Book 4: My Hands Are Tied (Axl Rose FanFic)

Ch. 7: Officer Stokes

"Axl gets this bad-rap crap. So he's made maybe one or two or three or four bad mistakes-he's done a million wonderful things." -Steven

"I thought I told you to keep it down a bit...."

His tone sounded forced, like he was trying to act laidback about the whole thing, but there was a discernible annoyance bubbling just below the surface.

"And I thought you said you had bigger fish to fry," I shot back, not even attempting to hide the ire in my own voice.

"Hey, Cook said that shit, not me. Either way, it wasn't meant to be a challenge."

"Well that's how I took it."

Even though my view of the front seat was somewhat obscured by the cage between Brett and I in the cop car, I could still tell that it was just the two of us in here. My frustrations grew.

"Where's the other one?" I asked, eyeing him as he began to fill out some forms in his pocketbook, which looked positively tiny in his massive palm.

"Who? Cook?" He sounded surprised that I was asking, let alone that I'd even noticed.

"Right. Your 'partner'," I practically spat the word. I didn't like using that word to describe their relationship. It sounded far too intimate for my liking.

He heaved a long, exasperated sigh before aggressively pushing his fingers through the short spikes of blond on top of his head. "That idiot...she got in trouble for what happened the other night. I did my best to cover for her, but obviously the dude blabbed about everything. It was our word against his, but since his account lined up with some of her previous actions, Chief was pissed."

I frowned, forgetting my own predicament for a moment and instead finding myself fretting over Cook. That didn't sound good. "Did she get fired or somethin'?"

Brett considered me a moment in the rearview before shaking his head. "Nah, ultimately they didn't have any proof of anything, but she's on parking meter duty for a while as a precautionary measure. She's lucky they didn't fire her crazy ass."

I relaxed a little bit-at least, as much as I could with the handcuffs still on. That was a relief at least. I remembered how passionate she'd been about protecting me, how seriously she had taken her position as a cop. It was obvious even in our short interaction that she truly cared about her position, and would probably be devastated to lose her job. It made me start to wonder again about what would cause her to risk that....

Brett was studying me carefully through the mirror still. I hadn't noticed until the prolonged silence in the car kind of snapped me out of my thoughts.

"What?" I demanded, catching myself and putting my angry face back on.

"Oh my god," Brett was grinning now like he'd just told a joke and was really proud of the delivery.

"What?" I scowled even harder. I had always hated feeling like the butt of a joke, but I hated Brett's look of satisfaction even more.

"You like her!" He bellowed, turning finally to face me directly through the barrier. "You have a crush on Bernie!"

Bernie. That must be her first name, or-more likely-a nickname for her first name. Now I was a little more jealous knowing that Brett could-and did-refer to her on a first name basis. It made sense, but I hadn't considered it until he'd said it. He probably knew her full fuckin' government name.