Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

Ivy

I’m shaking as I drive home, my rage at Knox tangling with my rage at that useless sack of a principal.

My baby is hurting and scared.

My baby was shoved down by a boy in her class.

My baby was hurt by that boy.

Why does this shit always happen?

“Mom?” she whispers halfway through our drive home.

I slide to a stop at a signal, flick my eyes up to meet hers in the reflection of the rearview mirror. “Yeah, love bug?”

“Are you mad at me?”

My lungs squeeze so hard that black edges into the sides of my vision.

How do I fix this?

How do I help her understand this isn’t her fault?

How do I protect her?

…get the kid some ice cream and remind her that you love her no matter what.

The man is beyond presumptuous, and I’m equal parts furious and embarrassed that he followed me, that he heard me being absolutely fucking useless in that situation, so much so that he had to step in.

And…I’m grateful that he did step in.

Which makes me even more embarrassed.

And furious.

And…

I exhale, start with the biggest problem in front of me.

Making sure she knows she did nothing wrong.

“No, baby. I’m upset that James hurt you, upset that Ms. Hearst was being unfair, but nothing that happened was your fault, and I’m absolutely one-hundred percent not mad at you.”

“O-okay,” she whispers.

That out of the way, I check the road for cars, whip us around, and head in the other direction.

It doesn’t take long to reach the ice cream parlor, and after I pull into the parking lot, I don’t get out. Instead, I pat the passenger’s seat and invite my little girl, my heart, my reason for living for so, so long to do her favorite thing?—

Sit up front like a big girl.

“Really?” she asks, her eyes, even the one with the blooming bruise surrounding it, going wide.

I nod, and she quickly unbuckles from her booster then climbs over the center console, dropping down into the passenger’s seat.

I spin so I can see her fully.

“Baby,” I begin.

Her face falls. “You are mad.”

I grasp her shoulders, turning her toward me. “I’m not mad,” I tell her. “I’m so proud of you.”

“What?”

“You tried to avoid a fight, baby,” I remind her. “And when you couldn’t, when he was hurting you and the people you care about, you stood up for yourself. How can I be anything but proud?”

Her eyes fill up with tears. “He started crying and ran to Mrs. Donovan”—the yard duty—“and then I got sent to Ms. Hearst’s office and she was mad at me. She wouldn’t even let the nurse give me a bag of ice.”

The rage that’s been boiling in my belly threatens to boil over. “Is your eye hurting a lot, honey?”

She shrugs. “Not really.”

My tough cookie.

I want to smile, to hug her tight, but I need her to know that I mean this first. “I love you, and you are strong and smart and incredibly brave. I don’t know if I would have been able to do what you did.”

“You don’t?”

I shake my head. “No, baby. Sometimes I get really scared and I freeze, and then later I think about all the things I wish I’d said or did.”

Like in that office.

Shove it down. Shove it all down.

Her eyes go wide. “I felt like that. When Mrs. Donovan got mad at me and then I had to wait in Ms. Hearst’s office for you. I kept thinking I should have done stuff different.”

“That doesn’t feel very good, does it?” I wrinkle my nose, taking the opportunity to seize some levity.

She wrinkles hers in turn. “Nope.”

“But you know what does?”

A shake of her head. “Nope,” she says again.

I point through the windshield, see the moment she realizes where we’re at.

“Really?”

“Root beer floats are the best medicine for a bad day.”

Finally the last of the sadness in her fades away. “Can we get extra whipped cream?”

“Is it even a root beer float if we don’t have extra whipped cream?”

A third “Nope.” And she practically vibrates with excitement as we get out of the car and make our way inside, as we sit down and order the milkshake.

“Why was Knox there?”

Every cell in my body freezes, but I manage to squeeze out a semi normal sounding, “Hmm?”

“Why did Knox come with you to school?”

I know that I’ll only get her to drop this if I give her some semblance of the truth. “He was with me when the office called. He saw I was worried, so he followed me over to make sure we were both okay.”

Something like excitement crosses her eyes, making my stomach twist.

But before I can temper that emotion, our server comes by and sets the huge dessert between us.

Then we’re too busy devouring the root beer float that’s bigger than both of our heads to talk about James or Ms. Hearst or school or men .

Thank God for small miracles.

But that’s the thing about small miracles.

They’re small.

And short-lived.

As I find out when we get home.

Evie’s settling into her nighttime routine, and I hop on my laptop, intending to email the principal and tell her that Evie won’t be back in until a plan to keep her safe is put in place, when I see an email from Knox.

Irritation flares. Along with embarrassment. And a hint of tenderness that I pretend not to feel.

Especially when I open the message and see that he’s pulled the contact information for the school board and superintendent and that he really did speak to the Sierra’s legal team…

And a woman named Tera has drafted a nastygram of epic proportions that I can’t possibly hope to top.

Fury.

I’m furious at him.

But as I scan that email, I’m also grateful.

That he crossed the boundaries, that he stood up for Evie to Ms. Hearst. That he’s now given me these resources.

And I’m not so stubborn that I’ll purposely withhold help from my daughter just to avoid a helping hand.

Even if that hand comes from someone as dangerous as Knox.

So, I wait until Evie’s had her bath, until I’ve put some arnica cream to soothe the bruise around her eye and given her some pain medicine to help the headache that’s creeping in (and I do all of this while also sneaking some pictures of the injuries James caused her, as Tera from the legal team advised in that note Knox forwarded). I wait until all of that is done and Evie’s fallen asleep in my bed (because we both need that closeness tonight) to step beyond the fury, albeit just for a moment.

I copy and paste the pertinent parts from the legal team and send my email to Ms. Hearst, cc’ing every higher up from the superintendent on up to the school board, only pausing to take note of the superintendent’s last name.

Because it’s the same as one of my private client’s.

And if there is a connection there…

Well, I’ll use that too.

And then there’s no putting it off.

I reply to Knox.

I thank Knox.

And I do it knowing I’ve exposed a huge chink in my armor to the person who, very likely, can hurt me deeper than anyone’s ever done before.