Page 7

Glancing to the side, I notice Wini. She looks scared as her tears trail down her face.

Something from a session they had must have pushed this poor girl over the edge.

An easy calmness falls over me as I briefly remember my predecessor, Ulia.

When my own family failed to take me back, not wanting anything to do with me, Ulia didn’t hesitate.

She brought me here and worked one-on-one with me.

The calm she instilled in me is now coming back in waves.

“You are Rachel, right?” I ask as I move centimeter by centimeter away from her previous target. “My name is Irene. Do you have a name or nickname that you prefer to be called?” The words come easily to me as I recite my inner script.

“N-n-no,” she stutters as the other men slowly circle her.

None of them are in my sight, and she doesn't seem to notice, so I sink to my knees where I am. A sharp inhale comes from behind her, and I curse internally that someone who isn’t aware of the protocols is in my building.

She startles and then turns on them, but I keep talking quickly but calmly.

“That’s okay, I don’t have a nickname either. I always thought they were kind of lame anyway.” Rachel looks unsure of everything, and I clock it was Matteo who put it in her head with the inhale. If he hadn’t, she would be none-the-wiser. Now…

“Get out,” she whimpers as her finger puts pressure on the trigger. It’s not fully pointing at me, but I can’t stop trying to make her bring it back. I would rather it be me than someone else.

“Totally understand, but Rachel, I can’t leave.” She swings back fast, whirling toward me with a look between scalding and insanity, but she doesn’t see me. She looks right through me and around the room like she’s waiting for someone else.

“Get out!” She screams, and before I can de-escalate anything else, she squeezes the trigger.

Moving faster than a bullet is not humanly possible, and it proves itself real.

Fire burns through my arm as I charge her.

She doesn’t get far as I tackle her to the harsh tile floor.

We grapple for the gun as everything fades away.

Finally, I pry her fingers off the handle of the gun and shove it away.

With practiced strategy, I twist her arms behind her back and then sit on them.

She tries to buck me off, but I remain heavily on her, not letting her get her legs under herself.

Wini finally comes forward with tears still falling as she mutters soft, calming things to the girl.

I’m not familiar with her, and that’s not a good thing.

She should have been placed on the at-risk list. My brain quickly rolls through the names of individuals on that list that I have met with already.

None of them are her, so my brain comes back blank.

“You are safe,” I say when a pair of cuffs clunks in front of me.

I take them, placing them securely over her wrists, and then get off.

Two of the guys grab her and haul her to her feet.

I don’t feel bad about the way they handle her because, at the end of the day, she almost killed someone.

If I were several inches the other way, it would have been a straight-heart shot.

Not that I would be complaining. I would be dead.

Now, she will be in solitary for a while.

“I want CCTV pulled from the last hour,” I tell the group, then hone in on Globe, Matteo, and Nero as they gawk at me.

“Send medical to follow up with her when she is stable. I want her medical chart on my desk in the next thirty minutes. I don’t care who gets it for me.

If it’s not there, it will get more complicated. Wini will field questions.”

This is not the first and will certainly not be the last time one of our kids goes off the deep end. It’s also not the first time I have been shot by one of them. Now, we just have to take it in stride.

Waving my arm to the group dismissively, I register the graze wound on it as it burns brightly on my nerves.

Yeah, it definitely won’t be the last. With a shaky sigh, I get to my feet, swaying slightly with each step toward my office.

Feet pound behind me, yet I ignore them.

Instead, I rifle through the mental list of things I will need to do now.

Call Shark to notify him;

Review her medical chart;

Write an incident report;

Notify and send the report to the board;

Research more into this young lady to see what we can work on to elevate her care.

“Where are you going?” Globe’s deep voice calls from behind me. My brain is sluggish as I process his words, the finality in them going completely over my head. Palming the wound on my arm, blood seeps between my fingers as I carry on down the hall.

“Going to write my reports,” I call back, but even I can hear that the words coming from my mouth are a bit slurred.

The world is slowly tilting on its axis.

Another step is all I take before I’m hoisted into the air with a shocked squeal, and I’m suddenly staring at a perky bubble butt.

Something inside of me screams, and who am I to not follow its commands?

“Hey!” Globe growls as I pinch his butt. Blood splatters on the floor as we walk, the crimson staining the white tiles unceremoniously. Who needs blood when every step causes his booty to jiggle? Usually, I wouldn’t care about butts, but I can admit that his is round and voluptuous.

“I bet your butt jiggles when you get hit from the back,” I giggle, my brain going in several directions. “Nice globes.” I cackle to myself at the play of names while his shoulders shake from what I’m going to assume is amusement.

“She must have lost more blood than we thought,” the familiar voice I now know as Matteo says.

I try to peek up at him, leveraging myself on Globe’s perky globes, but it’s no use.

The room spins as thoughts of playing with his butt take over my brain.

Not sure when he got here, but I’m not complaining.

He steps up next to me for a moment, and the perfect outline of his soft manhood is enough to have me drooling.

“Holy mama, that thing would destroy me,” I sing-song, smiling happily at the thought of him using that on Globe. I smack his butt again and mutter something along the lines of getting it in his butt.

“Yeah, she definitely lost a lot of blood. She’s usually more…quiet than this. Has more hatred in her eyes. Right now…” Matteo bends down to my eyesight, but there are multiple of them walking along us. “She looks pleasant.”

“Well, the puddle where she was shot, then the exertion of blood that poured from her when she pinned that girl down…I would say she’s lost a lot.” I watch the red stream run down my arm with slight fascination, but my stomach suddenly turns and my brain goes fuzzy.

“I don’t feel good.”