She blanched a little at my tone, her hands moving to her hips, then her pockets and finally landing on the straps of her bag as she pressed her dry lips together, the swelling on her bottom lip looking painful. She looked awful.
“Can I talk to you?” she asked, flapping her elbows like wings and almost folding in on herself in an attempt to make her body smaller.
“Of course you can, honey.” I looked up and found Sam’s amused gaze. She was still watching the disaster unfold with Rusty, but nodded when I pointed to Sloane and then the back. This was code forI need a break. Give me a sec.
Following a small nod, I led Sloane back to the small office and invited her inside. The moment I pushed the doorclosed, she dropped her bag to the floor and eased into the lone chair, curling in on herself as her hands pressed to her stomach.
“Hey.” I crouched in front of her, my hands on her knees as I ducked to catch her eyes. “What’s going on?”
“Something ain’t right.” Her voice was shaky, and I was pretty sure if I could have seen her hands, they would have been trembling. “It hurts.”
“What hurts?”
“Inside,” she whispered, pain and embarrassment lacing her tone before her voice broke and she started to weep. “Oh, God, Ayda. What did he do to me?”
“Wait. Sloane, honey…” I could have sat there questioning her, but it was obvious she needed a doctor. She was hurting, and I didn’t need to ask whohewas. I already knew who she was talking about, even if she still refused to give ushisname.
There was only one thing I could do for her now, and it wasn’t perfect, but would give her the privacy she needed and take care of the problem all in one trip. I wasn’t really sure what would happen when I got there, what questions they would ask, or even if they would accept me as a guardian who could sign off on what needed to get done, but I had to do something.
“You have your insurance card?” I asked, smoothing her hair back in an attempt to sooth her.
“Yes, ma’am.”
I nodded and pushed up, pacing twice before I asked her to give me a minute and headed out into the main diner floor to find Sam. I knew she wouldn’t thank me for leaving her alone during the after-school rush, but I also knew she’d seenthe state Sloane was in. I’d covered enough shifts for her when she had to see to her son that she wouldn’t even hesitate.
She didn’t.
I barely had the request past my lips before she told me to go, and without much thought, I was loading Sloane into my truck as carefully as I could manage and was headed toward the women’s clinic, just outside of Corsicana. This was better than taking her to the doctor in town—fewer questions and less gossip.
I was only a couple of miles out of town when I finally managed to think with some level of clarity. I pulled out my phone and glanced over at Sloane with a sympathetic smile. “I’m just going to call Drew. He’s gonna want to know that I’m heading out of town and he can put out any fires with your dad. That cool?”
Sloane nodded her agreement with very little commitment and curled a hand around the one already on her stomach as she pushed her forehead against the window, her eyes closed and an expression of pain twisting her pale lips.
Finding Drew’s number easily on my phone, I hit dial and held the thing to my ear as I headed toward Corsicana five miles an hour over the speed limit, and I breathed a sigh of utter relief when he answered.
“Ayda?” The worry was always there when I wasn’t with him, and the panicked yet somehow controlled way he spoke my name only confirmed that.
“Hey, I’ve just left work, and I just wanted to let you know that Sloane and I are heading to the clinic in Corsicana. She came to me at the diner. She’s not feeling so great.” I begged him to read between the lines there and see what the hell I was actually saying without words.
He didn’t answer right away, and I heard a door close somewhere around him before another one opened and the surrounding noise faded away until all I could hear was his voice. “Turn around,” he ordered quietly.
“Drew, I can’t. She’s hurting.” I glanced over at Sloane, but she was pale and clammy, somewhere in the vicinity of sleep against my window, which only served to worry me further.
“Ayda.” I didn’t have to see him to imagine he was pinching the bridge of his nose as he held the phone to his ear and scrunched his eyes closed. “Do you remember where the safe house is? Where we went after the Emps tried to hurt you and Tate in the house fire?”
I frowned at the phone for a second as I pulled my foot off the gas and coasted onto the hard shoulder toward the gas station just up ahead. “I know the one.”
“Then turn around and go there. Take Sloane. The key to the front door is under the third clay pot on the left. The one painted blue. Lift the wooden porch panel, and you’ll see it. The two of you can get in. The whole place is safe and secure. No one will see you or her going in. When I end this call, I’m phoning doc. He has a nurse…” Drew trailed off, blowing out all the air in his body like it weighed a tonne. “She’s on our payroll. She goes to the safe house regularly. Her name is Tracey. She deals with the Hound Whores. Gives them regular checks. Makes sure they’re clean. She knows what the fuck she’s talking about. Sloane won’t need her insurance card. There’ll be no records. Nothing can ever come back on her if I get Tracey to check her out and diagnose her. You hear me?”
“I hear you. I’m headed that way now. Thank you for this. I’m not sure what she didn’t tell us, but this isn’t good. She’spale and clammy.” I gazed over at Sloane as I stopped just inside the turn in to the gas station.
“Has she vomited?”
I glanced at Sloane’s face again. Her legs were pulled up against her chest, and she was still pale, but there was no telltale hint of green in her pallor or on her lips. “I don’t think so, and she doesn’t look like she’s headed in that direction. The way she described the problem, it’s internal pain.”
“So, it isn’t just shock then,” he muttered, almost to himself. “A lot of chicks tend to do that when they…” He trailed off again. “Never mind. Just get her to the safe house. I’ll have Doc and Tracey meet you. Trust them, Ayda. They’re good.”
I remembered that from after the nightmare in the warehouse, but now was not the time to bring that up.
