What the hell?
She straightened, and I finally got a good look at her face scrunched up in laughter. Hysterical, doubled over, crying actual tears, laughter.
Relief washed over me, although some lingering worry tightened my voice. “My deodorant is so funny, it made you scare the crap out of me?”
She laughed harder and held it up. “It’s woodland mint. All this time I’ve been thinking you smell so good, it’s been my face in your pits.”
The knot in my chest fell away and a laugh bubbled out of me too. “Remember our first date at the Tavern? We walked in side by side, and I thought to myself that if I put my arm around you, you’d be armpit high. I bought this deodorant the next day.”
She cocked her head to the side, grinning. “I am armpit high on you,” she agreed.
She was fucking adorable. All I wanted was for her to always be this happy. Safe and happy. That suffocating fear wrapped around me again. “Firefly, do you want to get out of here? We can stay with friends of mine from out of state. I can work on finding this creep from there, and you’ll be safer. We’ll make a vacation out of it.”
The light in her beautiful eyes dimmed, but she smiled sweetly at me. “No. Thank you, though. I’m not running away. Find this asshole and end him. Even if Snake Eyes isn’t the rapist, we need to find them both. Then, when it’s for the right reasons, I’d love to go on vacation with you.”
Dammit. She was too good. Too selfless.
“I was supposed to be getting ready to talk to the police. I just need a few more minutes.” She tried to push me out of the bathroom, and I let her because she needed to know just how strong she was.
I never thought I’d want to assault a police officer, but this fucking cop was pushing my tolerance well past its limit. He filled pages of his notebook with information from us—good fucking information—and he wouldn’t tell us one goddamn piece of useful information. Forget useful. I’d take useless info at this point.
From the moment Jenna heard about the rape, all she’d wanted was a description of the guy, and this asshole wouldn’t even give her that. The only words he’d uttered was that he’dpass it along to the investigating officers, and he didn’t know. According to him, he didn’t know a fucking thing. And he was apparently the only cop here close to the case. Addams, the detective in charge of the case, wasn't in. Quint wasn’t in, and neither were the other cops I was friendly with. The senior officer I’d insisted on seeing assured me this fucker was the best one to talk to.
Jenna pried my fist open and slipped her hand into mine. “It’s okay,” she whispered.
My chest squeezed at the worry on her face. I was done with this shit. I gripped her hand and started for the door. “Have Addams call me. Maybe he’d like to help keep Jenna safe.”
“Thank you, officer,” Jenna said. I pulled her out before he responded. He didn’t deserve her niceness.
As soon as we were outside, I yanked Jenna against my side. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Are you?”
“Not really,” I answered honestly. “I hate this.”
“It’ll be okay. I trust you to protect me.”
Please God, let me be worthy of that trust.An image of my team—my dead brothers—popped into my head, and I pushed it away with everything I had. There was no space for those thoughts. No room for failure this time. Not with my Firefly.
“And even if something does happen,” she continued, trying so damn hard to sound calm, “I’ll still be okay. It’ll be bad, I’m not denying that, but shit happens.”
Fuck. Not that anything was needed to accentuate how fucked up it was that she simply accepted that psycho rapists walked among us, but her cuss made it even worse.
I tucked her into my side. I probably held her too tightly, but I couldn’t help it. I wanted to promise her nothing would happen. I’d swear it on my life if I could. But we both knew I couldn’t guarantee that, and I wouldn’t lie to her.
“Hey, it’s okay,” she said softly. “I wasn’t trying to be morbid. It could still all be nothing. We could be overreacting to a coincidence. Don’t be so worried about me. I just meant that anything is possible. Now or anytime.”
Dammit. That was the worst attempt at reassurance ever. In the same breath, she minimized the threat again and declared how unsafe the world felt to her. How unsafe she felt all the fucking time.
God, I wanted to kill the motherfucker who destroyed her faith in humanity before she was even old enough to spell those words. Brian was a dead man. As soon as this current asshole was dead, he was next. I wanted to kill every damn man who ever scared her. And, as much as I hated it, I now understood why she so adamantly refused to carry a weapon. She didn’t even want a taser, but we’d revisit that one. Every freaking man scared her. Maybe even some women. I’d kill them all if it made her feel safe, and if I felt that way...poor Firefly. It was amazing how sweet she was.
“Liam.” She wedged her hands between us and pushed away. “I do love the smell of your pits, but I don’t want to suffocate in there.”
I tried to smile.
“Stop looking so murderous. You can murder the rapist, but only him. Not that cop. He was simply doing his job.”
“His job is to protect you!”