“We’re gonna have to take her in, Brody.” His lips were in a flat line, telling me he didn’t like this either, but we didn’t have a choice. If we took her in, at least we had control over the situation and could get to the bottom of it while keeping Lola at the forefront of our minds. Another cop wouldn’t do that. He’d lock her in a cell and probably try to throw the book at her. The worst things possible were springing to mind, and all it did was solidify what I was about to do.
“I know.” I pulled in a deep breath. “Get techs down here, we’ll take her to the offices. Meet us there once this place has the right people examining the scene.”
Ryan nodded and pulled his cell out, already calling it in. I stepped closer to Lola, careful not to touch her. “We have to take you in, darlin'.” I hated the words coming out of my mouth. Hated that I had to say them to the woman who I’d vowed to protect from the man who was on the ground. The man who was now dead.
She didn’t say anything. She didn’t acknowledge me, and she didn’t even flinch when I gently encased her forearm with my hand. She was a shell of the Lola I knew, and that destroyed me more than anything.
I threw my keys at Jord. “Bring the car down. You can drive us in.” I expected a joke about me letting him drive my baby, but he didn’t. He just caught the keys and jogged ahead of us.
“Lola?” I pulled us to a stop behind the car parked on the gravel, spotting the headlights of my Mustang as Jord turned the engine on. “Lola?”
She looked down at the ground, blinking rapidly as she stared at her blood-coated hands. I wanted to know what was going through her head. I wanted to wrap my arms around her and tell her everything was okay, that I’d protect her, but I couldn’t. Not when she was like this.
Jord rolled the car to a stop in front of us, and I sat us in the back, not willing to let Lola sit on her own. She curled up into the corner behind the driver’s seat, staring out of the window and clutching her shaking hands in her lap.
I had questions, so many questions, and I couldn’t vocalize one of them. I was trapped, not able to escape the confines being a DEA agent had put me in. I was Lola’s enemy right now, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
We pulled into the lot and exited the car. I led Lola inside and to the same room Hut was put in when we took him down. The only difference was that she wasn’t wearing cuffs. That was a line I refused to step over. She wasn’t a danger to us, and technically, we hadn’t read her her rights, a fact I was well aware of.
I was blurring the lines, but I didn’t think twice about it.
We entered the room, and I pointed at the chair. “Sit there. I’ll go and get you some clean clothes.”
She didn’t acknowledge me, and I puffed out a breath. Today was not meant to go like this. I wanted to see her, but not in this way. I worked on automatic, getting a bag to put her clothes in for evidence, and getting her a paper bodysuit to dress in. Jord was standing outside the door when I got back, and when I went to step inside, he blocked me.
“You can’t do this, Brody.” His dark eyes met mine, portraying what I already knew. “You go in there and ask her anything, you’re only gonna make it worse for her. You know that.” He held his hand out to me, and I placed the bag and suit in his palms. “We got your back, B. Never doubt that.”
I nodded, not knowing what to say as he opened the door, and gave me a glimpse of her huddled in the corner, her wide eyes begging me to help her. I was helping her in the best way I could, and that was by letting someone else take the reins.
“Brody,” Aaron’s voice called.
I turned around, seeing his carefully impassive face. “Need you in my office when this is done.” I didn’t need to know how he knew what “this” was. He had eyes and ears everywhere. He probably knew the second we’d gotten in the car to come here.
I paced the floor outside the interview room, watching the door and listening for any signs of distress. I didn’t know how long I did that until a hand landed on my shoulder.
“They’re about to talk to her,” Ryan said. He tilted his head to the room we used to watch people through the two-way mirror. “Come on.”
I followed him, my hands clenched at my sides, and my teeth grinding together. There was nothing worse than being on the outskirts and not knowing what was happening. I shut the door behind us, basking us in the dimly lit room, and stared through the mirror. Lola was still huddled in the corner, her eyes squeezed shut and her arms wrapped around her body.
“Can you walk us through what happened, Miss Martin?” Kyle asked, throwing her a reassuring smile she couldn’t see. He was the softest-spoken one out of all three of us, so I was glad it was him asking her the questions. But he should have waited. She was in no state to answer anything, and even though protocol said to get the information when it was fresh in someone’s mind, I hated it right then.
Kyle moved his chair back, the legs scraping against the floor, and she flinched, trying to back away into a corner she was already melted into. “Please, no,” her cracked voice begged, and every single hair on my body stood on end. She was breaking apart, and I was standing there, witnessing it while doing nothing to stop it.
No. I could do something to stop it.
I spun around and took two steps to the door. “Don’t,” Ryan warned, but I ignored him and kept going. I pushed open the interview room door and stepped inside.
“We’re not doing this,” I ground out at Kyle and Jord, my gaze focused on Lola who was still in the corner. Her hair was a matted mess with scratches on one side of her face and a visible boot print on the other. Dirt was caked over her skin, blood under her fingernails. But none of that affected me the way her eyes did when they opened and looked directly at me.
I stumbled back a step from the impact her hazel orbs had on me. They told me she was broken, that she wasn’t in this room with us, but back there with Hut and whatever had transpired between them.
Slow steps forward had me closer to her, and when I was in reaching distance, I offered her my hand. “Let’s go, darlin’.”
A noise escaped from the back of her throat, an echo I’d never forget. She sounded like an injured animal and looked like one too.
“Brody, you can’t—”
“I can,” I answered Jord. “She’s in no fit state. Look at her.” I didn’t look away from her, begging her with my eyes to take my hand. “Please, Lola. I’ll take care of you, I promise.”
She unwrapped her arms from around herself, her shaky hand reaching mine, and as soon as our fingertips touched, I encased her whole hand. She winced from the contact, but I held strong. She needed me to be there and to take care of her. I needed to protect her, even if it were from herself.
Chapter Thirteen
LOLA
I was scared of what I’d see if I looked down at myself. Would my hands be covered in blood? Would my skin be different? Would the bruises only mask what I did? What about when they disappeared? Would everyone know I had killed a person?
I’d killed him.
I’d plunged the knife into his throat and not thought twice about it.
Maybe I should have regretted it, but I didn’t. I didn’t regret it, and I should have. I should have wanted to take it back. To rewind time and change the outcome. But the reality was, nothing would have stopped Hut. He would have always been there, waiting for the perfect time to strike. And yet…
I couldn’t look down at my body as the water in the tub enveloped me. Tears streamed down my cheeks, stinging the small cuts, but I didn’t move to wipe them away. I let them flow, doing nothing to stop the dam from falling. I was a captive of my thoughts, and nothing could free me.
“Lola?” I flinched at Brody’s voice from the other side of the door. “Do you want some help?”
Yes. No. I didn’t know. I couldn’t vocalize my thoughts. My mouth wouldn’t work, so I stayed silent.
“I’m coming in.”
I still didn’t answer him as I heard the
bathroom door open. There was a calmness to Brody’s lake house that had been there the first time he brought me here, and I was glad this was where he’d taken me. He’d told me back then he hadn’t been here in fifteen years, which meant neither had Moira. It was our place. Our own little slice of heaven. But right then, I felt like I was in hell.
His boots appeared at the side of the tub, and then his knees as he crouched down. “Let me help you,” he whispered, his voice a broken stutter. I couldn’t do or say anything. I was too far into my own head, and I wasn’t sure if anything he did could fix it.
My body was limp inside the tub, my arms hanging loosely with my hands plunged into the water. He picked up a sponge, squirted some body wash onto it, and foamed it up. And, all the while, I sat there, staring at nothing and thinking of everything.
What if I had kept my cell in my pocket back at the apartment? I could have called Brody. He’d have come, and Hut would still be breathing. I squeezed my eyes closed, but they sprang open a second later when all I could see was Hut’s body draining of blood and life.
“It’s okay,” Brody said, placing the sponge on my arm and swiping it over my skin. I shivered from the contact and tried my hardest not to flinch away, but I knew he noticed when he paused. “It’ll be okay, I promise.”
I couldn’t tell him I wasn’t sure it would be. I couldn’t tell him I’d always feel different after taking someone’s life. My voice refused to work. My head was screaming at me to latch on to him, to ask him to hold me as tight as he could so I didn’t fall apart, but I couldn’t get the words out.
He lifted each arm in turn, wiping the blood and dirt off my hands and from under my nails. The water started to get murky, but I was fascinated by it. I was enthralled with the way it mixed together like the darkness of the night.
I blinked when the sponge made contact with my stomach and pulled in a sharp breath at the cut there. Each second ticked by slower than the last as I remembered what Hut threatened to do to me.
“Shit,” Brody spat. “I think you need to go to the hospital.”
The cut wasn’t bad, I knew that, but when I looked up at him and saw he was staring at my face too, I wondered what I looked like to him. Did I reflect as broken as I felt?
He swapped the sponge for a soft washcloth, and gently smoothed it over the side of my face Hut’s boot had been pressed against, followed by the other side with all the scratches. “Lola? Do you want me to take you to the hospital?”
All I could managed was a shake of my head, and even though his lips spread into a thin line, I couldn’t bring myself to voice my opinion. I stared down at my hands and let him continue, groaning when he washed my hair and hit the sore spot that had slammed into the gravel. I just wanted this to be over with. I wanted things to go back to how they were before. I wanted my normal life back. I wanted—
“All done,” Brody announced. “Let me help you up.”
My strength had disappeared, so I allowed him to pull me out of the tub and wrap a towel around me. Time was moving at the speed of light and then the slowness of a snail, all blending into one. He dressed me in a T-shirt and some shorts, tucked me into the queen-sized bed, and sat beside me.
He didn’t touch me, and for that, I was grateful. But at the same time, I wanted him to hold me. I closed my eyes, willing the images from the night to disappear, but I wasn’t lucky. My brain was determined to make me relive it over and over again. And when Brody’s soft snores rang throughout the room, I decided I didn’t need sleep.
All I needed was him.
* * *
BRODY
I hadn’t thought twice about where we would go when I took Lola from the offices. My body had worked on automatic, and we’d ended up at the lake house. We’d be safe from everything here, even if I knew time was ticking by.
I hadn’t intended to keep her away forever, just long enough so she could process what had happened and then give her statement, but I hadn’t known what was ahead of us. It had been three days, and Lola still hadn’t said a word to me.
The dark circles under her eyes told me she hadn’t been able to sleep, and when she did nod off, she’d wake up screaming and shaking. I had no idea what to do to make it better. My body screamed at me to touch her, to hold her like it craved to, but I wasn’t so sure it was what she needed.
She needed to process and to start healing.
I let out a long breath and stepped outside, my gaze immediately zoning in on where she was sitting in a chair on the dock. She’d taken to being outside all day and staring at the vast beauty, but I had an inkling she wasn’t seeing anything but the images inside her own head.
The wooden slats creaked as I approached her, and her shoulders tensed. “Hey,” I ventured, my voice echoing around us. The sun hadn’t long come up, and another day was ahead of us, but she had no idea what would happen. The guys had been patient with us, but people were starting to ask questions, which meant we needed to go back and do what I’d rescued her from.
“We have to head back,” I said, crouching down next to her.
Her head whipped around to face me, and I winced at the bruises and cuts marring her beautiful face. There was no way you could look at her and not see she had fought. She’d fought for her life, and in the process had to take someone else’s.
Lola opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Part of me wanted to shake her, to tell her she didn’t need to stay silent. She could talk to me. She could tell me anything. “I know it’s hard, but once you’ve told them what happened, we can move on. You can start to heal, and”—I flicked my gaze to the water and back to her—“start talking to me again.”
Her hazel eyes misted over, a sheen of tears coating them. She was trapped inside herself, and I had no idea what to do to get her out of it. She stood so quickly it nearly knocked me off-balance, but I managed to catch myself and stand with her.
I swallowed as she stepped to the side and let her head hang back. She stared up at the sky, opened her mouth, and let a scream rip from her vocal cords. It echoed around the lake, the sound of pure torture, and I just stood there. I stood and watched her, feeling like this was the first step she had to take.
Tears streamed down her face when she stopped and looked back at me, her shoulders sagging, and I didn’t think twice about wrapping my arms around her. “It’s okay,” I murmured. “I got you, darlin'. Never doubt that.”
She clasped on to my T-shirt, twisting it, and sobbing into my chest. “I’m sorry,” she said, over and over again, but I wasn’t sure who she was saying it to, so I held her tighter, refusing to let go. I’d given her space, but I couldn’t stand by any longer and not hold her.
We stood there for what felt like hours until she pulled away, wiped at her face, and pushed her shoulders back. “I think I’m ready,” she whispered, her voice hoarse from not using it and the scream.
I placed my hands on either side of her face, my touch whisper-soft as to not hurt her, and stared into her eyes. “I’ll be right there, every step of the way. I’m on your side. Always.” She nodded and placed her palm over mine, and that was all the permission I needed to take her hand and lead her back into the house.
I gathered our things and shot off a message to Jord to let him know we’d be there in a few hours, and met Lola out front. She was staring at the chair my pop used to sit in with a small smile on her face.
“You ready?” I asked.
She turned to face me, and her chest moved as she inhaled deeply. “Yes.”
Not another word was spoken as we got into my Mustang and started the long drive back to the office. My hand found its way over to hers about thirty minutes into the drive, and not long after that, her eyes closed, and she finally slept peacefully, if only for a couple of hours.
The guys were waiting for us when we pulled up, and I wasn’t sure what to expect from Lola. She was giving nothing away, so I did what I had done since she’d finally spoken again. I didn’t shy away from her. I helped he
r out of the car and inside, heading right for the interview room.
“I’ll be on the other side of that mirror,” I told her, pointing at it as Kyle and Jord came in. “Just tell them what happened and then we can leave, okay?”
She nodded and replied, “Okay.”
I stood and walked out, not looking back once, because I knew if I did, I wouldn’t be able to leave her in that room. Ryan joined me in the other room, and together, we watched them.
Kyle started with his calm voice, asking her what had happened, and I crossed my arms over my chest, listening intently.
“I…” She cleared her throat and picked up the small, plastic cup in front of her. “I don’t know where to begin.” She took a sip of the water and placed it back on the table.
“From the beginning,” Kyle said. “Tell us what you did from the time you woke up that day.”
She nodded and worried her bottom lip. My pulse thrummed faster, my blood pumping through my veins, and all I wanted to do was leap into that room and take her away from all of this. But I’d already done that once, and now she had to face what was happening. It was the only way she would heal.
“I had a day off, so I woke up late. I texted…someone to make plans for the night, and then headed out for a walk. I got a sandwich and went back to my apartment. And then…Hut showed up.” Her voice was so monotone until the last three words. “He wanted me to go with him, and I refused. I put up a fight.” She glanced from Jord to Kyle. “I didn’t want to go, but then I couldn’t get away.” Her shoulders slumped, and she wrapped her arms around her stomach. “I figured if I went with him, I’d do whatever he needed me to and then I could get home and forget all about it.”
“Okay,” Jord said. “What happened next?”
Down Fall: Fallen Duet: Book Two Page 14