Page 93 of Born to Scar

“Cam, is that the important thing right now?”

“Yes.” He doesn’t blink an eye. “I will never be left in the dark like that again. For either of you. It’s the only legal way.”

“What about you?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “Fine. All of us.” He pulls out his phone.

“What are you doing?” Indy asks.

“Getting Barb to send me the paperwork.”

Indy chuckles again. The most beautiful sound on this earth. “Okay,” she murmurs, knowing he won’t let her fight this. When attorney Cam comes out, it’s game over for both of us. He doesn’t pull that card out often though. He at least usually gives us a chance to fight him.

“I’m going to do this right. I want to heal. I don’t want to run anymore. I don’t want to hate myself anymore,” she whispers. You could hear a pin drop in the silence that lingers in the room. Hurt rushes my veins.

“Indy,” I whisper.

“It’s not true, you know, when they say you can’t love anyone else if you don’t love yourself first.” She peers up, her eyes moving between the three of us. “I love you, and in all the time that I’ve known you, I’ve never loved myself.”

What the fuck do I say to that?

“We’ll love you enough while you learn to love yourself, Indy,” Mik whispers. Cam and I turn to look at him with our mouths on the floor. He shrugs. “I can be profound and sincere, too.”

Indy snorts a laugh. “Of course you can, Mik. The only two who didn’t know that are them.” She points between Cam and me.

There’s a knock at the door, and Lainy pops her head in. “There are several other people out here who’d like to see you.”

Bik and Ray shove through with Kia and Felipe following. Ken and Lainy come in together a few moments later. There are only supposed to be four people in here, but I don’t think they’ll give us too much shit. We’ve been here a long fucking time waiting to see her.

A nurse walks in, looks around, cocks a brow, and shakes her head. “I’m guessing I’d be hard pressed in getting you all to abide by the maximum visitors rule, so I’ll give you a few more minutes. But we need to do some more testing, and then Dr. Reese will want to see Indy and a Mr. Ken Moore.” She looks around. Ken nods his head, and she nods hers in acknowledgement.

Indy stayed in the hospital for five days. When she’s released, she has the next three months of appointments set with Dr. Reese. They’ll be video calls because Reese is one of the best in the world, so she’s not based here. I’m lucky she had an opening. Or maybe, after she read Indy’s file, she made an opening. Either way, I’m thankful for it.

We took off work to stay with her. I had a backlog of time off, so it was easy for me. Cam’s job is much more demanding and much harder to get unexpected time off from. He’s still had to do some work via video conference. We even overheard a meeting with a judge and got to hear how he presents in court. I think Indy was turned on by how authoritative he was. Hell, so was I. It was hot.

I bought Indy some clothes from a local shop. The hospital has clothes for cases like hers, but I figured she’d rather have her own. Plus, I needed some alone time. This week has been a constant stream of battles. But she’s getting better every day.

There’s going to be a party at the Cat tonight for her, a welcome home of sorts. Everyone has missed her, but they had to get back to their lives, as much as they wanted to stay.

After she’s released, we head home first. She wants to take a real shower in her shower. She knows everything that happened while she was lost inside her head. She found out most of it in her therapy sessions. But we told her some from our side, too. She loves the part where Cam smoked her father. She wishes she could remember it.

They’ve already arrested Chief Dolton and multiple doctors. Additional charges have been added to Ricky Halloway’s list: murder, coercion, assault, and rape. The test came back positive for his DNA…and for mine. When they came in asking about a possible second attacker, I had my mouth swabbed. We fucked that morning; of course, mine was still there.

When this goes to trial, Ken is trying his damnedest to make it so that she doesn’t have to testify. With help from Dr. Reese, hopefully, they can make that happen. Either way, she wants to be there at every court date. She wants to watch everyone who ever hurt her finally get what they deserve.

She heads straight up the stairs to the shower. I look around my house. Someone cleaned up. There was food and dishes everywhere when our entire world turned upside down. In the group text, I thank whoever cleaned up. I should have known, but it was Lain and Kia who respond.

Cam crowds in behind me, pressing a soft open kiss to my neck. A soft hum vibrates from my throat. “I’m glad we’re home,” he whispers into my skin.

“Maybe we can start getting back to normal now,” I say. With a quick peck, he pulls away, and I let him.

The bathroom door is shut with the water running. I knock.

“You can come in. You don’t need to knock.”

Through the glass and steam, I see her body on the floor. I jerk the shower door open, making her jump. “Are you okay?”

Seeing her down there scares the shit out of me. Ray told me when we first started seeing each other, before she even stayed over, to check the temperature the water heater went up to.