“She’ll be safe here, too,” Maxim said. “More so with you.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” I bellowed. “She’ll never be safe with me as long as those pieces of shit are out there.”
“What are you talking about?” Stolly asked, but based on his shifty eye movement toward Cormac, they’d talked about this.
The assholes. I was going to beat them all to a pulp. I whirled on Naese. “Those fuckers threatened to hurt her. How could you let them put her in danger? She’s not safe with me,” I bellowed. It was like my mind had been taken over by some other entity. Calm wasn’t something I understood.
“Erm…” That was Cormac. “What do you mean she’s not safe with you?”
“The attacker. The spokesman.” I paced the space, a caged tiger, muscles bunching and quivering with the need to unleash the pent-up aggression and fear tugging at my skin and hair and very essence.
“You think that guy—a scrawny meth head—can take you on and win?” Maxim snorted and shook his head, chuckling.
“Don’t you dare laugh. You weren’t there. You didn’t get your neck sliced, your head punched. Have to listen to that slime talk about what he’d do to Vivi if he saw her again.” That was the most I’d mentioned about that night to anyone. I didn’t like to talk about it, didn’t like remembering how I’d failed Vivi.
Maxim sobered, his mouth slack as his eyes widened. “I…”
“And you!” I whirled on Cormac. “I expected leadership from you. Not going along with some harebrained bullsh?—”
“This was my idea,” my mother said as she swept into Cormac’s living room. “They knew about the assault and Vivian, though clearly not as much as I expected based on this.” She frowned at me, waving her hand to encompass my yelling and my friends’ chagrined expressions. “I want her here with you, where she belongs.”
The enchiladas I’d smelled… Dammit.
I choked, gasped, and bent over to settle my hands on my knees. Naese pounded my back again, the stupid turd.
“Back off, Paxton. He is struggling to breathe.” My mother paused. A moment later, she bent down and looked into my face. “With me, hijo?”
“No.”
“You are very frightened,” she said. “Just as I told Silas and your team doctor.”
Heat burned up the back of my neck. “They said?—”
“Lennon, son,” my mother began, her voice soft. She rubbed my back in a soothing way—not trying to crack ribs like Naese. “Are you sure that criminal said those words?”
“Yes! He said them to me, so of course I’m sure.”
“But the police—I called the detective, Ahmed, and spoke to him.” She waited for those words to sink in. I blinked at her. “No one was near you when they arrived. That’s why they couldn’t apprehend the criminals. They’d done a jackrabbit and skedaddled.”
I rose, frowning, confusion replacing my fear. Lightheaded, I stumbled. Naese gripped my arm while my mother continued to run a soothing hand up and down my back. “Wh-what?”
“Those bad men were not near you. They ran away before the police turned the corner. They knew the police were coming because of the sirens and lights.”
I licked my lips. “You’re saying… You’re saying that…”
“Could it have been a hallucination?” Cormac asked. I’d never seen him look so worried.
“I don’t… It was real.”
“What was he wearing?” Maxim asked.
I shrugged. I couldn’t remember.
“Color of his hair? Eyes?” Stolly asked.
I opened my mouth but shut it and shook my head.
“Can you think of anything specific about the man who spoke to you?”
