Marching over toward Greer, her eyes lock on mine, and she pushes the paramedic away from her, the blanket falling over her shoulders and pooling at her feet.
Her arms open, and I heft her off her feet, one arm beneath her bent legs.
“Take me home,” she whispers.
I wince with every step, knowing I’m bleeding through the bandage the paramedic put over my freshly opened wound, but I refuse to put her down.
She’s mine.
I take care of what’s mine.
She shakes the entire way home, curled into me, her head on my lap. I rub her back, eager to get her home, even though I know she’s going to fall apart.
“Almost home, pretty poison,” I reassure her, rubbing her matted hair.
Her hand squeezes my thigh tightly in reply.
When we get home, Bear greets her at the door.
She drops and pulls him into a hug that looks more like a hostage situation, and I can’t help but grin.
Chase makes himself scarce as I follow her to the bedroom, where she removes clothes and drops them on her way to the shower.
I gather them for burning behind her, silently her shadow, her strength.
When she steps inside the shower, my anger seethes at the bruises on her ass cheeks, wanting to desecrate Helms’s body for each one of them.
She steps inside the shower, shutting the door behind her, and I watch for a moment as she steps under the water, letting it run over her.
When she breaks, and her emotions spill outward, I drop the pile of clothes and remove my own before stepping inside with her.
Blood leaks from my bandages as they soak with water.
I pull her into me, and for a moment, we’re silent under the weight of it all. All the hell we endured at the hands of a power-hungry man who couldn’t help himself.
“I killed a man.”
“He fucking deserved it.”
“How do you live with knowing you ended a life?” Her bloodshot eyes find mine when she pushes away to look up at me.
“Would you have wanted him to remain in this world, alive somewhere to hurt someone else? To hurt Charlotte?”
Her answer is immediate. “No.”
“That’s how I live with it.”
“You’re not God. You can’t judge souls and take life. That’s his job.”
I smile, swiping some of her sopping hair back off her forehead. “He does his job through those of us willing to soak our hands in blood, deadly girl. We’reHisweapons.”
Her eyes narrow, but she says nothing else on the matter.
“Turn around, let me wash you.”
She listens, and I can’t help how her submission and obedience have my body livening behind her as I drop shampoo into my hand to work through her hair.
“How did you shoot him before?”
