"Stupid is beating someone up. Stupid is shooting someone. Stupid is doing anything about this that doesn't involve using your words."
His face sobered instantly.
"Okay," he reluctantly agreed. "I promise."
I couldn't tell if he was lying or not, or if he actually planned on following through with his promise, but I needed to get last night off my chest.
Normally I would've said something to Krisney, but the last time my father did this, she'd told me that her promises-one similar to the one that I'd just had Tate promise to-were no longer valid if he ever did it again.
And I couldn't risk that.
Nobody at the police station would do anything, and honestly, who would believe that the beloved town preacher that everyone loved would do anything to harm his own daughter?
That's right. No one.
Except, maybe this guy.
He hadn't been there from the beginning like Krisney had. He hadn't seen the things Krisney had. But still, he was here. And he wanted to know.
I was also sure-down to my bones-that this man would believe every single word that came out of my mouth when it came to my father.
"My father hacked it off with a hunting knife about as long as my arm," I blurted.
He blinked, then blinked some more.
"You're … serious."
I nodded, wincing slightly. The feel of the uneven wisps of hair touching my neck on one side, and my shoulder on the other, had me growing nauseous all over again.
I was frantically scribbling on my notepad, trying not to look at the man in front of me, when I felt the notepad ripped from my hands.
I looked up to find Tate kneeling on a knee beside my chair, his hand extended to my hair.
"I'll fucking … "
"You can't," I said. "You made me a promise."
His lip turned up into a silent snarl.
"You're goddamn deranged if you think I'm not doing anything about this," he growled, his eyes angry and hard.
Knowing that anger was for me really made my heart feel full, despite my awful night.
It was nice knowing that I had not just one good friend on my side, but now two.
"What exactly are you going to say, and who will you say it to that freakin' believes it?" I pushed. "Nobody knows that my father is a freakin' jerk. Nobody realizes that he's anything other than the nice man that they think he is. Trust me on this, I've tried to tell them about the beatings … "
"The beatings?"
I winced at the low roar that came out of his mouth.
"Uhhh," I hedged.
He cupped my face and forced me to look at him.
"You're going to tell me about everything right now."
I laughed. "This is your session, silly. Not mine."
He bared his teeth. "Don't give one single fuck about my shit right now. Let's talk about yours."
I was already shaking my head. "I don't talk about it. Ever."
He stood up and planted his ass on the coffee table in front of me, then crossed his arms over his chest.
"I'll go nowhere, and do nothing, until you tell me."
I shrugged.
"Fine."
And that was how, forty-eight minutes later, I realized that he'd do exactly that. He'd sit there, and wait … forever if he had to.
He'd sat there, in the same exact place, staring at me as I tried to ignore him. When his appointment came to an end, and another appointment started to head inside, I immediately realized that I wasn't going to get out of this.
"I'll tell you … tonight," I told him. "Not right now. Talking about it isn't good. Ask Krisney."
Tate's eyes were hard.
"I don't want to ask Krisney. I want to hear it from the source-IE, you."
I sighed. "I'll tell you tonight. Just make sure you know that you'll have to take care of a drunk Hennessy after we're through."
"Takes alcohol to make you talk?"
I shrugged. "My father makes that patient," I said, gesturing to the schizophrenic man that was glaring at me through the glass, "look like a fairy princess."
Tate growled low in his throat and stood.
"I'll be at your house at eight."
With that, he left, leaving me with a few minutes to breathe.
At least until the pounding on my office door started. "You're late! We're late! Everyone will be late!"
Grumbling under my breath, I opened the office door and let him in.
"Sorry about the wait."
Chapter 13
They are called man hours because a woman would've done it in twenty minutes.
-Bumper sticker on a construction vehicle
Tate
I sat in the meeting that discussed the week's calls, staring at two of three new members that'd arrived while I'd been away.
One was an ex-FBI agent who was as talkative as a fucking honey badger. His name was Parker, and I was sure that one day I'd make the mistake of talking to him when he didn't want me to, and he'd slit my throat.
The other one was named Rafe. He was like an elusive wraith. I never saw him do his job, yet it always seemed to get done. I never saw him go home, yet he never looked unrested. And honestly, he was the slipperiest motherfucker when it came to tracking him down. He was never where he was supposed to be.
Both of them made me suspicious, but today, I just couldn't find it in me to care.
I was still fucked up about Hennessy.
Seeing her hair … it shook me.
Knowing that her father had done it. Yeah, that really chapped my ass. I wanted to go fucking kill him, yet she'd gotten that promise from me, knowing that I wouldn't go back on a promise to her like her father did.
"Are you listening, Casey?"
I let my eyes lazily come to Travis', and shrugged. "Long fucking day."
He looked at his watch. "It's nine in the morning. How fucking long could it be when we're only an hour into the work day?"
I laughed at that, and even I could hear the anger and pain in the threads of sound that wafted over the room.
"You have no fucking clue." I leaned my chair back and looked at the ceiling. "I'm fucking wrecked right now, and I don't know what to do."
When my head came back up, it was to find all eyes on me.
"Please enlighten us," Baylor drawled.
He looked lazy, sitting there with his feet kicked up on the table with his arms crossed over his chest. I knew better, though.
He'd always given off that feeling of ease, yet when we were twenty-four, and minutes back from a deployment, I'd seen him go from looking relaxed to having a man six inches off the ground for shoving a girl-Krisney-and causing her to hit the ground.
He may not like her-cough, cough, bullshit-but he didn't want anyone else to hurt her either.
Though, I had a feeling that Baylor had done that because of his brother, who'd been in an eerie calm, as he watched her fall.
See, Reed Hail had once, a long time ago, dated Krisney. They'd been happy and in love, and then they found out that Krisney's brother had been raping their sister every time he came over to the house to stay the night with their other brother, Tobias.
The moment that it all went down, Reed had dropped Krisney like a piece of trash, and all the other brothers had, too.
I could see where they were coming from in all of that, but I knew that Krisney was a good girl. She'd always been at Hennessy's side, and now that I thought about it, I realized that she had been every single time that Hennessy's hair had been hacked off.
And it'd happened a lot.
I remembered a lot when she was younger, looking at her and wondering who the hell had been doing her hair. She'd just get it to a manageable length, and then she'd hack it off what looked to be with a hacksaw-or a fucking hunting knife, like she'd told me he'd done last night.
Just like that, I was mad all over again.
"Jesus Christ, Tate. You're going to fucking break my goddamn table!"
I instantly let go of the table, and looked down at the dented plastic.
"This is a shitty fucking table if I can dent it," I told him. "And God."
Travis rose his brows at me.
"Any day now would be great."
I brought my hands up to my head and sifted my fingers through my hair.
"Fuck!"
They waited.
I sat forward, put my hands on my knees, and stared at the ground.
"Y'all know Hennessy Hanes?"
"Your psychologist?" Baylor rolled his eyes. "Yeah, you know we do."
I clenched my fists and stood up. I'd made it to the door before I turned and paced back in the opposite direction.
"She showed up today with her hair hacked off."
"Hasn't she always had weird haircuts?"
That was Reed.
Why was he even here? Wasn't he supposed to be stationed in Germany?
At least, he was the last I heard.
I nodded, swallowing.
Then brought my hand up to the back of my head.
"If you don't spit it out already, I'm going to beat it out of you."
I looked at Parker, the one who'd spoken, and stared straight into his eyes for a few long seconds.
It'd be a fair fight. He was smaller than me, but not by much. His eyes though … yeah, they were practically dead.
I turned away and looked at Baylor.
"Last night her father came into her home, dragged her up by her hair, and sliced it off with a hunting knife because he knows that she sinned."