Week 160 – Light as a feather

Jax hurried through the hospital’s parking lot towards the alley. A call had gone in to the 911 dispatchers that someone had seen a woman being yanked into an alley, and since his boss knew he was here at the hospital with his partner Dean, and Dean’s ex-and-now-current-girlfriend Tayla, he’d asked him to go and check it out.

It was getting dark, the mid-fall evening was cold, and after the rough couple of days he’d had he just wanted to head home and chill out. But if someone was in trouble he wasn’t going to say no.

Hand on his weapon, which was holstered at his waist, he approached the alley. As soon as he entered he saw the small heap lying about halfway down.

His heart rate picked up, and he had to remind himself to clear the space before he ran to whoever had just been attacked. Methodically he worked his way down to the end of the alley, making sure no one was hiding behind the dumpster or in any of the doorways.

When he’d cleared the alley he ran to the body, pulling his phone from his pocket as he went. “Dean, get someone to tell the ER to send a gurney to the third alley on the right side of the parking lot, I have a body,” he said without preamble, then immediately shoved the phone back into his pocket as he skidded to his knees beside the small body.

A mass of light brown curls partially obscured the face, but a sinking feeling in his gut told him who he was going to find before he gently brushed them away.

Mackenzie.

He’d met Tayla’s colleague when he and his partner had gone to question Tayla about a couple of murders that had been staged as suicides. Mackenzie was tiny, barely five feet tall, with wild brown curls, dark blue eyes, and a personality that was bigger than she was. She’d helped him and Dean locate Tayla, and had been at the hospital with them just thirty minutes ago. He remembered her announcing she was leaving to take a cab home, had even toyed with the idea that she should offer her a ride but had decided against it because he wasn’t looking to hook up with anyone and the beautiful woman was enough to tempt him into forgetting why he had vowed to remain single.

Once burned twice shy.

Now because of his decision she was lying in an alley, a large gas on her forehead, blood streaked down her face, unconscious, the jeans she had been wearing shoved halfway down her legs.

Jax cursed. “Mackenzie, I’m so sorry, baby,” he whispered as he pressed two fingertips to her slender neck to check for a pulse. It was there but weak, and her skin was ice cold to the touch, not wanting to wait for doctors and nurses to arrive he scooped the tiny bundle into his arms. Despite the fact that she was unconscious and a dead wait she was light as a feather in his grip, so small, so vulnerable, and thanks to him about to wake up to the worst nightmare a woman could find herself in.

That she had been attacked was squarely on him.

His messed up love life had left him wary and because of that he had neglected to do the right thing and make sure that Mackenzie made it home safely.

“I’m so sorry, sweetheart,” he murmured as he carried her towards the ER. “I’ll find the man who hurt you, I swear I will.”