What the fuck.
“I saidtake it back, you disgusting nobody.”
My hackles rise and I jam at the window, but it’s fuckinglocked.
“No.No!”
“I knew you were a no-good piece of shit.”
A slam on the other side of the glass has me sprinting to the back, my shoulder leading the way through the door. It clatters, smashing back against the wall as I run through it.
“Emmett!” I roar.
The bathroom is closed, locked.
I kick it in with my heart in my throat.
Working the streets as an EMT has led me to be a huge part of the worst days some people have had. Will ever have. There’s not much Ihaven’tseen.
Blood, guts, brains. None of that phases me in the slightest anymore.
Torn open ligaments and busted bones never make my heart race or my stomach turn.
But busting down this door is like walking straight into a hell that no one should ever have to live through, especially someone like Emmett.
My sweet Emmett.
I dive for the man with his pants around his thighs and his dick in his fist. No pausing to think as I throw the first punch into his swollen jaw, knocking him away from where Emmett’s on his knees in front of the vanity. We crash to the shower floor as water rains down on my head.
He said no.
I don’t stop swinging.
Not until I see red flood the bottom of the tub.
Not until my knuckles split and my rage tears from my throat in a wicked shout.
Tears sting my eyes, and I swing until my arm threatens to give out, the man laying limp and gurgling beneath me.
“Emmett,” I croak out with a raw throat, my grip tight around the man’s neck and my arm cocked back, ready to force another blow. But his face is stained with blood and beet red, his bulging eyes already swelling up. He’s not quite passed out but pretty close, and reeks of something I can’t think about.
If I get a response, I don’t hear it through the pounding in my ears that only seem to want to focus on the rattle of breath coming from below me.
“Call the cops, Emmett.”
He doesn’t move.
Tearing my gaze from the piece of sopping shit on the shower floor, I find Em exactly where he was when I came in, hisshoulders up near his ears and his chest barely moving with his breath.
He’s still wearing my shirt, the neck of it pulled loose, a new hole ripped just below the hem.
His hair is the wrong kind of mess, his cheeks void of the color I’ve come accustomed to seeing.
Despite all of that, it’s not until I catch sight of his dull eyes and empty stare that I push off from the shower.
“Bubbles,” I choke out and drop to my knees in front of him.
I want to reach for him, but I don’t.
