I open my mouth to tell him again when he stops abruptly.
Panting, he grabs his dad’s collar, who’s alive, thank God, and growls, “Don’t ever touch her again. Do you understand? Not ever. Because I’ll kill you with my bare hands. Like I should’ve done three years ago. And this time, Mom’s not gonna come save you.”
His dad doesn’t answer him; I don’t think he can.
Zach lets him go with a jerk and stands up, before turning to me like a compass that always points north.
His eyes flash with fear and he takes a step toward me, but then all hell breaks loose.
The room gets thrown in chaos when cops barge in.
Someone must have called 911. They come in, check the state of the room, talk to a crying Mrs. Prince, start firing orders.
And before I can even stand up, they take Zach away.
It happens so fast that it leaves me dizzy and nauseated.
One of them approaches me and says that he needs me to make a statement once I’m through with the doctor.
“There’s a doctor?” I ask, shocked, surprised and so many other things that I can’t even fathom right now. “What… where did you take Zach?”
“He’s been taken in for questioning,” he says, casually. “You don’t need to worry about that.”
“But he was…”
I trail off when he turns away and then, I’m being flooded with hugs and sympathy.
Someone cries at my shoulders. Someone else sits me down in a chair and hands me a glass of water that I don’t take a sip of.
“He was just trying to save his mom,” I whisper to no one in particular, watching the door they took Zach through.
But someone answers. It’s Tina.
She’s kneeling in front of me. “No, he was trying to save you.”