Primal Fury by Piper Davenport

Jekyll

I walked out of Indigo’s room and Bellamy started toward her door. “Not so fast,” I said.

She faced me. “Huh?”

“Indigo wants you to come with me and battle CPS.”

“Oh, Jesus, what happened?” Bellamy demanded.

“Walk with me and I’ll fill you in.”

She followed me to the elevators, and we rode down to emergency. As we stepped out, we heard a child’s high-pitched scream, and I just knew it was Mina. I couldn’t stop my feet from racing toward the sound, shoving the curtain aside so quickly, I ripped it from its rings.

“Ekyll!” she squealed, giant tears sliding down her face.

“What the fuck are you doin’ to her?” I growled and a nurse jumped about a mile as she spun to face me.

“I’m so sorry,” the nurse said. “I was trying to take her blood pressure, but her arm is very tender.”

“Then quit fuckin’ touchin’ it!” I snapped, stepping in front of Mina so the nurse had no choice but to move away.

“Okay, big man, take it down a notch,” Bellamy warned, making her way to the nurse.

Mina sniffed, sliding her tiny hand into mine, and my fury began to ease a little.

“I’m very sorry, sweetie,” the nurse said to Mina, pushing her way back to her, seemingly uncaring that I was standing in her way. “We don’t need to use that cuff again, okay? We’re going to take you to get some pictures of your arm so that we can see if anything’s broken. We’ll take very good care of you, okay?” She glanced up at me with a slightly raised eyebrow, as if to challenge me to snap at her again, before focusing back on Mina. “I’m going to get the doctor. I’ll be right back.”

“I think this goes without saying, but I’m going to say it anyway,” Bellamy said. “You need to calm the hell down or you’re going to get bounced and banned from this building. This is also a mandatory reporting situation, so you can expect someone from law enforcement will be showing up to take reports.”

“Shit,” I breathed out.

“Ekyll?” Mina rasped.

I faced her. “I got you.”

Bellamy sidled up to the bed. “Mina? My name’s Bellamy.”

She scooted closer to me, and I squeezed her hand. “Bellamy’s a friend, Mina. You can trust her.”

How the hell did I end up here?

Jesus Christ, I didn’t like kids, which in turn meant kids didn’t like me. I was good with that. I had no clue why this little slip of a girl trusted me so much, and I especially had no clue why I suddenly felt an irrational need to protect her with my life. First Leo, now Mina. I seemed to have unwillingly started a collection of stray kids.

Mina leaned her head against my arm. “Hi.”

“Hi, sweetie.” Bellamy leaned down to get eye-to-eye with her. “We’re going to get all your owies fixed, okay?”

Mina whimpered as she looked up at me. “Stay?”

I clenched my jaw, grinding my teeth as she blinked up at me.

Goddammit.

“I have to make a quick phone call, Mina.”

“But you’ll come back?”

“Yeah,” I said with a sigh. “I’ll come back.”

Bellamy gave me a cheeky Cheshire grin which pissed me off, but I couldn’t do anything about it, lest I scare Mina.

“Jekyll will go with you for the x-rays, okay?” Bellamy offered, and I scowled at her.

“’K,” Mina whispered, squeezing my hand.

I pulled out my phone and called Needles, then Stoney, and hoped to hell they could work their magic so we could keep everything on the inside.

Hearing the sound of curtain rings sliding over metal, I turned to find a portly older woman frowning up at the privacy drape that was now half-hanging off the rod. “They need to look at that,” she mused, then focused on me.

The woman’s eyes widened, and she let out a quiet gasp. “Who are you?”

“Drea Housen, is that really you?” Bellamy crooned, making it so I didn’t have to answer the woman’s question, and Mina virtually crawled under my cut. I chalked it up to her being afraid of her shadow right now.

“Bellamy?”

“Hi,” Bellamy said, pulling her in for a hug. “How are you?”

“Well, I’m doing pretty good for an old lady. How about you?”

“Great.” Bellamy smiled. “Are you helping to sort out the girls rescued tonight?”

“I am.”

“Well, this is Jekyll. He’s the one who got them out.”

Drea’s lips puckered like she’d just sucked on a lemon, but she worked diligently to wipe the disgust off her face as she forced a smile. “Mr. Jekyll. Thank you.”

“Just Jekyll,” I said.

She turned back to Bellamy. “I’m going to have to find temporary hous—”

“About that,” Bellamy interrupted. “Indigo and I were wondering if we could take the girls to Walker House.”

“And why would you be discussing them at all?”

“Because Jekyll is a good friend of Indigo’s, and she would rather not separate the girls. They’ve been through a lot, and we would love to keep them together if possible.”

“Where is Indigo?” she asked.

“She’s actually upstairs right now.”

“Well, have her come down and speak with me.”

“She can’t,” Bellamy grumbled.

“And why is that?”

Bellamy widened her eyes in my direction, panicking. “Because she’s—”

“Sitting with a sick relative,” I lied. If CPS knew Indigo was beat to shit, they may be less inclined to release the girls to Bellamy. We also needed to get things sorted before Drea discovered about the damage at Walker House, so doing this quickly was crucial.

“Right,” Bellamy tacked on. “He’s in critical condition, so she won’t leave his side. She asked me to make the arrangements.”

“This is very irregular.”

“Do you have places for them to go?” Bellamy challenged.

Drea sighed. “Well, no.”

“This solves that. Walker House, along with Indigo and me individually, are approved to foster, so this gives the girls safe shelter while the authorities look into their situation.”

“And you can get them to Walker House safely? You have enough car seats?”

“We will get what we don’t have,” Bellamy said. “And, of course, you are welcome to swing by this week to check on them.”

I raised an eyebrow at her. It was gonna take more than a minute to fix the damage and clean up, so I hoped to fuck, CPS didn’t plan on coming tomorrow.

“I will interview each of the girls and then go from there,” Drea said.

“Can I stay wiff Ekyll?” Mina squeaked.

Drea stepped to her bed. “No, but you can go with Bellamy.”

Mina dropped her head back and sobbed. “No! I want Ekyll.”

Jesus Christ.

“Well, this is quite irregular,” Drea mused.

“Mina, Jekyll will come and visit you at Walker House,” Bellamy promised.

“Has he been verified?” Drea challenged.

“Well, no,” Bellamy confirmed. “But we will get right on it. He will also never be alone with any of the children.”

“I want to see the report before he has any contact.”

“Of cours—”

“Ekyll!” Mina screamed.

“Maybe we could bend the rules a little bit?” Bellamy asked, and Mina screamed louder…if that was possible.

“Perhaps,” Drea said, and Mina immediately stopped wailing, but added a sniff for effect.

I raised an eyebrow at her, and the little cretin smiled slightly, wrapping her arms around one of mine again. Considering the fact there was no evidence of tears, I had a feeling she knew exactly what she’d just done. Toddler or not.

She dropped her head to my bicep, and I focused back on Bellamy and Drea. It took another few minutes for Bellamy to finally get Drea to agree to the situation, handing her a stack of paperwork to fill out and sign.

While Bellamy worked on her writer’s cramp, I texted Sundance to let him know Walker House needed to be fixed up as soon as possible.

“Ekyll?”

“Yeah, baby?” I said distractedly.

“I have to go potty.”

I whipped my head up, frantically looking for Bellamy to rescue me. She smiled, setting the paperwork on the bed beside Mina. “I’ll take you, honey.”

“No, I want Ekyll.”

“Baby, that’s not gonna happen,” I said. “You need to go with Bellamy.”

“But…”

I leaned down so I was eye-to-eye with her. “It’s not appropriate for me to take you, Mina. You’re gonna go with Bellamy.”

“He’ll be right here when we get back,” Bellamy promised, holding her hand out to Mina.

Bellamy lifted Mina off the bed, but she craned her neck to watch me as Bellamy carried her away.

My phone buzzed just as they walked out of sight, but I didn’t recognize the number. I decided to answer it anyway. “Jekyll.”

“It’s Indigo.”

“Hey.”

“What’s going on?” she demanded.

“There was a bit of a stand-off, but Bellamy sorted it. You got the girls.”

I heard her sigh through the phone. “Thank god. I love my bestie.”

“You need to rest, GoGo. We got this.”

“But I want to know everything that happened,” she argued.

I chuckled. “I’m pickin’ up on that, baby, but you’re gonna have to wait.”

“For how long?”

“Until we’re done,” I growled. “Jesus, woman, you need to rest and heal.”

“Will you come up the second you can?”

“Yeah.”

“Promise?” she pressed.

“My word’s my word, Indigo. I don’t repeat myself.”

“Well, excuse me, Mr. Grumpy Bossy Pants,” she snapped. “I think you forget I don’t actually know you.”

“Indi—”

“No,” she ground out. “You don’t get to talk to me that way. Dick.”

Before I could respond, the phone went dead.

She’d fuckin’ hung up on me.

Goddammit.

“What’s wrong?” Bellamy asked.

I hadn’t even heard them come back in. I shook my head and lifted Mina back onto the bed just as Bellamy’s phone beeped. She answered immediately…I knew the second Bellamy said, “What?” it was Indigo.

And the reason I knew it was Indigo was because Bellamy’s face puckered into a glare of irritation directed at me.

“He did?” she said into the phone, her glare intensifying. “Yep, you’re right he is a di—” she glanced at Mina. “Ah…little ears, but I agree.” I matched her expression and Bellamy raised an eyebrow. “Of course, honey. Yes, as soon as this is all sorted, we’ll come up. Um, yep, sure. I’ll come up without the di—dude.”

Like hell you will.

“I think we’ll be done here in about an hour,” Bellamy continued. “I’ll text you if we’re running late, sound good? Okay, talk soon.” She hung up and shook her head. “You are seriously stepping in it, big man. You need to pull your head out because if she starts collecting flags, you’re in deep shit.”

She whispered, “Deep shit,” so Mina wouldn’t hear her, and I frowned.

“You don’t know anything about anything.”

“You keep telling yourself that,” she retorted, picking up the paperwork. “I’m going to find Drea and get everything finalized. Are you good to stay with Mina?”

Mina grabbed my arm again and I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, I’m good.”

Bellamy nodded and walked out of the room, while I sat beside Mina on the bed.