I back away, letting the door shut behind me. I turn just in time to spot a cop walking down the hallway, tucking in his shirt as though he’s coming back from the restroom. He stops when he sees me, grinning widely as he moves in to hug me.
“Well, if it isn’t Beau Donovan!” he bellows, clapping my back as we embrace. “Never thought I would see your ugly mugamong us mere mortals. Not after...” He cuts himself off, quickly going somber.
“It’s alright, Morris, you can say his name.”
“Sucks ass, man,” he curses, running a hand through his hair. “What happened to Eric changed things at the station. He was like the cool uncle around there. It took a long time for people to recover. We haven’t forgotten.”
“I know.”
Morris shoves his hands into his pockets, suddenly uncomfortable as he turns toward the door. “You’re here about those girls we rescued today?” he asks, nodding toward the shut door. “This one arrived hysterical and wouldn’t let the doctors attend to her until we agreed to have a cop stationed at the door. I was with the team that found her, man, and fuck, it’s one of those things that’ll stay with you.”
“I know,” I say sympathetically, patting his shoulder. “It’s good that you were there for her then and now.”
“I heard you played a part in getting the fuckers running the trafficking ring caught.”
“I didn’t do much,” I say, shrugging my own hands into my pockets. “You guys did most of the heavy lifting.”
“Hey, you’re still one of us.”
“I don’t wear the badge anymore, Morris.”
“A badge isn’t something you can just put on and take off,” he says, poking a finger against my shoulder. “It’s something you always carry inside of you. It’s the cop in you who saved that girl in the desert, and it’s that same cop who helped bring justice to those poor girls.”
I look away, uncertain of how to respond to that. When put like that, everything I’ve done sounds like a job. One I appear to have completed.
She didn’t feel like a job, and neither did those moments we shared.
But I can’t ask for more. I just can’t. My role, such as it was, is over now.
“I’m heading out, it’s been a long night.”
“Oh yeah, I heard about that. Cops gossip harder than my nana and her church friends,” he says, startling a laugh out of me. “Word is you fought three armed men; I guess you’ve still got it. That desert hasn’t made you soft.”
“No one goes soft in the desert,” I say, moving in for another embrace and slapping his shoulder, reminded of the days when I was one of them. “We should catch up sometime.”
“We should,” Morris responds warmly. “Knowing you, that won’t happen in this lifetime. Not if you keep yourself isolated in the middle of fucking nowhere.”
“I like it there.”
“Yeah, it looks like it suits you.”
I smirk at that, walking to the door and peering inside through the opening at the top. I watch the woman I’ve fallen in love with cry with her friend. I take my fill of her, loading every inch of her beautiful form into my memory. When I’ve memorized all I can, I turn away.
Then, with a silent goodbye, I walk out of the hospital.
Chapter Seven
Rosalie
I’m a mess, a broken faucet that can’t stop leaking as I take in my best friend’s condition. She doesn’t appear to be hurt, not on the outside at least, but there is something fractured in her eyes that makes my chest ache.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper as more tears spill down my cheeks. “I shouldn’t have let you meet that asshole on your own and—”
“Hey, none of this is your fault.”
“Some of it is,” I say fiercely, swiping the back of my hand over my wet cheeks. “If I’d left with you, then—”
“Then there would be two victims in this room instead of one,” she pushes, taking my hand and squeezing it tight. “There were four men in that house when I arrived. The two of us would not have been able to fight them off. If it makes you feel any better, I bloodied one of their noses and kicked another in the balls. I doubt he’ll ever be the same again.”