Breaking Her (Love is War #2) (16 page)

"I think it's very likely we are dealing with a serial attacker, yes."
 

"Do you think you'll catch him?"
 

"As long as you cooperate, I'll make sure we do, Scarlett."
 
That struck me as odd, but I was too distracted to think about it for long.
 
"You take care.
 
I'll be in touch."
 

He left, and Dante,
finally
, came in.
 
He moved to me silently, looming over me, then softly took each one of my hands in his.
   

I couldn't even look at his face after the initial glance.
 
It was like staring into an open wound.
 
I was pissed, hurt, and embarrassed, and again,
pissed
, but he'd gone into another realm.
 
I knew this was his worst nightmare.

"Are you okay?" he asked, voice shaking.
 

"Yes," I said, because it was true.
 
I'd been attacked, yes, but I knew that it could have ended much, much worse.
     

"Who was it?" he asked, and I'd known he would.
 

I closed my eyes.
 
I didn't want to tell him.
 
He was too far to losing it, and if he had a clue just how much the police did not give a damn about finding the guy, he would to do it himself, I knew it.
 
"Don't," I said quietly.
 
"The police will handle it."
 
I didn't believe it myself, but that wasn't the point.
 
"I'm just a little bruised and pissed off, okay?
 
Let's not make this a big thing."
 

One of his warm hands had moved up to cup my cheek.
 
"Do you want to talk about it?" he asked.
 
"I don't know what to do.
 
I feel so helpless."
 

I did not want to talk about it.
 
It felt like I'd talked about it
too
much, but I figured it would be better to let him know what had really happened than to let him speculate and think the worst.

He gripped my hand a little too painfully amid the retelling, but stayed very quiet and still, and I knew without having to ask that he was going through his own personal hell.

Gram came in soon after.
 
Between the two of them, they made a big enough fuss over me that I felt truly cared for, and, though I was embarrassed by it, I was comforted.
     

Dante stayed the night with me in the hospital room, even after an initial standoff with my nurse.
 
I think she decided it just wasn't worth the trouble.
 

I was discharged the next day, and things were almost starting to feel normal again, or at least like normal was on its way.
 

We were talking as though nothing had happened, joking, teasing each other as I prepared to leave for home.
 

As Dante was helping me to dress, we had another bad moment when he saw my bruised torso.
 

I glanced down at my breasts.
 
They were black and blue.
 
No wonder they hurt so damn much.
 

Dante had been holding my bra but it dropped out of his hands, his breath gone ragged.
 
"Jesus.
 
Look what he did to you.
 
I'll fucking kill him."
 

The nurse walked in as he said that, and she sent him a startled look.
 

"I can't wear a bra right now," I said practically.
 
"Just grab me a shirt."
 

"I'll do that," the nurse told Dante, her tone sharp, as he renewed his efforts to dress me.
 

He was gently sliding my arms into an oversized T-shirt as he tersely replied, "I've got her."
 
The two didn't get along.
 
It'd been awkward since their standoff about him staying the night before.
 

But the nurse only cared to a point.
 
She clearly decided that we weren't worth the hassle and left us to it with one last glare.
   

We didn't even discuss it but he took me straight to Gram's house instead of mine, and she was waiting for us, a large corner suite upstairs prepared for me.
 
I pulled Dante into bed with me and went instantly back to sleep.
     

"I fucking hate that guy, the male detective," Dante said abruptly at dinner.
 

I was surprised.
 
"He's the only one that seems like he's trying to help me."

"I don't like him.
 
I don't trust him.
 
There's something wrong with him."
 

I was so used to him being jealous that that was the first conclusion my mind jumped to.
 
Detective Harris was a very good-looking man, even distracted and shaken I had noticed, and then he'd had the nerve to keep Dante from me for hours after the attack.
 
Of course Dante didn't like him.
 
I didn't much like him either.
     

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

"We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities, we are eaten up by nothing."

~Charles Bukowski
 

The worst thing about the attack was how it made me question everything around me.
 
Made me see it all differently.
 
The forest surrounding our houses had been the home to many of the good memories in my life, a source of nothing so much as joy and enchantment, but all of a sudden, it was the opposite.
 

It was a dark, mysterious place now, the shadows more oppressive and menacing.
 

Within a few days, I was still more shaken than I'd admit to anyone, but more or less back into my daily routine, and I thought I was happy to put it all behind me.
 
The police would do their job, and I would go on with my life just as before.
 

Well, not quite.
 
I didn't leave Gram's, and we didn't walk to or from school anymore.
 
Dante started driving us, and I was more than fine with it.
   

I knew I'd be in trouble as a few days passed, and I still didn't leave Gram's house.

It just felt so good to stay in a place where I was wanted, so I put off going back home.
 

Finally, I made Dante take me back to the trailer after school.
 
If he'd had his way, we'd have just avoided the place, entirely and forever.
   

"Go back to practice," I told him.
 
"You can come get me when you're done."
 

He wasn't pleased about that.
 
"Fuck practice.
 
I'm not leaving you."
 

He was immovable on the subject, and I was secretly relieved.
 

"Oh look who decided to come home after three fucking days," was my greeting from Glenda as I walked into the trailer for the first time since the attack.
 
"No word from you, not even a phone call, and you come waltzing in like you still live here."
   

"Didn't Gram tell yo—?"

"She's not your gram, and
you
should have told me.
 
Something like that happens, and you don't even call?"
     

I hadn't even considered it.
 
When I needed someone or some comfort or support, I never thought of her.
 

"You want to stay up on that fancy hill, you go right ahead, you little brat!
 
I never wanted you here anyway!
 
Collect your shit and get out!" she said and left with a slam.
 

Oh that's right
, I thought.
 
It was Friday.
 
I was interrupting her weekly binge-drunk, and I assumed she was heading to a bar to remedy that.
 

Dante pressed his chest against my back, leaning down to kiss my temple.
 
"Are you okay?"
 

I mulled it over.
 
"She told me to leave.
 
I get to
leave
."
 

He threaded our fingers together and nuzzled his face into my hair.
 
"Jesus.
 
It's about fucking time.
 
Just think, we get to wake up together every morning.
 
Let's pack your stuff and get the hell out of here."
 

I was kind of amazed at how much stuff I actually had.
 
We filled up his entire car and we still weren't even done, but I was tired, so we quit.
 
I could get the rest later.
 

I couldn't quite believe I got to leave the hated trailer dump to stay permanently with Gram.
 
I was reeling, almost giddy about it.
 
It felt like Dante and I had been waiting our whole lives to live together, and finally it was happening.
 
We could be together, day and night.
 
Just the idea of it overshadowed everything else that had happened, for a time, and I was almost lighthearted.
       

But it wasn't meant to last.
 

 
*****

I borrowed Dante's car the next day while he was at football practice, telling him I was tired and going to Gram's to lie down.
 

"I can skip out.
 
I'll take you home."
 
He looked like he wanted to.
 
Football had fallen very low on his priorities since the attack.
 

Everything had a silver lining of some kind.
   

I waved him off.
 
"No, don't bother.
 
Unless you mind me borrowing your car?"
 

"Of course not.
 
Be careful.
 
And I can just walk home."
 

I was worried about him doing that, not because I thought he'd get attacked like I had, obviously.
 
I was worried because I thought he wanted to.
 
He'd been relentless and had finally gotten it out of me who the attacker was.

It was a homeless guy that we saw most days on our walk home.
 
No mistaking him.
 
Dante didn't just know who he was, he knew where to find him.

I knew he'd go after the guy given half a chance.
 

"I'll come back to pick you up," I assured him.
 

I didn't head straight to Gram's.
 
I had a few things yet to get from Glenda's trailer, and I figured the sooner I did it the better.
 
She was liable to burn the stuff if I left it there for long.
 

I was nearly finished packing one last little box of pictures and keepsakes when I heard the loud sound of a car pulling onto Grandma's loose gravel driveway.

I glanced out a window.
 
It was an old, brown sedan, and as I watched, Detective Harris stepped out of it.
 

I was not happy to see him.
   

I wanted the creep who'd attacked me caught, but I'd had more than my fill of dealing directly with the police.
   

Still, I went to the door and greeted him.
 

He smiled and asked how I was doing, citing that he hadn't wanted to intimidate me by pulling me into the station again for more questions, which I thought was supposed to be nice.

Nice, but nerve-racking.
 
I didn't want to be alone with a strange man after what had only
just
happened to me.
 

Still, I did hate the police station.
 
It always made me feel paranoid.
 
I was so used to being in trouble that it just felt instinctual to stay away from a place like that.
     

"Where's Detective Flynn?" I asked him warily.
 
I really didn't like her.

"She's back at the station, doing some paperwork.
 
I got the impression that you'd be more comfortable without her."
 
As he spoke he was looking down at his notepad, jotting down something that I couldn't make out.
 
"Can I come in?"
   

I didn't want to let him in.
 
Felt a powerful urge to refuse him, in fact.
 
"Can I call my friend?"

He cocked his head to the side.
 
"Why?"

"To, you know, have a friend here with me for this."
 

"I don't understand."

"It would make me feel better."
   

He smiled kindly at me.
 
"I'm your friend, Scarlett.
 
And I don't think it's . . . appropriate to have some teenager involve themselves in an official police case.
 
Listen, this will be quick, and I promise you it is necessary.
 
Can I come in, or would you rather go to the station?" he asked again.
 

"I suppose not," I said stiffly, truly rattled.
 
"You can come in."
 
I knew it was just the fear from all that'd happened, but I did not want to be alone with this man, cop or not, or any man at all just then, for that matter.
 

"Can I call Mrs. Durant—Vivian—and have her join us?" I tried again.
 
She wasn't a teenager, and I knew with certainty that she'd come if I needed her.
 

He'd been jotting something on his pad again, but he looked up at that.
 
"Also not the best idea.
 
All of this is sensitive information about an active case.
 
I really can't allow you to divulge any of these details to anyone not actively involved."