Page 29 of Bobby Green

“Where’s Reggie?” she asked—but not rudely. Everything about her was relaxed and tranquil.

Bobby remembered when his father seemed relaxed and tranquil, right before his mom walked in front of him during a big play on TV or made too much noise in the kitchen cooking dinner.

“Your brother’s sick,” Lance said softly. “He wanted us to come make sure you were okay.” He walked to a cupboard and found her medication, just where Reg had told them. He was in the process of pulling the bottles down when she made her move, darting for the depths of the house toward a set of stairs.

Bobby was bigger, taller, and faster—he tackled her before she got to the stairs, and like Lance had told him, took one arm behind her back and then the other, perching his knee in the small of her back while she thrashed.

She was stronger than she looked—and damned determined—but like Trina had noted this past week, most of his muscles weren’t for show.

Which made what he was doing feel so much worse.

Oh God.

She was tiny.

Reg wasn’t a big guy, and as much as he worked out like the rest of them, he just didn’t have the body for bulk. His sister was built like he was, small but solid, and her wrists felt like brittle sticks under his hands.

“Please,” he begged. “Please, Veronica. Don’t fight like this. Man, we’re just trying to help—”

“Poison!” she screeched. “Poison!”

Lance walked up steadily, without urgency. “Veronica, I’m going to pry open your mouth and use the tongue depressor to open your throat. Then I’m going to push the pills in while I hold your jaw. It’s not going to be comfortable, and I’d rather not do it, but you can stop me now if you just—”

“Ulf!” Bobby grunted as she gave a particularly hard thrash.

“Cooperate,” Lance finished, sinking to a squat and following through. Bobby thought about how hard he must have been pushing so she didn’t bite down on his fingers and grimaced. God, he must have been bruising the shit out of her mouth.

He didn’t realize he was crying until he felt a draft on his cheeks, and then her thrashing stopped.

“No,” she wailed, facedown on the dirty floor. “No, no, no, no, no…. No poison. God, Lance, why you gotta see me like this?”

Bobby’s heart constricted.

She had a crush. On her brother’s friend. Of course. Normal people had crushes; why couldn’t she? But this friend had to shove pills down her throat while Bobby put a body lock on her, and the betrayal must have been…

Acute.

She cried some more, and Bobby stood up and helped her to her feet. “Want to come sit down?” he said quietly. “I’ll make you some food.”

“There’s nothing in the fridge,” she wept. “Reggie’s been sick.”

“I’ll call out for pizza,” Lance said, stripping off the gloves he’d worn during the procedure. “Whole works—salad, soda, meat-lover’s special, on me.”

Bobby’s stomach gurgled, and he knew the hand on Veronica’s shoulder shook. “I’ll go in halvesies if you order two,” he said plaintively.

Lance’s eyes got big. “Hey, didn’t you work today?”

Bobby gave him a weak smile. “I amsodamned hungry,” he admitted. Lance’s chuckle made everything normal then. Most natural thing in the world to walk Reg’s sister to the battered tapestry couch in the living room and give her the remote.

A thing he regretted doing not an hour later.

“The Fox News channel?” he asked under his breath as he and Lance cleaned off the table enough to set the pizza on. “Like… theFox Newschannel?”

Lance shuddered. “She’s paranoid, Bobby. She thinks everything is out to get her. Who better to tell her she’s right?”

“Oh my God,” Bobby muttered. “That’s heinous. Reg doesn’t own guns, does he?”

Lance dropped the pizza box onto the table from a bigger height than he’d probably planned. “God no. He had to lock up the goddamned knives. Why?”