Camille
Telling the story of how she had become involved in Rich’s rising empire of drugs had been somewhat cathartic. It was a secret she held for almost two years, every day of which she lived in fear of her brother. But now it was all out in the open, and she felt better.
Mostly.
The fear still sat like an anvil in her stomach. Rich wouldn’t stop until she was dead. She knew that, he was nothing if not determined, and if her suspicions were right, it wouldn’t be the first time he had someone killed. But with Jon by her bedside, the fear wasn’t quite as acute. Instead it simply existed in the background, like white noise.
The detective continued to ask questions, seeming to try and get details out of Camille that she simply didn’t have. She may know more than Rich wanted her to about the operation, but she didn’t know everything. She didn’t know where they holed up after leaving her to die in the basement. She didn’t know what his plans from this point were. She didn’t know how he got some of the drugs in, or how they distributed them to the small-time dealers. She also didn’t know what his end goal was.
Finally, Jon called an end to the interrogation, despite protests from the others.
“No disrespect, Chief, but I still have quite a few questions for Camille.” The woman, Formosa, said in a tone that indicated she held no fear for her superior officer. “Shouldn’t you be pushing for us to work the case harder, not take it easy on our only material witness?”
Camille stayed quiet, knowing Jon would get his way in the end, and, truth be told, she grew increasingly exhausted with each question. She laid her head back on the pillows, closed her eyes and let the officials argue over her.
“You may be from the city, and think that makes you somehow above me, but I will remind you that this is still my territory, and you are here at my request.” Jon kept his voice even, but the threat of violence was still clearly recognizable underneath. “Now, I say Camille has had enough, and she told us all she can. We need to let her rest.”
“Chief, I would like to see you outside for a moment.” The woman again, the male officer, McCracken, had kept mostly quiet since they arrived.
“No, I’m not leaving Camille.”
“Jon, we’ll be right outside the door. Nothing will happen.” Finally, the other police officer, McCracken, spoke, his tone soft and calming.
Camille hated that Jon’s men questioned him because of his apparent need to protect her. The job was obviously important to him, and he was losing the respect of the people he was supposed to lead. “It’s okay, Jon. I’m going to try and sleep a little bit. I’ll be okay if you need to leave.”
Jon’s eyes softened as he leaned over the bed, keeping her forearm tight in his grip. “I’m not leaving you, sweetheart.” He dropped his head down, so that his forehead almost touched her own. The almost defeated posture telegraphed the stress and conflict the larger than life man must have been feeling. “But I am going to talk in the hall with these two for a moment. If you need anything at all, push the nurses button and I’ll come back. Got it?”
Camille couldn’t help but smile. She had gotten a near perfect grade in organic chemistry, she could handle pushing a button. Not that he knew that. “Got it.”
He continued to hover over her prone body, very clearing battling himself. For a moment, Camille thought he might kiss her, and the idea sent a thrill through her like she had never known. Before he could move any closer to her, the detective by the door cleared her throat, obviously growing impatient with the Chief.
Jon closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and released his delicate hold on her before walking from the room.
The second the door closed behind him Camille’s carefully hidden panic emerged. “You’re okay. No one will hurt you. Jon is right outside.” She repeated the mantras over and over, under her breath, willing her frayed nerves to hold on for just another minute. Just until her personal protector came back.
Determined to focus on anything else, Camille peeled off the stiff hospital blankets that covered her body. She took stock of her injuries. Her toes were bandaged together where Mac had stomped on them during their torture free-for-all. Some of the bruises dotting her legs and arms from the first day of beatings were now yellowed and faded, with more overlapping from the following days. Her ribs ached from the body blows they had rained on her, but not nearly as bad as they had been during her first days in the basement, when just breathing felt like knives slicing the flesh and bones. Camille moved slowly, not wanting to disturb her limbs too much. She traced her bandaged fingers across her collar bone, right where Complese had put out his cheap cigarettes as he finished each one during his time with her. The perfectly circular scabs lined up as if he had been making a design, not scarring her for life.
She didn’t even want to think about what her face looked like. A mess of swollen flesh and bruised skin most likely.
It occurred to Camille that the upside of everything hurting was that nothing stood out as being especially overwhelmingly painful. Almost like her new normal was pain.
The door to her room creaked open, and Camille’s heart jumped in her chest knowing Jon would appear in mere seconds. But instead a nurse walked in, carrying a tray with bandages and syringes. His blue scrubs were ill fitting, hanging loosely on his frame in places. Something about the man made her uneasy, and she searched his uniform for the standard issue ID all hospital personnel were required to wear. It rested right where it should, over the left side of his chest. The picture matched his face and everything.
Camille silently admonished herself for being so suspicious of the poor nurse. She knew her room was guarded, that everyone entering her room was being thoroughly checked out. Closing her eyes, she reminded herself once again that she was safe. No one could hurt her.
“Hello, there miss. How is your pain?” The nurse’s voice was quiet, yet rough.
“It’s about an eight. Not as bad as when it was happening, but not exactly nice either.” She tried a weak smile. But it felt wrong on her face, brittle and fake.
“Well, you’ll be glad to know I have something right here to help with that.” He held up a syringe filled with clear liquid.
“No thank you, I told the doctors I don’t want any narcotics. I’m fine with Tylenol.” She tried to shift her arm away from the nurse, who had reached out to take hold of the IV line.
“Nonsense, why go through all that pain when we have something that will help take it away?” The man didn’t meet her eyes, instead focusing on the IV and the syringe.
Camille jerked her arm away. “Because I don’t want to risk getting addicted like the low lives that did this to me.”
The man ignored her words completely, grabbing her hand and pulling it towards him. She gasped as the pain from her freshly set fingers seared through her body at his rough grip. “Stop. I don’t want it, stop.” Her voice rose with every word until she was screaming at the top of her lungs for him to not give her the drugs. Just as the needle pierced through the port sticking out from the IV line, Camille screamed, sounding more animal than human, reached over and ripped the IV from the back of her hand.
Chaos erupted in the room, a growl echoing from the door the only thing that warned of Jon’s returned presence. In a blur of motion, he lept across the small hospital room and tackled the nurse to the floor, pinning his arms behind him. Formosa and McCracken stormed in right behind him, talking over each other to find out what was going on.
“He tried to give me something. I told him I didn’t want it and he tried to inject it in my line anyway.”
Doctors and nurses rushed in, the small room soon filled with shouts and commotion. It soon became clear the supposed nurse was not in fact employed by the hospital. The ID was a convincing fake. The man was cuffed and escorted from the room to be questioned at the station.
Once relative calm was restored, Jon turned on McCracken and Formosa. “This never would have happened if you both hadn’t made me leave the room.”
Formosa was apparently having none of that, stabbing her finger in Jon’s direction and raising her voice just as high as his. “If you had kept your cool out there, like a professional, the posted officers wouldn’t have had to come try and calm you down. This case has become entirely too personal for you, and you need to step back. You shouldn’t even be in her room right now.”
Jon’s face became the picture of barely contained fury. “You’re right.” He turned to McCracken. “Effective immediately I step down from my post as Chief and temporarily appoint you acting-chief until Camille’s case is solved. In the meantime, I’m taking her to a safe house, which only I know the location of, and will keep her safe from these dirt bags. You need to talk to her, you go through me.”
Formosa exploded, while McCracken stood with his jaw on the floor. “You cannot take a witness and disappear with her. That isn’t how this works. We will put her in protection, have officers with her at all times. But just because you have a hard on for a girl half your age does not mean you get to make up your own rules.”
“Fuck your protective detail. No one will keep her safer than I can. No one. I don’t give two shits about the rules. You can’t hold her because she isn’t being charged with anything--”
“Because you already brokered a deal with the D.A.!”
“--and I am now the only person she has in the world. So you either work with me on this or you lose the only witness you’ve got in this case. The decision is up to you.”
Silence encapsulated the room, Formosa was breathing hard enough that Camille began to worry she would hyperventilate.
“Okay.” McCracken gathered himself up to his full height. “Jon, I am now appointing you to work as Camille’s protective detail. I leave the specifics of what that will entail to you. However, you must be available to us at all times should we need to talk further with her.”
“Understood.”
“I can’t fucking believe this. What the fuck kind of operation are you people running?” Formosa was apparently not happy with the new chief’s decision.
“The kind that takes care of its’ own.” McCracken turned to Formosa, dismissing her with barely a word. Once she stomped from the room, he turned back to Jon. “To be clear, I am only taking this role temporarily. As soon as this blows over, you’re the chief again, got it?”
Jon simply nodded.