Just like that.
Dropped to a whisper.
Simply because a woman spoke to her.
“No one is touching you, see?” I asked as I looked around the room.
Dear god, the entire fucking crew and then some piled in.
“Everyone, hands up,” I said.
They all looked around at each other.
“You heard her,” Brutus said as he raised his hands. “Hands up.”
And one by one, the men slid their hands into the air over their heads.
“See?” I asked in a gentle voice as I turned back to face the woman whose name I still didn’t know. “Count the heads. Count the hands. No one is touching you. Not even me. I swear.”
I watched her head bob, and the more she counted, the more her eyes came back into focus. Her hand stopped shivering. Tears stopped falling from her eyes. Even the quaking of her body settled a little bit.
Her gaze came back to me. “No one’s touching me.”
I shook my head. “Absolutely no one.”
“No one,” she whispered as she wrapped her arms around herself. “No one’s touching me. No one. No one.”
“Hey,” I said softly as I took the smallest step toward, hands still in the air. “What’s your name?”
“Charise,” King said.
I shot him a look. “Was I talking to you?”
I watched his jaw tick as he looked up at the ceiling, hands still in the air.
I turned my attention back to her. “What’s your name?”
She swallowed hard. “Charise.”
I nodded. “Hi, Charise. I’m Anna. The big guy behind me with the scary voice is Brutus. The man who had you in his hold to keep you from hurting yourself is my big brother. He’s an idiot. You can slap him.”
That got her to snicker just a smidge.
I smiled. “Don’t worry, slapping my brother makes me smile, too.”
“Hey,” King muttered.
I took another small step toward her, like I was approaching a wounded animal. “I know these guys are big, and I know they look intimidating. But these guys are the reason you are no longer where you are. And I would feel a whole hell of a lot better if you let Doc clean up those gashes so that your pretty little face doesn’t get an infection from whatever is underneath your fingernails.”
She swallowed hard. “So many of them.”
“Then, they’ll leave.”
But I heard no one falling back out the door. So I turned around.
“I said, then they’ll leave.”
I shot a pointed look at every single man who was packed into the room. They all looked at one another before nodding softly, and one by one, they backtracked out into the hallway.
