Page 106 of Beneath Your Beautiful

“You’re in shock,” he said quietly, stroking my hair. “The brain can only handle so much information…” He was trying to help me make sense of something that didn’t make any sense. I lay there, letting him stroke my hair and hold me. I listened to the sound of his voice but not the words.

I pressed my body closer to his. He flinched, sucking in his breath. “You’re hurt.” I remembered my dad and Garrett talking about it once. Bullet-resistant vests might stop a bullet, but it would still hurt like hell.

“I’m fine,” Killian said. I knew he’d say that no matter how much it hurt. He reached for my hand and laced his fingers in mine.

“Is Connor…is he…?” I whimpered.

“He’ll be okay.”

“But he…what…”

“Miss Madley, we need to ask you a few questions,” a woman’s voice said. Two police officers were standing by my bed.

“She’s not ready to talk,” Killian said.

“I’m sorry,” the female officer said. “But we need to talk to her.”

“It’s okay,” I said.

The female officer asked the questions, and I told her what I remembered…which wasn’t much. But I wanted to help Connor, so I tried my best to remember everything I could.

“I was upstairs changing into a clean shirt when they came. I’d been painting…” Which was totally irrelevant. “Connor was downstairs. We were about to watch a movie…” More useless information. “We thought it was our pizza delivery. Before he opened the door, Connor asked who it was. I heard the guy say the name of the pizzeria we ordered from… so Connor unlocked the door…”

“Fuck,” Killian muttered under his breath.

“What did the men say when they came inside?” the police officer asked.

“They called him a snitch. And they said…” I took a deep breath. Connor was alive. He was going to be okay. “…they came to kill him. I heard a scuffle and they were…they must have been beating him up. I was on the phone with Killian. I called him right away.”

“And, where were you at this point?” she asked.

“In the bathroom. With the door locked. I didn’t know where else to go. It’s the only door upstairs with a lock.”

“Then what?”

“I heard someone coming up the stairs, checking the rooms. He…” I stopped and swallowed. “Knocked down the bathroom door. I sprayed deodorant in his eyes which kind of stunned him. Then I kneed him in the junk,” I said, feeling kind of proud of my handiwork. Killian chuckled under his breath, but his humor was short-lived. The police officer prompted me to continue.

I took a deep breath and let it out as the memories washed over me. “I ran out of the bathroom, but he caught me and…” My whole body was trembling.

Killian’s arms tightened around me. “What did he do to you?” he asked, his voice low.

“He just…”The cool metal of the gun pressed against my forehead. “Boom”, he said, and laughed.“He hit me in the forehead with his gun.”

I told her the rest of what happened, what I remembered, and the officer took it all down and said she’d contact me if they needed more information.

“How are you holding up, Killian?” she asked.

“Except for my girlfriend getting dragged into the shit storm of my life…fucking great.”

“I’m sorry about your father. We all looked up to him.”

I felt Killian nod and when the cops left my room, I asked, “What happened to your dad?” I didn’t even realize he’d been there which just went to show how much I’d missed.

“He was shot,” Killian said.

“But…so were you.”

“He was shot in the head.”