The shakes get worse. They intensify with each second that passes. And I don’t know if it’s the drugs or my nerves, but I need to do something. Anything. Jumping into action, I run down the stairs and nearly trip over Aylee’s backpack. Bending down and rummaging through it, I find what I’m looking for. There’s a text on the screen of her phone.
Checking to see if you’re okay.
Let me know.
The text is from a contact marked only as M. But I know who it is. I ponder simply texting him, but change my mind at the last minute.
He picks up on the first ring.
“Hey, beautiful,” he greets, like that’s her name, and sudden envy at the affection in his voice causes me to grow silent. Too silent.
“Aylee?” he questions. And I snap out of it.
“Maddox.”
“Who the fuck is this?”
Well, at least he knows Aylee’s voice. “It’s Mallory—”
“Where is she?” There’s no mistaking the frost in his voice through the phone line, and instantly I shudder. Maddox Moore is not someone you fuck with—not even a little.
“You need to come…her dad…just hurry and get here.”
With trembling hands, I hang up on Maddox and dial 9-1-1. Everything after that passes by in a flash. I stick around long enough to give the operator the address of the emergency before hurrying upstairs to put my clothes on, grab my bag and keys, and run as fast as I can out of the house. My high is wearing off. I can’t be here. And the need to go score something strong enough to make me forget my part in all of this takes over. Once I’m in my Mercedes, I send up a brief prayer that Aylee survives this. But I know better. God forsook me a very long time ago. So my prayer is really to no one at all.
Chapter 24
Maddox
I don’t know why the bitch has Aylee’s phone, and for a second there I’m ready to tell her off, but then her words bring my world to a screeching stop. I’m outside the precinct grabbing a smoke with Willkie. Just as we expected, they wouldn’t tell us shit about Dro. So we’ve been here for the last hour waiting. But then the call changes everything. I can’t move fast enough. Flicking my cigarette away, I make a run for my truck.
“Where the fuck are you going?” Willkie yells after me.
“Something’s come up. I gotta handle this,” I reply back from the middle of the parking lot.
“What about Dro?”
“It’s my girl,” I say, without hesitation. It’s always going to be Aylee first now. “I gotta go. Keep me posted.”
I drive like I’m on something. My truck is shit when it comes to speed, but I break every traffic law to get to the other side of town in half the time it would normally take me. I turn on her street and my blood runs cold at the sight of the ambulance, fire truck, and police cruisers stationed in front of her house. I park about a block away, almost exactly where I dropped her off earlier, and gun down the street like an Olympic sprinter.
There’s a crowd of her neighbors gathered, and I shove and shoulder through them to make it to the other side just in time to see them hoist her in the back of the ambulance and slam the doors shut.
“She’s always been such a sweet girl, I can’t believe what happened to her.”
“Anyone know what happened?”
“Someone said she got beat up pretty badly.”
“Yeah, I just overheard her dad give a statement to the police. Apparently she has a boyfriend who’s been abusing her. He said he walked in on the guy raping her.”
“God, that’s terrible! Can you imagine seeing that happening to your daughter?”
“I know…it’s awful. Poor girl.”
Beat up. Rape. Beat up. Rape. Rape. Rape. I only pick out those words and they play on a loop inside my head, feeding the flames of white-hot rage thrashing inside of me. I know without a doubt I’m going to castrate her old man. That’s a promise I intend to keep to myself. But first I need to see her. I have to know she’ll be okay. I have to touch her. I follow behind the ambulance and it’s not until I get to the ER’s front desk that I realize they’re not going to let me see her. I have no familial connection to her. Hours and hours pass. I lurk in the halls, dodging her old man. Her foster mother eventually shows up with a little girl that looks exactly like her. Teary-eyed, they all wait on news from the doctor.
I come and go, but I never leave the hospital parking lot.
