L.L. Foster - The Acceptance

Her shoulders twitched with a grunt. “How should I know? He’s dumber than a rock.” She lifted her face, showing Luther red eyes and total dejection. “But even if he does, so what?”

So what? Exasperated, Luther stared at her. “He’s an unconscionable degenerate out for vengeance.”

Gaby’s lip curled with disdain. “Carver can’t hurt me.” Not seriously. She was too strong, and healed too quickly.

But others . . .

Her insistence of indomitability kept Luther awake on too many nights. “If Carver was involved with the murder of that woman—”

“I’ll find out,” Gaby said as a matter of course. “I doubt if he was, but he won’t be able to lie to me.”

“No.” Luther couldn’t get more than that single word out of his mouth. Every muscle in his body clenched in denial. He’d raced here to protect Gaby, not to encourage her into harm’s way, not to send her after a sick bastard with a penchant for torture.

Gaby didn’t look at him. She picked through the gravel on the sidewalk beside her until she found a pebble that appealed to her. She rolled it between her fingers, pitched it away.

He could practically see her thoughts churning.

Finally, she looked at him, her gaze so exigent that he couldn’t look away. “I know this will be tough for you, but you’re going to have to trust me.”

He shook his head.

“Yes.”

Given her past behavior, how she’d disappeared on him without a word, she asked too much. Luther meant to remonstrate with her and instead, his voice raw, he asked, “Why the hell would I trust you when you don’t trust me?”

For long moments, their gazes clashed. “There is that.”

Damn it.

“So you need some reasons. Well, let me see.” Gaby stared at her hands as she dusted them off, then propped her elbows on her knees. “How about, because you care for me and you don’t want me hurt, and letting me do this my way is the best possible insurance you can get that I won’t be hurt.”

Seeking control, knowing it to be well out of reach, Luther closed his eyes. “Just tell me where I can find Carver.” He opened his eyes, willing her to try things his way for a change.

“Sorry, no.” Her eyes darkened with regret. “There’s no point. He won’t tell you anything. You and I both know that.”

Obstinate to the bitter end. “But you think you can make him talk?”

“If he knows anything worth telling, yeah, I can.” Her affect revealed no modesty in her ability. “For sure when I finish with him, he won’t want revenge on me. He’ll just want to stay the hell out of my way.”

Putting his head back against the rough bricks, Luther laughed. “Jesus, Gaby. You leave me no choices.”

Lacking concern for his dilemma, she said, “Yeah? Meaning what?”

Did he, and his circumstance, truly not matter to her? Could she be that indifferent to him? “If you’ll recall, I’m an officer of the law.”

“No shit. Trust me, you being a cop isn’t something I’m likely to forget.”

“Right.” She’d infused as much insult in that statement as she could. Luther glowered. “So you have to know that I can’t condone willful acts of violence.”

“Didn’t ask you to condone it.”

Throttle her or kiss her—it was a toss-up which one Luther wanted to do the most. “Now that you’ve told me, I can’t sit here twiddling my thumbs while you . . . you . . .” He trailed off, unsure how to phrase what she might have planned, when she was so capricious he couldn’t guess what she’d do.

He only knew it wouldn’t be good.

“What?” Gaby prodded, half-turning toward him, her skirt still hiked too high, her antagonism a live thing. “What did you think I was talking about doing?”

Her posture finally proved more than Luther could take. Curving his hand around her slender upper thigh, he said, “That’s just it, honey. With you, I never know.”

Gaby looked at his hand on the inside of her thigh, covered his fingers with her own, and—a shock of pain punctured her burgeoning concupiscence.

Luther felt the withdrawal, a commutation of combative-ness over sexual awareness. Gaby stiffened on a gasp of breath and her light blue eyes went first unseeing, then sharp with an insight that was strangely empyreal.

“Gaby?”

Clumsy with pain, she hurried to her feet and stared at nothingness as her chest heaved in an effort to draw in breath.

Luther tried to clasp her arms, but she brushed him off as easily as she’d shoo a fly. She took a step forward, then another.

“Damn it, Gabrielle Cody, don’t you dare—”

In the next instant, a bloodcurdling cry erupted from deep inside her, a shout of purest agony and harshest denial.

The fine hairs on Luther’s nape stood on end. He whispered, “Gaby?”

And she was off, running full out, her muscles fluid with grace and speed. Luther gave chase, shouting her name, giving it his all but oddly unable to catch her.

Arms pumping and legs churning, she rounded a corner, then another.

Where the hell was she going? The hard, full-out run left Luther’s lungs laboring, and sweat glued his shirt to his back. Lagging several feet behind Gaby, they charged past a drug deal turned battle, past a drunken trio who shouted obscenities at them, and past a homeless woman who almost tripped him up with her cart of discarded wares.

Finally, they hit a long, dark street and Gaby paused, posed in combat mode.

But not for long.

Her first step was tentative, her second long and sure. “Bliss.”

Luther saw beyond Gaby to where she was headed.

There in the middle of the road, clothes torn, neck bleeding, staggering with her eyes closed and her arms out, was poor, young, too helpless Bliss.

Oh no, Luther thought. Not again.

Gaby reached Bliss just as she went limply into her arms; Gaby didn’t stagger as she held Bliss mostly upright.

Even as he hurried forward to help, Luther surveyed the area. He saw a group of thugs hanging out, and knew he’d have to question them before they scattered. Across the street, an old white woman, hunched over from age and depression, scurried off.

Luther narrowed his eyes, but couldn’t make out the license plate on the dark sedan screeching away.

“Son of a bitch.” It needed only this. He loped up to the two women and relieved Gaby of Bliss’s deadweight. “Is she okay?”

Grim, furious, Gaby smoothed back Bliss’s hair. “No. She’s not.”

Supporting Bliss with one arm, Luther retrieved his radio and made an authoritative call for assistance and an ambulance. “I’ve got her,” he said to Gaby, and gently lifted Bliss into his arms. Her head lolled against his chest. Her hair hung over his arm. She was soft, warm, but so still it scared him half to death.

He headed to the curb.

Without moving, Gaby shouted, “Where are you taking her?”

Knowing she needed his control right now, Luther tried for a calm and even tone. “I’m just moving her out of the street, that’s all. An ambulance is on the way. We’ll get her to a hospital and have her checked over.” He looked up, caught Gaby’s stark, taciturn countenance. “It’s okay, Gaby. The paramedics will know what to do.”

Bliss roused herself to mumble, “No. Please. No hospitals.” Vomit clung to her hair and the corners of her mouth. Her pupils were wildly dilated, unseeing. “No, please.”

“Shh, Bliss. It’s all right. I promise.” Luther looked back at Gaby. Still, she hadn’t moved. She stood there in the middle of the street, heaving in impotence and paralyzing rage. Somehow, he had to reach her. “Come over here, Gaby. I need your help.”

She took a step forward, then halted again. Her hands fisted. Her face contorted.