The Bursting Heat (Book 2) ✓

03 - Checkup

Ralph

This was unreal. Absolutely unreal. How could it be anything else?!? My mind couldn't keep up with all the emotions that were swirling inside of me. I was feeling light headed and I needed quickly to get out of this place and somewhere safe, where I could sit. I didn't want to drop on the spot and hurt Ali. Ali...my Ali...I couldn't...

"Officer, is everything alright?" I looked around, trying to pinpoint where the voice was coming from. It was from a small woman in police uniform right in front of me. Huh, interesting when did she got here...or did I get to her? "Officer?"

"Um, yeah, yeah, everything is fine." Nothing was fine.

"You sure?"

"Yeah."

"What are you doing with this girl? Is she hurt?" Was she? I had no idea. My mind was still trying to catch-up with the events.

"Umm, I don't know." Looks like my answer was not the right one in the situation.

"Why are you holding her like that? Officer, I'll suggest for you to let me handle her. Just let her go and..."

"NO!" It was out of the question. I wasn't letting Ali go. Even if she wasn't passed out in my arms, I would have been still holding her closer to me.

"Officer..." there was a waring in the voice of the little police woman.

"Officer Harriet, let him be. He means her no harm. He knows the girl, and she was the one who jumped in his arms in the first place." I was lucky that Max was following me, I wasn't sure how I was going to explain my situation by myself. "Ralph, get her to the medics to check how she is, Officer Harriet, please come with me. The girls are getting restless especially after one of them is leaving the place with unknown man." I didn't wait for any other instructions. I walked away from the building, searching for an ambulance, but luckily the EMTs found me first."

"What's wrong with her?" 'Nothing' was my instinctive answer, but I know that it was far from the truth.

"I'm not sure. She passed out in my arms."

"Okay, let's get her down on the gurney and we will check her." I didn't want to leave her, I didn't want her to be away from me even for a second, not after the long years we were separated. I knew that I was being irrational, but the heart and the mind were not always connected. "Officer?"

"Yeah, yeah...just...be careful with her." I think the medic saw that she was not just some random girl to me, so she just nod. I put Ali's relaxed body to lay down and took a step back. I tried for another one, to let the medic has more room, but I couldn't. It was an impossible task.

The medic's movements were quick and precise. She measured Ali's blood pressure, looked her body for visible injuries that would be in a need of hospital treatment and made some quick tests with other machinery that she had. If Ollie was here with me, he would have told me what they were. As the SWAT team EMT, he knew all the stuff, but he was still inside the house. So, I was left to just watch. Finally, I had the chance to fully see Ali and I was getting angrier with every new discovery that I made.

Her hair was shorter...a lot shorter. When we were kids, it was her dream to have a long hair down to her butt. When she was growing up, she found out that it was way too harder to achieve it than she expected, so she changed her dream length to something around the middle of her back. Now it was short to her head and it looked like it was done in an angry way. It was in different length, some places closer to her scalp, some not, like someone used scissors to destroy it in the quickest way possible.

Next, I looked at her face. The dark circles under her eyes showing me how less sleep she was getting in this place. There were some bruises in all different colors, some of them new, some old. She had a long scar from the tip of her chin down her neck to her breast bone, like someone tried to slice her in half. Then there were the many cuts on her arms and legs. Every one of them, telling a dark story of the way she was treated...And then, I'm sure there are even more scars and wounds that were hiding under her barely there clothes. I wanted to slowly kill every sick bastard who dared to harm her soft skin. And I wanted to torture them in the same way that she was, the evil fucks who messed with her head, too. Because I knew that she isn't the Ali I once knew, she's not the sunny girl who had a constant smile on her face, who looked at the world through pink glasses. But whoever this new version of Ali is, one was sure now as it was sure 5 years ago – she is mine. And I was ready to go through hell to make sure that she'll be next to me until the day I die. I was just hoping that she'll want to stay, because I wasn't sure what I was going to do if she wanted to go away from me. But that was thoughts for other times, times when she is awake, healthy and ready to make decisions for her future. Until then, she'll have to deal with me.

"She looks fairly fine, given the situation. I don't see any traumas that'll need hospital care, but it will be better if she goes and have some scans just to be sure that everything is whole and an its place." Good, good. It was good that she was okay and she'll have those scans made for sure.

"Thank you."

"We can drive her to..."

"No need. I got her. Take care of the other girls that will come."

"Are they many?"

"I'm not sure, but 15 at least."

"Shit."

"Yup, my words exactly."

"Um, how do you plan of taking her to the hospital?"

"I will..."

"She'll be with us." I turn around to the new voice and saw my team captain getting closer to me. "It's not like we haven't done it before." Right. Dax with Emily after the bank robbery...but the difference is that he had his own vehicle, I don't, so I'll need the whole team to go with me to the hospital before going to the Police station. I don't think that they'll mind, but...

"You sure?"

"Yeah, Ralph, we are. I talked with the boys, no one has problem with our little detour."

"Okay, thanks. How's the stuff inside?"

"Well, I wouldn't say they were perfect. A lot of the girls were scared that you took away..."

"Ali. Her name is Ali."

"Right. So, they weren't happy that you took away Ali. I have a hunch that maybe she was like their leader or something like that. But Harriet managed to calmed them down enough for them to start leaving the place. They will me coming soon and that's why I came to see how are the things here. If she's all clear to travel with us we can go. The police have the men in their patrol cars, the whole building is checked and we are free to go."

"Sounds good to me." I tried to be as gentle as possible while moving Ali from the gurney. She was so light that I was scared I could break her with one wrong move. Max lead the way to our vehicle where my whole team was already waiting.

"She good?" Luke was the first to say the question I could read in everyone's eyes.

"Nothing that looks life treating for now, but she needs a scan, just to be sure."

"Yeah, it will be better to check her for every possibility. I'll drive, you get her inside. Need help?"

"No, I got it." It was a hard task to try to get inside our truck with Ali in my arms, but I wasn't letting her go even for a second. I took my seat; the others took my lead and soon we were on the road. It was quiet for the first then minutes of our ride until Cleo couldn't keep it anymore.

"So how do you know this girl?"

"Her name is Ali...and I've known her my whole life."

"She is family?"

"No, not officially no. But she will be."

"What do you mean?"

"She's my future wife." 

***Ralph sounds pretty sure about Ali...