“Oak Hills,” I tell Oren. “I promise I’m fine. A doctor is monitoring my leg, and it’s starting to itch, so I think it’s healing.” I wiggle my toes and sigh in relief. Fuck’s sake, the things I have neglected to care about are unreal! “I swear I’m okay. I’m sorry I didn’t… answer. My phone hadn’t rung until just now.”
While that’s supposed to calm Oren down, it does nothing but make him ask more questions. Not that I blame him. When I learned that there’d been not one but three car bombs right outside Adak’s house, where he was living at the time, I was losing my shit. I called him every single day for the next two weeks. I was so terrified for his safety and needed to hear his voice to convince myself he was alive and not hurt.
“I’m sorry,” I say again. “I swear, I didn’t even realize so much time had gone by.”
He exhales loudly. “Where are you?” he asks again, and I wonder if my asking Oxley who he is over and over until I get a satisfactory answer is as frustrating as hearing this question from Oren.
“I told you as much as I can,” I say, wincing at how spy novel that sounds. “I promise I’m okay. Please trust me.”
“Don’t you fucking turn your phone off again,” he demands. “And call Shelton tomorrow. And me. Promise!”
“Yes, I promise.”
There’s a pause before he says, “I’m glad you’re not dead.”
“Me too. I’m sorry.”
“I believe you. Call us tomorrow.”
I promise I will, and we hang up the phone. I stare at it for a minute, seeing all the missed notifications on my screen.
“I found it on the floor,” Oxley says. “It was dead, so I plugged it in to charge.”
“Am I going to walk again?” I ask.
“Yes,” he says. “Mark says you’re lucky that it didn’t hit anything but muscle. No major blood vessels, no bone. It’s even in a spot where reconstructive surgery is possible.” I wince, andOxley hurries to continue. “There’s going to be a scar, but you’ll walk again. You’ll heal perfectly fine.”
“Okay,” I say quietly. “The people who shot me? Were they caught?”
Oxley hesitates, and my heart leaps into my throat, which my heart monitor announces. “I don’t know. I can check on the status, though.”
I nod. “I’d like to know. Thank you.”
“I’ll ask.”
“Do you know if I was a target? Me specifically?”
Oxley shakes his head. “There’s rarely ever a specific target associated with the hate crimes these gangs are executing. They choose neighborhoods where the LGBTQ community is strong, whether that’s residential or commercial. The victims can be members of the community, allies, or just people in the wrong place at the wrong time. They’re indiscriminate. Guilty by location seems to be their motto.”
My stomach twists. “My best friend left Anaheim because of this rise in violence against our community,” I whisper. “But I love Anaheim. I don’t want to leave. Though I completely understand why he did, and I’m glad. He’d been through hell his entire life, and I’m so happy that he can find peace. But I guess until now, I never really understood the drive to leave the city. Now there’s a scared voice in my head that’s telling me to leave.” I look at Oxley. “But if we all leave, they win. Don’t they?”
Oxley takes my phone from me and plugs it in. “Yes. But that’s not going to happen.”
I want to bring up the corruption in the police force. It was years ago, but still not long enough that members of the policedepartment forced Oren to go back home with his abusive father. Oren was a fully grown adult!
I hear that all of Jessup’s friends have been expelled from their duties because of various instances coming to light since Oren’s ordeal, but who knows if they got them all? There have been announcements and articles about it all over the internet and on the news. I think the police department is going for transparency in an attempt to gain trust again.
Truth is, I’m not convinced that the police can clean this problem up. They haven’t made headway in the year since Oren moved to the other side of the country. If anything, the problem is getting worse. There’s a big push for gun laws to be changed, but if those idiots would take a minute to think, they’d see the major flaw in their plan.
The only people who would turn in their guns are those who are law-abiding. The very label of ‘criminal’ loudly screams that they’re not going to follow the law. Which means there are a whole bunch of people with weapons and even more who now can’t defend themselves.
Brilliant.
Instead of carrying on this conversation, I decide that it’s time to get out of bed. My ass is going numb. And I feel itchy and gross. My hair is all oily and disgusting. “I need a shower,” I announce, throwing the blankets off.
It’s clear that the change in subject startles Oxley. And when his eyes widen behind his glasses as I swing my legs carefully over the side of the bed, I know I’m in for another fight.
“No,” he says. “You can’t get your sutures wet.”
