Page 59 of Take What Hurts

Anna’s nostrils flared, and she strode into Elliott’s office until she was stationed behind where Hannah sat bolt upright, staring at Elliott. “I’ve waited for days. That’s long enough.”

Elliott’s brain turned the words over. “Days?”

Anna huffed like a wounded boar, and Hallie nodded, her voice trembling when she spoke. “She’s been here every day, but you were in a meeting or in court or—” Elliott held up a hand, teeth grinding to hold in the reprimand her brain had served to her mouth. She raised an eyebrow at Hannah—had she known? Hannah gave a minute shake of her head and rolled her eyes. Hallie strikes again.

Anna pointed a finger at Elliott, and blood heated the skin of Elliott’s throat as it rushed into her face. “You listen to me, you little fuck.”

Hallie gasped, hands over her mouth, and backed away down the corridor. Elliott prayed she was running to get Mattias. Hannah didn’t miss a beat and pulled out her phone. After a few swipes, her thumbs were moving like lightning on the screen.

“You’d better hope and fucking pray your little girlfriend doesn’t convince that fucking firm to make things difficult.”

At the mention of, presumably, Mackenzie, the sweat started to bead at the base of her neck, her spine stiffening and eyes narrowing as the rage surged up into her throat. Elliott watched as Anna’s face descended into a darker shade of purple, spittle erupting from behind her bared teeth with every word. “I’ve spent enough money. Lost more of it because of this fuck show. So if she does, I’m going to make damn sure neither of you ever do so much as pick up a goddamn pen in this state again.”

Elliott pushed herself up out of her chair. Flattening her hands on the desk in front of her and blind with volcanic rage, she spat out the first words her brain pushed at her. “You need to leave.” Elliott barely managed to keep the tremor out of her voice as she pushed on. “If you don’t leave right now, I will call security.”

Anna took another step toward Elliott’s desk, fists clenching. She was flush with the back of the chair in which Hannah sat, brow furrowed, thumbs flying over the screen. Elliott couldn’t help but revel in the warmth that filled her chest at the sight of Hannah furiously taking notes while they suffered through this—the undisputed worst moment of Elliott’s career—together.

From Anna’s mouth came an animalistic growl. “No. You and that bitch—” Anna spat the word, and Elliott huffed, picking up the receiver on the phone and breathing through the red haze clouding her vision as she dialed the number for building security. “You fucked me worse than Matilda did. All because you couldn’t keep your strap in your fucking pants and out of my lawyer. What did you two talk about, huh?” Anna bared her teeth, voice loud and ringing in the muted silence of the room. “After you fucked her real nice, did you two have some pillow talk and a laugh about me? Did you have a good fucking joke about how the dream team could work together to really screw me over?” Anna’s eyes were manically wide—almost rolling in her head. And Elliott swallowed, fear a hard, cold lump in her stomach.

Because either Anna was fucking crazy or someone had really given her the wrong idea. Maybe both. Elliott’s eyes glazed over as she stared at Anna, lips pressed tightly together. Her index finger tapped a rhythm on the receiver in time with the connection tone while she waited for someone in building security to answer the call. She took measured breaths in the silence, and she would have luxuriated in the satisfaction of choosing to say nothing in response, had it not proven so effective. The only warning Anna gave was the way every part of her face creased in mutinous rage. And then⁠—

Anna exploded.

She stepped around Hannah’s chair like a WNBA player dodging a screen and launched herself at Elliott. The receiver fell out of Elliott’s grasp, clattering on the desk, and she stood there, frozen in horrified fascination at the unraveling of the woman vaulting over the desk. Elliott moved in slow motion as Anna’s body collided with hers, sending them both to the floor. Elliott’s ears registered a shout while, heart in mouth and limbs shaking with adrenaline, she clawed and pulled at Anna’s wrists, dragging Anna’s hands away from her face. Her brain registered a dull stinging on her cheek and her scalp, and she kicked a leg out, trying to leverage anything to get away. Just when the cold squeeze of hands grasped hard around her throat and the panic tugged in her chest as she tried to gasp in a breath, Anna’s weight was gone.

Elliott scrambled to her feet, chest heaving. She brought a hand to the stinging on her cheek. When she pulled it away, her fingers came back bloodied. Hand shaking, she wiped the blood on her trousers and stared hazily at the sight in front of her.

Mattias, teeth gritted and body shaking with effort, had his arms in a vise grip around the woman. Arms pinned to her sides and eyes locked on Elliott, Anna kicked and snarled and writhed like a rabid dog. Elliott leaned a hand on her desk and stared wide-eyed at Mattias as security—apparently summoned by someone else—finally arrived and dragged Anna away, Hannah trailing them out the door and stopping at the threshold like a physical barrier.

Elliott’s eyes followed their departure from behind her desk. Weakly, she glanced at the crowd that had formed in the corridor. Her colleagues watched, mouths agape, as Anna, still screaming obscenities, was dragged around the corner and out of sight. Elliott registered that she should move. Should sit down or close the door on the other lawyers staring at her like she was a fucking zoo attraction. But all she could do was stare dimly at the corner of the corridor around which Anna had disappeared. After a silent minute, Mattias strode across the room, pulled Hannah inside the office by her upper arm, and slammed the door closed.

He turned to Elliott, and she slowly dragged her eyes away from the back of the door to register the concern lining his face.

“Are you all right? Your face is bleeding.”

Elliott brought her hand to her cheek again. “Um—yes. Yeah. I know about my—” She swallowed hard. “My face.”

Mattias’s eyes darted to Hannah, whose teeth were gnawing at her bottom lip, her eyes studying Elliott. As if approaching a skittish deer, Hannah touched the skin on Elliott’s hand. Elliott jolted at the coldness of her fingers and brought her eyes to Hannah’s. Green with brown flecks around the pupils, they were as familiar as breathing, and Elliott was finally able to suck in a full-chested breath. Then a sob pulled itself out of her, and she was pulled into Hannah’s arms. She buried her face in Hannah’s shoulder and let her squeeze and wring every last tear out of her body.

Finally, she dropped into her chair and buried her face in her hands. When she looked back up, Mattias and Hannah were seated across the desk, watching her closely. Mattias’s hand stroked at the trimmed beard on his chin, and Hannah’s crossed leg bounced in a nervous tic that had emerged their senior year of high school.

As she gazed blearily at the two of them, the heaviness in her stomach deepened. The guilt of having brought this level of drama into the office. What she had now burdened these two—her staunchest supporters—with.

Another sob leaked out of her. “Fuck. Mattias. I’m so sor⁠—”

“Don’t.” It came out sharp and firm and urgent, and a dangerous glint of warning turned the gray in his eyes to steel. “Don’t you dare.”

Elliott huffed out a choked laugh and motioned at the door. “But that was a mess. And I tried so hard to avoid it and not let you down, and⁠—”

“You didn’t.” He nodded. “It was a mess. But—” He sighed. “Elliott, do you really think it’s your mess?”

Elliott’s mouth dropped open, but the habitual need to explain how it was, in fact, her fault—how she had, in fact, been a colossal disappointment to him and herself and to everybody else—didn’t come. What came instead was foreign: the questioning thought of whether it actually was her fault. What followed was the conclusion that Mattias was right. It wasn’t her mess. She’d worked hard on that file. Had done good, valuable work that her client had been pleased with. She’d done everything she could to toe the line in her relationship with Mackenzie, and she’d taken the right action at the right time.

Her mouth snapped closed, and Mattias, sensing he had momentum, continued. “You didn’t make that woman come here and attack you. And you certainly didn’t make her come here three days in a row until you were finally in the office to attack, like she was fucking hunting you.” The shock of this new thought process, devoid of the usual self-flagellation, expunged the tears that had threatened to fall, and as Mattias spoke, Elliott could only marvel at the clarity they brought. “It doesn’t matter what that woman’s issue with you was. There is no excuse for that.” Mattias smiled kindly. “I heard what she said to you from my office. Just remember you kept me informed from the beginning, and you came to me early.”

Elliott nodded, but a new tightness grew and expanded in her gut. Visions of a cool and calm and calculating Anna at the first settlement conference muddled with the raving, spitting woman who had been dragged off her, and she wondered how many other people she’d represented or opposed had the capacity to… just—snap like that. How many more there would be in her future in this career. Whether she would be safe or, if she ever had a family, whether they would be safe. Whether she’d be able to protect them.

The answer was a resolute no.