“He’s not here.”
“How do you know that?” I asked Talia.
“I saw him leave. He ran out the back door with that dog by his side, going out the back gate. It was right before I heard Erica scream.”
She looked shaken, but nearly as much as I was.
“Listen, I had no idea what he was going to do to her. I would’ve called you guys before she got home if I’d known-”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Swole asked.
“The guy, the one that did this. I saw him breaking in through the back door a couple hours ago.”
“And you didn’t do anything?” I asked, enraged. She’d better not have been involved with this. I’d never hit a woman, but that didn’t mean Swole couldn’t.
“I was pissed, okay?” she said defensively, taking a long drag off her cigarette. “About you guys coming into my place and threatening me. So, I figured some guy burgling Erica’s home was like karma or something.”
A headache started to make my head throb. I took hold of Erica’s hand, rubbing circles on the back with my thumb.
“But then I heard fighting and saw the little boy running away like the damn devil was chasing him. So, I called you.”
“You’re a real hero,” I snarked.
“Hey, fuck you. I’m just trying to do the right thing here.”
The ambulance pulled up in front of the house with its lights and siren on. Talia disappeared back into her half of the duplex as the paramedics came. I stepped back and watched as they checked her heart rate, breathing, and blood pressure.
The murmurings of the EMTs were barely audible over the sound of my heart beating in my ears. The sight of Erica’s motionless body made me feel like I couldn’t breathe. I noticed that her right foot was at an unnatural angle and stored that information away with everything else that had been done to her. Jeff would pay for it all. But first…
“I need you to get everyone together,” I told Swole. She was technically above me in rank within Outlaw Souls, but this situation was personal, and it was only natural that I take the lead. “I want Dominic found.”
“You going to the hospital?”
“Yes.”
I rode behind the ambulance on the way to the hospital. I would have much rather been in the ambulance with her, and I had no problem lying about being family to get in there, but I knew that I wasn’t likely to be at the hospital for long. I was going to join the search for Dominic as soon as I talked to the doctor.
Erica was wheeled through a set of swinging double doors that I was explicitly told I could not enter. I wasn’t usually great at following orders, but the last thing I wanted was to get bounced by security. So I went straight to the waiting area, pacing the floor and trying not to glare at every nurse that looked my way. That would be misplaced anger.
Time seemed to be moving at a snail’s pace as I waited to hear something about her condition. A cop showed up to take my statement, his beady eyes looking at me suspiciously as I told him that Erica was my girlfriend and I found her like that. I thought he might try to take me down to the station for further questioning, but instead, he told me not to leave town and that he’d be back later to get Erica’s statement when she was awake.
“Mr. Lopez?” a doctor wearing deep blue scrubs asked as he approached me. I had told the nurses that I was Erica’s fiancé so that they’d give me updates about her condition.
“Yes? How is she?”
“She’ll be okay. Someone knocked her around pretty good, but there are few serious injuries. She has a couple of broken ribs, a twisted ankle, and probably a concussion.”
“Is she awake?”
“Not yet. We’ve given her something for the pain and are waiting to see if she wakes up on her own.”
“What if she doesn’t wake up on her own?”
“We’ll cross that bridge if we get there.”
I didn’t love the sound of that. “How long do you think she’ll be out?”
“It is impossible to tell, but I’d say at least a couple hours.”
