Re: [Road: Holly NW and Audrey C]
She said one thing. Scared. Okay, got it, and, again, he wished Noah was there. Noah would say the right things, and make her feel better, but, Holly? Holly just drove. Fingers gripping the steering wheel harder, and he was trying to think about, like, life after this. See, Noah said it was selfish to make this Audrey thing about himself, about Noah, but Holly knew better. He knew that surviving? Was all about making shit about yourself, about doing whatever the fuck you needed to in order to feel better when life went sideways. And this? This was definitely life pivoting. No fucking way this wasn't going to mess with people, and Holly? For Holly, getting past it meant truly believing that there was going to be a time when shit happened after this. So, right. She was scared.
He turned into the parking lot, and he pulled up in front of the ER, and he kept the engine running as he climbed out of the Jeep and went around to the other side. There was a night guard outside, and he told the guy to go get a nurse or something, which the guy did. And out came a nurse, wheelchair being pushed in front of her, and she helped load Audrey into it.
Holly followed, and he told the nurse what he knew, right? She was Audrey Carpenter. She'd been missing like a week, and he'd found her in the road on his way home. Would he wait for officers, to answer their questions? Sure. Of course he would, and they wheeled Audrey off.
He stood there, hands shoved deep into his pockets, and he was impressed at how quickly the cops crossed the road and walked through the ER doors. They went back to a room, and Holly repeated everything he'd told the nurse. He gave them his ID, his military commander's name, and he repeated everything enough times that he knew they were looking for inconsistencies in his story; there weren't any, and at one point the nurse came back and said they were going to keep Audrey there. They didn't tell him why, but he wasn't surprised.
The cops were over there talking about kidnapping, and Holly knew someone was going to get in massive shit for this; he just didn't want it to be him. In that moment, he felt bad for poor fucking Hugh, right? He was pretty sure Audrey had been with that guy last, and Holly didn't think Hugh had it in him to do anything to anyone. Hugh kinda seemed like the type of guy who wouldn't want to get dirt, much less blood, on his shoes.
But, yeah, yeah, he'd stick around. No, he wasn't going to leave town. Yeah, here was his number, you know, if any other questions came up. And he was suddenly crazy-glad Noah was the one contacting people. He assumed Noah was out there, in the waiting room, and he was absofuckinglutely going to drag the guy somewhere safe and, like, private once this was done.