Her blood smeared itself across my clothes. The stench of her urine should have been accompanied by the stench of her feces, but it wasn’t. She shook in my arms, trying to roll away from me. And yet, every time I pulled her back to cradle her, she flailed.
Well, as best as she could given her wounds.
“Axe?” Maverick asked as I crested the top of the steps.
I nodded toward the stairs. “We need clean-up down there. And get a bedroom ready for her.”
“Should we call a doctor as well?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
Mav nodded before he bit down onto his lower lip. I turned the woman away from the harsh sound of his whistling, but it only caused her to scream. I’d never heard a woman make that sound in all my life. It was worse than those horror films Dante always watched late at night when he couldn’t sleep. It rang my ears and rattled my brain in its skull, as if her voice were the only strength she had.
“Clean-up crew! Downstairs! Now!” Maverick bellowed.
“Oh, God. What is happ—happening?” the young woman choked out.
I simply started toward the stairs, though, where Dante waited for me.
“What do you need?” he asked.
“Pick a room,” I said, walking up the steps, “any room. Whichever one is safer for her. She needs her own space while a doctor checks her out.”
“Is she hungry?” he asked, walking backwards up the steps.
I nodded. “Just get her a little bit of everything. Some drinks. Some snacks. Maybe some warm soup. A sandwich. I’m sure she’s still hungry.”
Dee ushered his arm out toward the first guest bedroom we happened upon. “This one has a little mini fridge that we can keep stocked for her.”
“Perfect,” I murmured as I turned a hard left into the room.
“What’s happening? Someone talk with me, please. What did I do? How can I make it better?”
I didn’t know what to say to her, though. Apologies didn’t work. Not with something like this. The only thing that I could do was show her, with actions, that she was safe now. I didn’t know if it would work. I had no clue if she’d bolt at the first sign of an exit strategy or not. At that moment, I wasn’t really concerned about it.
All I wanted was to get her better.
“Please,” she whispered desperately.
I perched her on the edge of the bathtub in the ensuite bathroom. “You were right.”
She teetered, her tired body swaying side to side softly. “Huh?”
I leaned against the bathroom countertop and folded my arms across my chest. “You were right, you’re not the woman we’re looking for.”
The pathetic look in her eyes immediately turned angry. “I fucking told you so.”
“We’ve still got an issue, though.”
“What? You think I’m gonna flee to the cops and talk about the guys that stole me out from in front of my home and tortured me for two days?”
“Yes, but I wasn’t talking about that.”
Curiosity fled behind her eyes. “Then, what is it?”
I pushed off the edge of the countertop and bent forward. I ran the hot water first, getting it tempered to a temperature that I knew her body would handle. Then, I shuffled around, rummaging through the cabinets until I found what I wanted.
A bottle of peroxide to pour into the water to help disinfect her wounds.
