“Believe me, that wipeout can’t negate just how badass you looked punching her in the throat. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
A tiny smile curved her lips. “I’ll have to thank Arnaud for teaching me those moves.”
“I’ll thank him, too.”
Rob appeared at my side with a blanket. “Hey, cuz.Think you can sit up?”
I eased one arm around her to help her into a sitting position and Rob wrapped the plaid fleece around her. The black tights she wore under her dress were shredded at the knees, the skin underneath torn and bloody. Beneath my hands, her entire body trembled with the cold.
“Do we need to call for paramedics? I’m afraid it’ll take longer for them to get out here than it would to get you back to town,” Rose said, crouching on Eden’s other side. “But if you’re injured, we’ll call them in.”
“No,” Eden replied. “I’m okay. Just cold. Eve—is Eve safe? She kept saying Eve was lost.”
Rose smiled. “Safe and sound at home with her parents. Do you think you could answer a couple questions?”
I opened my mouth to protest, but Eden winced and beat me to it. “I’d really like to get away from this place.”
To my relief, Rose nodded and stood. “Then we can have an officer drive your car back to town,” she said to Eden, but her eyes were on me.
“That’d be great,” I replied quietly. “Thank you, Rose.”
“Let’s get out of here. You’re taking her to the clinic?”
I nodded. “Yes. Better safe than sorry.”
“Good. We’ll get your statement there, Eden. Drive safe. We’ll be right behind you.”
Eden breathed a sigh of relief, then leaned heavily against me as she tried to get her feet under her. Between the three of us, we got her upright and tucked into the warm cab of Rob’s truck with a second blanket spread over her lap.
Once the doors were closed behind us, I wrapped my arm around her and Eden dropped her head to my shoulder. The shivering slowly faded, but every few minutes, a new tremor shuddered through her entire frame.
“You’re safe now,” I murmured into her hair.
“So are you,” she whispered.
Every other possible outcome of this afternoon thudded through me as we made the slow commute back to Spruce Hill, each image more gruesome than the last. It wasn’t until we turned onto Main Street that my pulse finally slowed to a normal pace.
“I don’t really need a doctor,” Eden protested when Rob pulled up outside the clinic.
“Eden, baby, I saw how hard you fell,” I replied gently. “It’s not just a doctor, it’s Libby. You’re family now. You have to know there’s no chance in hell she’d let you go home without being checked over.”
Rob jogged around to the passenger side to help me get her blanket-bundled self out of the truck and winked at her. “Remember that time we were playing hide and seek and I tried to do a backflip off the neighbor’s porch wall?”
“And you blacked out when you landed flat on your back? Yes. Addie was convinced she killed you and we were all going to prison,” Eden replied, grinning weakly.
“Yeah, well, you might not have attempted a flip, but you caught some serious air. At least I landed on grass. You hit the asphalt.”
She scowled at both of us but stopped arguing as I slipped my arm around her waist to help her into the clinic. Rob planted a loud, smacking kiss on Eden’s cheek when we reached the door, then left to go relay the afternoon’s events to his sister.
Libby met us just inside the lobby to take Eden directly to an exam room. I started to follow, but Rose came through behind us and crooked her finger at me.
“Go ahead. I’ll be fine,” Eden said quietly.
Gently, I cupped my hand around the back of her neck so I could pull her forehead to my lips. “Damn right, you will.”
Even with Rose waiting to speak to me, I watched until Libby and Eden disappeared around the corner. Anxiety kicked my pulse up again, but at least it wasn’t the dizzy pounding I’d experienced in our rush to get to Eden.
I didn’t have much of a statement for Rose, so we spoke only briefly in the corner of the deserted waiting room.
