for as long as you need me.” Fear tightened his grip on my hand and I wished more than anything that I could take his pain away.
“I just want to get this done.” Nodding my understanding, I started the car and headed in the direction on Fifth Street.
The morgue was an extremely intimidating looking building, grey walls inside and out, hard looking furniture, even the people looked hard. Case in point was the woman sitting behind the bulletproof glass. She was not a happy camper. I realized that the environment didn’t lend itself to a party-like atmosphere, but the woman had to know that the people coming through her office were living their worst nightmares. A smile or comforting look was surely not asking too much, but if the scowl on the face of Grumpy Grumperson was anything to go by, that memo had not been received.
“I was asked to meet a Detective Unders here to identify a body.” GG, as I had nicknamed her, told us to take a seat and she’d let the detective know we’d arrived. We didn’t have to wait long before a very portly and oddly canine-looking man walked over to us. For fuck’s sake, did they all have to look so devoid of any feeling? We were there to find out if Fear’s mother had died; they could at least pretend to give a shit. Fear and I both stood when the detective approached, it didn’t escape my notice that he glanced down at our hands, which were still connected. I’d forgotten that we were holding hands. It felt so comfortable that I hadn’t even thought other people might have a problem with it. From the expression on Doggy Detective’s face, he was not impressed. Fear either didn’t notice the looks we were getting, or just didn’t care. Either way, he ignored them.
“Mr. Williams, I’m Detective Harris Unders. Could you follow me? I need you to confirm if the body recovered is in fact Mrs. Wilson and then I have some questions I need to ask you.” That didn’t sound good. Fear just nodded and told me he’d be right back. Watching them both walk away, my stomach dropped. I wanted to be there for him, but I knew that he wouldn’t want to show weakness in front of Detective Dickhead. God, that guy had rubbed me the wrong way in the few minutes I’d had the displeasure of spending in his company.
It wasn’t until hours later that the silence was shattered by a loud bang followed by a very scary and extremely pissed off Fear. “Let’s go,” was all he managed before he was out the door. What the fuck happened in there?
I found Fear pacing in front of my car. The waves of rage that were emanating from him were enough to stop me in my tracks. “Fear?” I called out. He stopped stalking, but didn’t face me.
“What happened?” I needed to know what I was dealing with. His phone rang, stopping whatever it was he was going to say. Fear’s hands were shaking so badly that he couldn’t push the buttons on his phone. Seeing him struggle was breaking my heart. Taking the phone from his hand and answering it for him was all I could think to do. It must have been the right thing, because one second I was saying hello to whoever was on the phone, and the next I was in Fear’s arms with his head tucked between my neck and shoulder.
“Fear’s phone.” The connection was really bad; I could just make out the distorted voice.
“Yeah, hi, this is John Masters. I’m trying to get ahold of my wife or Fear.” I could sense his panic even with the shitty connection. I tried to pull back so I could talk to the man who was currently holding me so tight I couldn’t move.
“Fear, it’s John. He can’t get ahold of Hayley. You need to talk to him.” Nothing. No movement or response. Wherever he was in his head, he was there so deep I wasn’t reaching him. “Baby, come on. John needs to know about Hayley and your mum.” The endearment surprised me, but he was scaring me. I was quickly realizing that my emotions were somehow tied to his and right now, they were all
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