“What are you doing, Johnny?”
He glared at me.“I know you.You talk a big game, but as soon as someone else is threatened, you jump right in.Both feet.Washed up cops, friends from grade school, drunks.You’re a softie.And you’re going to give me a hundred and twenty K.Right?”
Damn him.I stared at the blood on her shirt, hoping to have it trigger a fainting spell, but it did nothing.Not even a tingle.
“Sure.One twenty.Get my checkbook and a pen.”I didn’t carry a checkbook.He’d find out soon enough.
“How can I be sure you’re not lying?”
Double damn him.The trouble with dating an asshole was they knew everything about you.“I promise.You’ll get that money.”
His face screwed up in disgust.“Just like you promised to marry me?You kept lying to me, pushing me away.Telling me to ‘wait for our honeymoon.’You had no intention of fucking me, did you?”
Put that way, no.“I dumped four grand on lingerie.Eight grand on plane tickets.Not to mention the twelve grand for the costumed Valentine’s Day extravaganza in Las Vegas complete with calling in a favor from the local justice of the peace!You don’t think I’m serious?Who the fuck do you think you are?”If my hands weren’t bound behind my back, I’d’ve taken the knife out of my leg and stabbed his worthless ass with it.
The gun he had at Bridget’s head dipped as he jumped into a rant.“You’re a bitch.That’s what you are.A cock-teasing bi?—”
His words were cut off when Agent Perkins shot from her chair and disarmed him.The move was seamless, as was the quick way she whipped the pistol around and aimed it at him.
Johnny fell to the floor and crawled to the wall to shake.“D-don’t shoot me.”His hands went into the air.
“I should,” Bridget stated.She seemed perfectly fine, rather than comatose.Apparently, she could fake a faint more believably than one of my very real spells.I twisted in my seat to witness Johnny piss his pants.
“Please?”His hands met over his head and he let them settle on his hair.
“Bridget?Shoot him for me, please?”
She heaved a breath.Her feet were still bound to the chair and the scuffle had twisted it to the floor.She was on one knee, keeping her eyes locked on Johnny.“Sorry, Ellie.As much as he deserves it, I can’t.He’s my ticket back into the agency’s good graces.I want my job back.”
“Your job?The one chasing little kids down?Doing the government’s dirty work?That job?”
As much as I shouldn’t, I kind of hated Bridget.
“Ellie, I’ve tried to do the right thing for a long time.Just… give me this, will you?”
My breathing was too fast.I wanted revenge.
With a clarity I hadn’t had in a long time, I remembered why I had nightmares.“Did you know the FBI hid a child predator in their ranks?He was lead on my family’s task force.”
“Ellie, stop.”Bridget tightened her grip on the gun.
Johnny’s eyes darted between us.“Is that why you hate cops so much?”
I didn’t hate cops.
One saved me.
I remembered everything now.It wasn’t a forest.It was a public park.And it wasn’t night, but the middle of the day.Mom took us to play at the playground.
The agent lured me away from the swings.
A Chicago cop saw it and followed.
He’s the one who knocked the agent out and took me back.
I remembered the blood coming from the cut on his head.
All the blood.
