Someone behind me tackles me to the ground, the impact winding me, and my chin bounces, taking the brunt of my fall. It fucking hurts, and I know it’s going to bleed like a bitch. The bag around my neck is ripped off, and I make a point to see who has it, also making sure others are watching him too. I go to say something, but I’m stopped when my shoulders nearly pop out of their sockets as the dick behind me wrenches my arms backwards. He nearly cuts off my circulation with the cuffs, while a person in front drops their boot on the top of my head.
“Fucking dirty Beta, smells like the piece of trash she is.” Usual shit talk from those in authority throwing their weight around. Unnecessarily, mind you, considering I’m cuffed and splayed out on the road. He goes on, proving some people are not smarter than they look. “Clipped you the second you and your partner stepped foot in the diamond exchange. You’re done.”
Another officer joins the foray, because apparently, I’m a real flight risk. He drops his boot into my ribs, unknowingly pressing down close to where I got hit earlier. I have to bite down hard not to make a noise, and I distract myself by going on a shopping spree of everything I could buy with just one of the stones I had in my grasp seconds ago. Sixteen near flawless stones, champagne in color, would set me up for this lifetime and the next.
My daydreams of a better life are rudely interrupted when they both lift their feet off me. The next moment, they work together and drag me roughly, not even letting me take a step myself. I stay limp like a noodle, taking the brunt of their aggression and letting them take complete control, despite the burning ache in my shoulders and the growing desire to punch the two apes in the fucking face.
I block out their loud and senseless diatribe, ignoring their suggestions that “I’m well and truly fucked.” Instead, I keep my head down and use the time back to the station to get as much downtime as possible. It sounds difficult, but when you get shown how to do it, it becomes a learned behavior and one you use often.
The movement of the car down the ramp to the parking garage jostles me from my time out to a more alert state, but I stay leaning forward and quiet. Staying still, I wait until the door opens. Again, my right to walk is stolen as I’m dragged out of the car by my hair, and the moment my face hits the side of the car, the officers standing around laugh at my misfortune.
They definitely don’t find their professionalism on the way to the holding cell, and I get a parting shove in the back that means I fall face forward into the opposite wall. The officers’ laughter at my plight is drowned out by the resounding echoes of the steel door being locked in place.
On my knees, I crawl to the far corner of the grotty holding cell, and then I sit and wait. Filling the time by cataloging the events of the past hour. It takes a while, but eventually, another officer opens the door, and it’s immediately clear his demeanor is as different as night is to day.
“I’ll take you through to processing,” he says quietly.
His lack of punch-you-in-the-face scent is a nice change from the Alpha pheromones coating my skin. He’s large. Not like theother officers, but his grip on one of my wrists is telling of his strength.
The downstairs of the police department is a maze, and there’s enough activity going on with other offenders arriving and moving about that we don’t fall under the attention of any of them. When he walks me back to the garage and directs me to a waiting police car, each step I take brings air back to my lungs. And a growing ache from about a dozen places on my body.
Getting helped into the back seat is a different experience than being thrown in, and I let my head settle against the headrest, my exhaustion starting to catch up. The officer sitting next to me stares ahead, instead of acknowledging my existence.
We clear the guard’s station, and the mood shifts immediately.
“Can you please undo these goddamn cuffs,” I ask quietly.
“As soon as we turn onto Main Street,” my seatmate mumbles without moving his mouth.
Somehow, I manage to bite back the whine of impatience that bubbles in my throat. Even though it’s only a two-minute drive, the anticipation nearly kills me.
On Main Street, the driver swings left to take an up ramp into a parking garage, and the loops to the top floor nearly make me dizzy, but it all fades—the anticipation and the trepidation—as soon as we pull up to an unmarked car.
“Turn around, Murph,” the officer next to me says gently.
I lean forward to give him enough room to unlock the cuffs, and while the relief is instant, it also highlights how banged up I am.
I feel weak as a lamb when my partner has to help me out of the car. He knows me well enough not to comment or even ask how I’m feeling. But I still smile my thanks.
Once my butt hits the bench seat, Officer Dubrovnik slides in next to me again, and the car takes off.
“Boss wants to see you in his office,” Dubrovnik says, his tone lacking emotion to match my post-job moodiness.
Twisting, I don’t miss the tilt of a smirk on his lips. He raises his eyebrows like he’s withholding the punchline to a joke. “After you get checked out by the medic, of course.”
There it is.
“Fucking took a beauty to the chin, Murph. He’s not going to be happy.”
I glare at him for a few seconds before my frown twists into a smile.
Dubrovnik leans over and tips my face so he can see the cut better. Before he can speak, I interrupt. “I’ll freshen up before I call him.”
He shakes his head and my stomach drops.
“No! Come on,” I whine, loud and proud when the look on his face, and our location, clicks.
“Been nice knowing you, but we both know he’ll pull you.”
