Flynn turns and goes back inside.
“C’mon, get in the truck. The ground’s freezing.”
“I need a phone,” I say.
“You want her in, C?” Stroviak asks, glancing down at my cold-reddened feet. “I’ll put her inside.”
I grasp the doorframe, shaking my head. I’m not in the mood to be manhandled again, especially not by this monster. My head’s throbbing and so is my ass. It’s three in the afternoon and I haven’t eaten and I’ve barely slept. I want to lie down.
“C?”
“No, we don’t want it to look like we’re forcing her into a car. Next they’ll arrest you for attempted kidnapping.”
“Here, C. Here,” Rachel says.
He glances in and shakes his head, but takes something and thrusts it into my hands. “Put them on right now.”
I realize I’m holding a pair of small socks. Her feet must be tiny, but I manage to drag them onto my feet. I glance inside to see that Rachel’s sock-less feet are in her shoes.
“Thank you.”
“No problem. It’s warm in here. Why don’t you get in? It might take a few minutes for them to process his release.” She speaks to me gently, like I’m a small child who can’t see reason.
“I’m all right. I just need a phone to call someone to pick me up. I don’t know who’s around. I don’t live near here.”
“We’ll drive you,” Stroviak says impatiently. “Get in the truck.”
I hesitate.
“C, it’s forty degrees. If he let Raven stand on the street in the cold waiting for me, I’d be pissed. She needs to get in.”
“Yeah, Laurelyn, get in,” C says.
Just then though, Trick emerges from the building. He only has paper shoe covers on his feet and no jacket, but he strolls down the steps like it’s eighty degrees out.
When he reaches me, he frowns. “Why is she standing in the road with no shoes?” he asks Anvil. It’s like he’s a mind reader.
Anvil gives me a short look. “She’s stubborn.”
Trick studies my face for a moment. “You all right?”
“Of course not. No.”
He sighs. “All right, so let’s go.”
I look around, at a complete loss. Finally I turn and climb into the Range Rover.
“Compound,” Trick says to them before he climbs in.
The heat blasts, but it takes several minutes for me to warm up.
“Not a mark on you?” Stroviak’s alone in the front seat and looking at Trick in the rearview mirror.
Trick shakes his head.
“Not one? An elbow to your ribs?”
“No.”
