Page 141 of Cuffed (Everyday Heroes 1)
“Maybe when you’re not so scared I can let you turn the lights on and off and sound the siren.” She doesn’t respond. “Can I ask you something?” I say smoothing a hand down her hair. “How’d you get that bruise on your cheek?”
I feel her chest shudder against mine, and her fingers slowly release from around my neck as she voluntarily crawls off my lap and sits in the seat beside me. She studies her fingers for a long time before finally speaking.
“I fell on the stairs and hit my face,” she murmurs.
“That’s a big fall. Did you cry?” She nods but doesn’t look at me in the eyes. “If you didn’t fall on the stairs . . . you know, like if you got hurt in some other way, you could tell me and I wouldn’t be mad.”
“’Kay.”
We sit in silence as I figure out how to get the truth from her. If she doesn’t talk and if her mom protects her dad, then we have no grounds to keep her out of the house. Silence eats up the car as the crowd of onlookers
grows.
“Keely?”
“Hmm?”
“Why did you use our secret code?” She shrugs, but I can see her bottom lip trembling. “Did something happen that made you think you needed help?”
Another shrug.
Another loss for how to talk to her.
“Is my daddy in trouble?” she whispers, and I fumble with how to answer.
“If he hurt you, then yes. Just like in school, you can’t hurt people without getting in trouble. It’s the rules.” She nods. “Did he hurt you, Keely?”
She looks at me for the first time since I picked her up. Those eyes so wise beyond their years as she stares at me. Tears well until she finally blinks and releases them down her cheeks.
Tell me, please.
Car doors shut around us. Nate yells something to Lou. But I sit in the back of my cruiser with this little girl and will her to let me protect her.
To save her.
To do what I couldn’t for Emerson.
After a few moments, she pulls her knees up to her chest, curls into a ball, stares out the window, and slides her hand into mine.
If I thought my heart was broken before, she just shattered it.
I need open space.
I need the wind in my hair and the roar in my ears to drown out the devastation owning my soul.
I didn’t get the loan.
I’m not going to get Blue Skies.
I tried to start over. To build a life. To stay put. To trust someone.
But it doesn’t seem to be in the cards.
All this hard work. All this busting my ass, and I have nothing to show for it except that I’ll probably be out of a job and most likely out of a place to live.
The thought hits me hard, and I press the pedal down even farther.
Anything to quiet my head, but it isn’t working.
