“I fell pregnant.”
There was a moment before Jimmy reacted, and she kept her eyes on the television because she could not bear to see more.
He stood and moved to cross the room, his smile lighting him up.
“I went to the clinic in the city.”
He stopped then. Just short of her.
“I went there to make it go away. I’m sorry. But I have to be honest. Because if we’re not honest then—”
She was not prepared for the punch.
During her training Saint had worked a placement in Uniform Crime Reporting, another in Victim Assistance. She’d shadowed an agent named Dana Cowell over three of the most harrowing weeks. Nights spent in the emergency room watching shells of women condemned to a life of eternal shock. Sometimes there were blackened eyes and swollen lips, handprints in blues and reds. Sometimes there were drugs and alcohol, more often than not there was sexual assault. She saw the subhuman levels of men, those who took so much, not realizing how little they left behind. And she saw the toll it took on Dana, who had once told her all men had to diffuse their guilt before the crime had even been committed. Capability was enough. Trust was the hardest of earns.
As Jimmy knocked her to the floor in a fit of blind rage and she curled herself up.
As he followed his flurry of punches with kicks.
Saint closed her eyes and found Patch’s face.
And through her tears she cried out for him to help her.
Like he did when they were small.