he knows where to look, but I get the feeling he won’t look. When I find out who is doing this they will never be seen again, I might be nice enough to call him and let him know that I took care of it, but probably not.
“First thing, I want to do is go see Zoe. You said that we were too late, but how bad was she? Is she going to need surgery?” There is enough pain on Hollow's face that I regret asking, he hadn’t followed us into the house, and with the mess that was there, I am not surprised. He had already seen the inside, there is no need to see it again.
“I don’t think she will need surgery, but she is probably going to need some stitches. They should be done before we get there.” Hollows voice sounds, well hollow. He is void of all emotion, hiding behind the anger that flairs in his eyes. He and I might love her differently but we both are breaking on the inside for what happened to her.
I go over to Sal and give him the softest smile I can muster, “I am sure you tried to help the men in there, thank you. I would like a report on the evidence found here if that’s not too much to ask.”
“Are you asking?” His eyebrows are tight, but I get the feeling that he is teasing me.
“No.”
“I didn’t think so.” I turn and leave while he is still talking, I am far too anxious to get to Zoe and Raven to sit here and bullshit with a cop that I’m not even sure I like.
“Ride with me, kid.” My dad slings his arm over my shoulder and leads me to his bike rather than letting me ride with one of my guys. Normally I would have argued with him, but he doesn’t look like someone that anyone should argue with right now.
“You okay, pops?”
Before he pulls his helmet on, he wraps both of his arms around me. My dad hugs me all the time, but something is different about this one. His body is too tight, his shoulders too hunched over, and there is a shake to him that he doesn’t usually have.
“It could have been you…” There it is. I knew something was bothering him, I should have seen that this is it. “You might be an adult that can defend herself, but you will always be my baby-girl and I wouldn’t have been able to protect you from this.”
A throat clears from behind us and Scar hands over my helmet, “We are going to head to the hospital.” I look around at the sheer number of members that are here, and it makes me pause. I hold up a finger and pull out my phone.
“Yeah?” Top sounds about as worn down as Hollow, my heart breaks for them.
“Is she awake?”
“She is, getting a few stitches now. What’s up?”
“I need to talk to her.” I hear him move around and then ask Zoe if she is up for talking to me, then the phone shuffles and her voice comes on.
“Finley.” Her voice is rougher than it should have been, she’s either groggy or something they did damaged her throat.
“Yeah. I don’t want to keep you, but I had to ask. Do you want the club at the hospital? Right now we might be able to cover this up and play it off as just the club helping the city, but if we all show up at the hospital with bikes and cuts there will be no hiding it.” Her and Raven could claim that I lied to them, and they didn’t know but there is no hiding our numbers in a parking lot or waiting room.
“Bring them. This is family now.”
I know that she got to meet a lot of the guys over spring break, and she got along with all of them, but I didn’t realize she thought of the whole club as family, until now. She might not have grown up around us but she fits in rather nicely, and when I start teaching her how to fight and defend herself she will be a force to be reckoned with.
“Okay, we are on our way.”
Some of the guys choose to stay in the parking lot, a few others stop in the waiting room, but there is at least 20 that follow me toward the room number that Top texted us after we hung up.
“I’m sorry. Its only family allowed in the rooms right now.”
“We are family!” One of the brothers behind me barks at her. I don’t know who it was, but it works because the nurse backs down and lets us pass.
Raven rushes to me and throws her arms around my neck. She is still kind of crying, but she seems to have gotten it under control, mostly. When she lets me go, I keep one arm around her hips and stick close to her. I wish that she had been able to put on a brave face, but I haven’t seen Zoe and that might be the thing that breaks me.
She is sitting up in the bed, bruises on her face and neck, a couple of cuts that are already stitched up and the one on her cheek that the doctor is working on right now. Nothing that we can see won’t heal in a week or two, but I am not worried about the physical scars. I am terrified of what this is going to do to her emotionally.