Page 10 of Shielding Serena

When Serena would have protested, Lila leveled her with a look. “Let us take care of you,” she said softly. “I know how much you hate being here, so we’ll make it as fast as we can.”

Oh. Serena’s heart tipped. Like with Walker, for Lila, she’d do just about anything.

“Okay,” she said.

“Are you hurt anywhere else?”

Serena stared at her. Granted, her brain still wasn’t firing on all cylinders, but she had exactly zero idea what Lila was asking.

“Do I need to do an exam and rape kit?” Lila’s voice was quiet, oh-so quiet.

Serena rocked back in horror. “No!” Then she took a breath and did a quick run through of her own body and found nothing. She shook her head. “No, nothing feels off or…used.” God, the words coming from her mouth were awful on so many levels. She wondered distantly why she’d felt the need to use euphemisms rather than simply say she hadn’t been sexually assaulted.

Lila gusted out a sound of relief. “Thank God.” She met Serena’s gaze. “I was terrified you were going to say yes, or that you’d be less than sure. Now, do you have any questions for me before I send you up for the workup?”

“No,” Serena said, her voice as quiet and small as Lila’s had been. The shock of her friend’s question was still ricocheting through her mind and had completely banished her disquiet with being in the facility. She didn’t know quite what to think, would need some time to process the fact someone could have assaulted her while she’d been unconscious, but hadn’t.

They ran what seemed like a thousand tests and anxiety continued to cramp her stomach as they wheeled her back to the ER.

“Everything looks good on your CT, thank goodness,” Lila confirmed when the results came back. “Normally I’d want you to stay overnight for observation, but given your aversion to hospitals, it’d probably stress you out more than help. So instead I want someone to stay with you in case you begin to experience other symptoms associated with traumatic brain injury. I don’t see anything like that on your scans,” she hurried to clarify. “It’s a standard protocol. I’d invite you over to my place, but my sister and the man she’s dating are in their getting-to-know-you phase and even I don’t want to be there most of the time.” Iris had moved in with Lila a few months ago to reacclimate herself to the States and take a well-deserved break after living overseas as a project manager in Dubai.

Serena snickered at the imagery, as intended, and felt as if a weight had been lifted from her chest, and it had nothing to do with the fact her head was all right. “I’ll be fine. I wouldn’t have even come in, but Walker made me.”

Lilah waggled her eyebrows. “That man and his friends,” she waved a hand in front of her face as if warding off a hot flash. “If I wasn’t in my ‘men suck’ phase, I’d lasso one of those morsels.”

Serena raised her eyebrows, pleased that the only thing that hurt was the goose-egg on her head. “Well, we need to get together soon so you can give me all the details which of the ‘morsels’ is catching your eye.” Was it wrong that she hoped it wasn’t Walker?

“It’s a date.”

“Thanks, Lila. I’ll give you a shout soon,” she promised and pushed through the curtain, then walked past the desk and into the waiting room beyond.

CHAPTER 6

Walker sat in the hard plastic waiting room chair, legs crossed at the ankle, staring down at his dusty boots. He wondered what was taking so long. He knew doing concussion protocols took time, but it seemed like he’d been waiting for an eternity, and the woman at the front desk wouldn’t say boo about how Serena was doing.

He was trying not to think how his heart almost stalled, seeing Serena lying there motionless. When he'd seen the blood on her temple, he’d wanted to maim whoever had harmed her.

To hurt whoever had hurt her as badly. Worse. Infinitely worse.

But he had to let Garrett do his job, had to step away when everything inside him told him to charge forward. He wondered how much of that was his need to be a hero for Serena.

Kujo stood in one corner of the waiting room, talking on his phone, presumably to Hank. Walker hoped he was simply checking in and not reporting back that they were a bad bet. He figured the man had come along to observe on how he interacted with the community. After all, Kujo’s visit was a performance evaluation of a sort, even here at the hospital.

He thought about Garrett, about what a team player he’d been at and immediately after the shootout, and how the alphabet soup agencies who’d come along to chime in with their two cents when the dust had settled had shut him out and then made him look the fool.

No matter how much influence Taylor wielded within the press, especially after the movie, it hadn’t been enough to overpower the Marshal Service’s public relations juggernaut that’d followed the assault. No one wanted to admit they’d screwed up, that they’d had a dirty agent, and shit rolled downhill. The news cycle had moved forward, as it always did, leaving Garrett and his men in the dust.

He’d thought they’d come to a détente over last fall’s craziness, and Walker didn’t like the fact they could potentially be at odds over what had happened this morning because of it, since there was no way in hell he was stepping aside from the investigation into Serena’s assault.

In the past he might have let that kind of tension play out. See who came out on top.

Instead he knew he needed to fix it. He wanted this deal with the Brotherhood Protectors to go smoothly. The five years he’d spent as a security specialist after he’d separated from the Army had been fine, but not what he wanted for the rest of his life. He wanted what the Brotherhood Protectors had, a shared purpose that fed his soul.

His time guarding pampered celebrities and rooting out corporate espionage had left him cold, and now he wanted more, so much more.

So he would make nice with Garrett, maybe eat a little crow, even though it went against his nature. Because Serena’s safety was worth way more than pride.

As if summoned, the sheriff walked into the waiting area.