Total pages in book: 19
Estimated words: 18063 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 90(@200wpm)___ 72(@250wpm)___ 60(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 18063 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 90(@200wpm)___ 72(@250wpm)___ 60(@300wpm)
He inhaled quickly. “I’m not having a––”
“It’s a lot, this kinda stuff,” I went on, keeping my voice low and level. “Between the ongoing pandemic and you probably being an introvert and scary-as-shit past trauma, maybe this is a bit much.”
“No, I’m––” His eyes fluttered as he leaned into my touch, swallowing hard before finding his footing. “––fine.”
I waited until I was sure his stance was solid, and then I dropped my hand and glowered at him. “So tell me, Doc, what the hell was with the penchant-for-violence comment?”
I liked the glare I immediately got in return. “I’m sorry?” He sounded affronted.
“In the car you said I had a penchant for violence.”
“Well, come on, clearly you––”
“I’ll have you know that I only shoot people when they deserve it, and when they’re attacking innocent kids, I think that qualifies, don’t you?”
“I never implied that––”
“Do you agree that saving the kids was the most important thing?”
“Yes, but as I’ve stated before, you could have shot to incapacitate the men you killed in front of the kids. You didn’t have to end their lives and scar the kids’ psyches.”
“Scar them?” I repeated, scoffing. “Really? You think they’re scarred?”
“Yes, I do,” he barked at me.
“No. They get it. They all understand what had to happen.”
“They’re children.”
“No,” I countered. “The boys were all nineteen then, twenty now, and Hannah, as she keeps reminding me, will be eighteen at the end of this month.”
“That doesn’t matter. You’ve still scarred them.”
“Scarred them? Really?”
“You disagree?”
“Do I think they’ll remember it? Sure. But scarred? Gimme a break,” I scoffed. “I saved their lives.”
“But you inflicted trauma.”
“Between trauma and life, which one do you think they would prefer?”
“That’s not the point. You had a choice.”
“I was hurt,” I explained, noting that he looked better already. Arguing with me was helping, his coloring starting to even out. “And as a result, I couldn’t do all the things I normally could. I wasn’t able to protect Hannah in the same capacity.”
“Yes, but––”
“Shooting them dead was my only option,” I apprised him. “Think about it. If those men had gotten up and come at me because I’d wounded them and not killed them, I would have put Hannah or her brother or one of the other boys in danger. I couldn’t allow that.”
He shook his head.
“I’m sorry you think it’s bloodthirsty but––”
“I think it was unnecessary,” he argued. “You’re clearly capable of––”
“Again, I was hurt,” I reiterated. “Not at full capacity. If it happened now, I would probably just blow out their kneecaps or something, because lemme tell you, that shit’ll slow ya down, but––”
“That right there,” he snapped. “That’s what I mean when I say penchant for violence. Why can’t you simply knock people out?”
“Because that’s not always possible,” I replied, chuckling. “Not everyone is gonna let you get close enough to knock them upside the head with a gun.”
He shook his head as a woman walked over to speak to him.
Leaving him to chat with a friend of his who was a social worker, I checked on Hannah and then retreated to an area near the edge of the room to watch.
Having fixed the doctor and seeing that Hannah was safe, I cracked my neck and readied myself for a long night. I hoped my favorite burger place would still be open when the event was finally over, because already, I was starving.
3
As usual, during the second hour of standing around, after people drank and ate and went from table to table, there were the speeches. Hannah did a good job, and people laughed in all the right places, which to me was the most important thing. When she called Aaron up to the stage, he got a standing ovation and then unveiled the number of mental health centers the crowd was going to help him build and where they were going, into which communities, and the staffing they would have. Max announced the winners of the silent auction, and then Debra Loring, a Pulitzer-Prize-winning Chicago-based journalist, chaired the bachelor auction. While the latter was going on, Hannah turned around in her chair to look at me. Moving quickly, I was beside her chair, crouched down, in seconds.
“We should auction you off,” she whispered, a mischievous gleam in her eye.
“Do you want us to still be talking by the time your birthday rolls around?”
Instant scowl. “You have no sense of adventure whatsoever.”
“Just because you enjoy bein’ the center of attention doesn’t mean the rest of us love it. Did ya ever think about that?”
She scrunched up her nose.
“Your therapist is not having a good time,” I said, only because the man in question was not in the room at the moment.
“Yes, he is,” she argued. “He’s met a lot of new people and made all kinds of excellent professional contacts.”
“Yeah, but you gotta think,” I reminded her. “He had that thing happen, and it wasn’t that long ago, right?”