Smash!

•T H I R T Y T W O•

Jamie's POV

"Bye." Riley doesn't meet my eyes.

"Be careful." I mumble as I climb out of his car, but I doubt he heard me as he speeds away to start his hunt for Robin. I watch his red brake lights fade into the pitch darkness of this horrible night. Though, it's not night anymore, it's three am by now. I linger at the edge of the icy curb for another moment, intently watching the corner where Riley's blue car disappeared at.

There's not one car on the road. My breath hovers in smoky clouds in front of my freckled cheeks, while I tightly hug myself for warmth. The absolute silence feels heavy on my ears, making the dark, empty streets too still. Feeling the harsh cold seep through my clothes, I try not to worry about Robin or Riley. The cold getting unbearable, I retreat into the warmth of the apartment building, shivering as I climb the nine stacks of stairs.

At the top step, I nearly fall to a plummeting downfall. Sitting against my apartment door, Robin is supported by the wall and surrounded by cigarette butts littering the floor. A familiar blonde woman is asleep in Robin's lap, restlessly stirring about.

"Took you long enough." Robin sighs, looking exhausted.

"We've been looking for you all night." Pulling my coat off, I drop it around the sleeping lady like a makeshift blanket.

"Shhh, she's finally asleep." Robin gingerly rests her finger against her chapped lips to signal quiet. "She's been frantic since I knocked out her pathetic excuse for a husband at the bar." Up close, I can see bruises peaking from under the woman's clothes. Her young face looks aged and strained with worry lines and anxiety.

"When I went back for her... geez... you should have seen it, Freckles. A complete shit show. Someone called the police. The bartender wasn't cooperating for questioning. There was a crowd, but all the people who witnessed either blotted or just making everything worse by exghaughting to the cops." Robin tells.

"I found her being cornered in an ambulance. The cops kept questioning her while her husband was knocked out on a gurney. He was knocked the fuck off." Robin informs with a tired look in her blue eyes, even her precise smoky eye makeup is smudged, and can't hide the purple bags under her eyes.

"When the cops weren't looking, I chanced it." Robin continues her story, pulling off a triumphant smirk. "Surprisingly freckles, she didn't give me up to the cops, and didn't go to the hospital with her husband. She..." Robin shoots the sleeping woman a proud look. "She took one look at me, didn't turn me in, told that piece of unconscious shit how much she hates him, and ran with me."

"Who is she?" I question, frantically digging through my pockets for my keys.

"Josie." Robin answers. "And Josie... she's a survivor, Freckles. She was too scared to stay at the hospital. She was too scared to go anywhere. She was too scared she might run into someone, so I brought her here. I promised her I'd take her to the safest place I knew, and we ended up here." My hands stop, my breath catches, my heart stills.

Did I hear that right?

This is where Robin feels safest? One night on my couch, in my cramped apartment, and this wild twenty something year old crawled up on the floor says this is her safe place?

"Can she stay the night? Josie just needs one night someplace safe, where her husband, or cop, or any other jackass can't find her. She has no where else to go, Freckles. If the buses hadn't stopped working for the night, I would have made sure she was on the next one out of town already." I never thought I'd see Robin beg. It's a strange sight- and unnerving sight.

"The answer is obviously yes, Robin." I know it's this, or the cold outside, and everything bad in the dark. For someone who works for everything I have, for someone who does double shifts, and pays her own bills, I know too well about having nothing to turn to but a park bench. Riley knows too. He was homeless till he meet me. He lived in his car, crashed on the mattresses of girls' he slept with to get by.