“Sure. Follow me.” Thankfully, this one didn’t look at me with condemnation or lust.
We followed her down a hallway that was bustling with activity until we came to the room on the right.
“Thank you,” Valerie said as she entered the room.
I wasn’t prepared to see the boy lying on that hospital bed or the damage that had been done to him.
Before I fully entered the room, I pulled my cell out of my back pocket and called Dale. I motioned for Cree to go ahead and be with Valerie.
“Hey, Garret, what’s up?” he answered on the first ring.
“Need you to run two names for me and get me anything and everything you can find: Dane Thibault and Alexander Lawrence. The second name as fast as you can.”
“You got it, man.” He hesitated for a moment, then asked, “Everything okay?”
“Nah. But it will be.” I hung up the phone. I got this shit.
As I entered the room, I saw Valerie with a chair pulled up to the boy’s bedside, holding his bruised, torn-knuckled hand.
“Alexander. It’s Valerie. I’m right here,” she softly said to him.
I watched from the end of the bed as he struggled to open his swollen eyelid. The other eyelid was black and blue, and you could see the swelling. It was obvious that someone had beaten the shit out of the boy.
“Ms. Strickland,” he rasped out. It was also then that I saw the large handprints around the boy’s neck. And upon closer inspection, the whole left side of his face was black and blue. He even had bruises up and down his arms. And what pissed me off to no end were the handprints on his biceps.
“Yes. And remember, outside of tutoring, I’m just Valerie. Okay?” she chastised him softly.
When the boy nodded, tears rolled out of his eyes. It was then that he took in the other people in the room. His eyes lingered on Cree, but it was a respectful look, so I didn’t flip out on him, and then his eyes landed on me.
They widened in fear.
“Hey, it’s okay. He’s a friend of mine.” Valerie could tell that he was scared, and she wanted to reassure him.
“Bud, the only reason I’ll ever hurt you is if you hurt my family. Other than that, you ain’t got a thing to worry about. And since Valerie is your friend, I’m your friend too. Yeah?”
He thought about that for a moment, taking all of me in. I’m a thirty-two-year-old man standing at six-foot-five. I’m two hundred seventy pounds of pure muscle. The only fat I have on me is from those blasted cookies and brownies. I know I’m a big son of a bitch.
He nodded at me and settled back into his bed.
With visible tears in her eyes, she asked him, “Alexander, who did this?”
“My father,” he whispered, barely audible, but we all heard it.
“I’m so sorry, sweetie. Why?”
At first, he didn’t want to answer, but when she looked at him expectantly, he did.
“Because I walked in on him raping my little sister.”
Without thinking, I pulled my phone out. As soon as Dale connected the call, I didn’t even let him speak.
“Need that address on that second name. Now.” I waited as he typed and then rattled it off to me.
I hung up and called Cotton.
“Brother?” he answered.
“Need a brother here at the hospital to watch over Cree and Valerie. A student she tutors has been hurt.” I told him the basics, but I’d tell him more once I reached my brothers.
