He, a lot like Miranda, was always so put together, so in control of himself and his image. It was startling to see him look so wrecked, so broken.
It wasn’t until he rushed away from the cop and toward Miranda that I glanced back as well.
“No, you have to go,” Cam insisted, making me move away from the cop we were speaking to as well.
“I don’t want to go,” Miranda shot back.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“She doesn’t want to go to the hospital,” Cam explained.
“You have to go to the hospital,” I told her, seeing her swollen eye, the cuts on her arms and face. “You have to get looked over.”
Her gaze went to me, watery, scared, and in pain.
“Just a couple hours, baby,” I assured her. “Just to get checked out. Then you can come home. Cam and I will meet you there. Right?” I asked, looking at Cam.
“As soon as we are done talking to the police,” Cam assured her, reaching out to place a hand on her arm. “You have to go,” he insisted again, voice a little firmer.
“Okay,” she agreed, pulling herself together a bit. Cam seemed to have that impact on her.
“We will be right behind you,” I assured her, leaning in to press a kiss to her temple as they came in with the stretcher.
Ritchie was already gone by the time we turned around to watch them roll Miranda out.
“You okay?” I asked, looking over at Cam.
“No,” he answered honestly. But then he was reaching for his phone. “Where are Miranda’s things? She’s going to need her wallet with her medical cards and her phone and charger,” he said, slipping into assistant-mode. Whether that was to assuage any unnecessary guilt he felt, or because it helped him think past his confusion and grief, I had no idea. But I knew a thing or two about coping mechanisms, so I rattled off the information before moving back to finish the questioning with the cops.
Luckily enough for me, Lennon had a long history with one of the cops that was there, so the usual need to have me down to the precinct for questioning was removed, thanks to the active case we were both working on, Mitchell being gagged and stuffed in the trunk, and the clear evidence that Ritchie had been brutalizing Miranda when I’d come in.
“Go see to your girl,” Lennon insisted, giving my shoulder a squeeze. “I’ve got the rest of this.”
I didn’t need more than that, I turned and ran.
Somehow, though, Cam managed to beat me to the damn hospital, even after stopping to grab her stuff.
“What’s the word?”
“They are doing some scans right now. We can go in after,” he told me, clicking around on his phone. “I’m clearing her schedule for this coming week,” he explained. “She needs some time off to process this.”
“Hey, Cam?” I called, waiting until he looked at me.
“Yeah?”
“You do too,” I reminded him.
“I know,” he agreed, and for a second, the facade fell. “We are going to go down to essential work only for the next week,” he said, still tapping away at his phone.
“Cam, the fuck are you doing?” I asked after having updated Sawyer and Tig on the developments, only to find him still working.
“Setting up care packages, wound supplies, and food to be delivered to Miranda’s place later tonight,” he explained.
“That’s nice, Cam, but I think you need to stop working for a minute.”
“If I stop working, all this shit is going to hit me. And I need it not to hit me right now.”
“I get that,” I agreed. “I was really good at that for years. But you gotta make time for it to hit you. Or it’s going to eat you up, man.”