When I'm With You (Little Hollow Series, #2)(64)

“I want to show you something,” she says, wheeling a chair in for me and Connor follows after her.

He chuckles. “Don’t worry, I’m not tagging along. Apparently I’m just the ‘muscles’.”

She slaps him on his tattooed forearm and he pulls her closer to plant a kiss on her forehead before walking toward me. Seeing them together being normal makes my icy heart happy.

“So how d’ya wanna do this?” He asks, rubbing his hands together, seeming a little anxious.

“Well these little hospital gowns don’t leave so much to the imagination so I’d like to try get down myself.” He nods his head and waits. “Well turn around then.”

Both me and Sam laugh as he startles and faces the back wall. I blow out a breath and shuffle down the bed, gritting my teeth against the pain the whole way so much that my jaw starts to ache.

I sigh and concede. “A little help?”

I’ve already lost my dignity, so why the hell not? Connor turns around but keeps his eyes trained on my face as he walks toward me, making me feel a little uncomfortable but I know he’s just trying to be a gentleman.

He lifts me under my knees and tells me to hold onto his neck, I do but the movement pulls at my ribs. I let go of his neck and I nearly fall but he catches me in time, jolting my aching body. “Ouch!”

“Shit, are you okay?”

I take deep breaths. “Yeah, just get me in the chair so I can rest.”

He places me in the wheelchair and Sam wheels the drips on their metal poles to the side of me and slots them into the side.

“You want this blanket?” She asks, holding up a gray, itchy number.

I flinch. “No, please get rid of it.”

Her mouth moves up and down before throwing it in the little locker in the corner of the room, but she doesn’t question me. I’m not ready to go into details, I don’t think I’ll ever be ready to talk about it all with her but I can tell she understands.

Connor opens the door for us and Sam pushes me into the hallway and down another into an elevator. “Where are we going?”

I’m really not in the mood for a tour of the hospital right now, I want to be left alone in my misery and turmoil. “I told you I’d help you heal, but you’re beating yourself up and not processing this all properly, I can tell.”

I worry my lip. “No. I’m just a hard ass, remember?”

She raises a brow and walks back behind me as the elevator pings open and we walk down another hallway. “Don’t even, it’s me you’re talking to.”

We round a corner and come face to face with four cops.

My heart starts to try and fight its way out of my chest as they all turn my way. “Stop.” She keeps on walking toward them. “Stop. I need to catch my breath.”

She does this time but lets me deal with this on my own, it’s like she’s in tune with me. I nod that I’m okay and she wheels me to them, Hernandez and Daniels being two of the four standing outside a room as if guarding it. They eye each other and I stare at Sam.

“Why am I here?”

She crosses her arms over her chest. “I told you I was going to help you heal, the first step would be to get rid of your demons.” She kneels down to face me. “You don’t have to do this, Kee. I know how scary it must be to put yourself back there with him, but I’ll be right there with you if you need me to be.”

Her eyes flit between mine, assessing me. I shut my eyes so she can’t read me, take in a deep breath, and open my eyes nodding at Hernandez and Daniels who gesture to a room on their left. Sam pushes me into the plain room holding only a few chairs in it.

She pulls up a chair next to my wheelchair and the two cops sit opposite us.

I find my battered hands much more interesting, just like earlier. “I really need a manicure,” I say out loud, breaking the ice.

And then I start from the beginning. Reliving every humiliating, gruesome thing that happened from start to finish. I don’t leave anything out. It takes me a while to recount everything, having to stop in between remembering it all to remind myself that I’m not there anymore.

The whole time I’m talking, Sam never takes her eyes off me, tears pouring down her face, but I keep mine impassive. This will not break me.

“And you don’t know how they found you?” Sergeant Daniels asks when I finish. I shake my head, no. “Okay, you’ve cleared a lot of things up, Miss Michaels.” He looks at Sam. “May I have a word outside?”

Sam nods, wiping at her eyes and kisses me on the forehead as she stands up. “Back in a minute.”

I smile weakly and play with the hem of my hospital gown, feeling awkward at being left in this room with a strange man. I hear Sam raise her voice but I can’t quite make out what she’s saying, but she storms back into the room, Daniels on her heels. “Miss Reynolds, I don’t think this is a good idea.”

Her five foot four frame stands tall. “Because you know her do you?”

“Sam?” I interrupt.

She holds up a finger to me then points it toward the door opposite the one we’re in.

“You let us in, he’s done nothing wrong.”

He rubs the back of his neck and looks at Hernandez who shakes his head and chuckles. “Redheads. I don’t see why not. You heard what she said, he’s innocent.”