Page 61 of Betraying Bexley

“Good. Then we’re here.” The elevator dinged and the doors opened. “My wife is a doctor. She’s the one who set your wrist.” Asher stepped out onto the floor and motioned for Bex to follow. “Since you’re here, Rae can take a look at that arm of yours.”

“W-What?” Bex followed behind Asher. “S-She did this?”

They stepped in front of a glass front office. Doc Rae sat behind a desk writing in one of the charts she kept on all of them. When Asher knocked, she glanced up and smiled. It made Alé ache with yearning. He hoped one day, maybe soon, Bex would smile at him with such love and adoration. Doc Rae stood then crossed to them. She opened the door and gasped when she saw Bex.

“How?” She looked to Asher first then Alé.

“It’s my fault,” Alé said. “I thought she might get a kick out of being here.”

Asher pointed to her cast. “You were bitching at me the other day about her arm. So, here’s your chance.”

“Asher Rainer! Language.” Doc Rae fisted her hands on her hips.

Alé chuckled. “I hadn’t given it a second thought and now I feel like a dick.”

“N-No. I-I...” Bex fisted her hands at her side. “It’s f-fine.”

“Pfft.” Doc Rae waved her off. “Let’s get your wrist looked at. This time if we need to recast it, we can use cool camo tape.”

“I-I d-don’t want t-to p-put you out.”

"Nonsense." She gave Alé a pointed stare. "We'll be done in a half-hour. Go talk with everyone."

Alé looked to Bex. If she didn’t feel comfortable with Doc Rae, he’d insist on staying. Instead, she followed Doc Rae into the office, leaving him with everyone else. It’d gone better than he’d imagined it would. Of course, he hadn’t told her the truth of why he knew about the base and why he brought Bex there. The bubble he’d built around them could burst any minute.

“Well,” Asher said. “You heard her. Let’s go.”

“Shouldn’t we wait?” He hooked his thumb at the door.

“This is Rae’s space. I don’t rock the boat here. You shouldn’t either. Come on.” Asher started for the elevator. “She’ll bring Bex to us when she’s done.”

Bex sat in the chair the woman pointed to. Everything was happening fast. Too fast. She had questions she wanted to ask but wasn't sure how to voice them. Like, how did Alé know about this place? Or how did he know about AJ and Scotty and Noah? A niggle of worry chased her confusion. What if she shouldn't be there.

“It’s good to meet you officially,” Dr. Rae said. “You’ve worried the hell out of people.”

Bex frowned. “Uh...”

“It’s okay.” Dr. Rae patted her hand. “I bet you have tons of questions. I can answer some, but for the hard ones, you have to ask Alé.”

“I-I d-don’t understand.”

Dr. Rae frowned. “Neither do I. We’ll figure it out together.” She sat down across from Bex. “Now, how about you show me your arm.”

She tugged off her sweater and placed her hand in Dr. Rae's. The cast was a daily reminder of what she endured. Though she might have pushed away some of her dark thoughts, nothing cured the deep-seated hatred she had for herself and her father. She glanced at the drawing Jacolbi left for her to decorate the plain cast and frowned. It was dirty, stained from being shoved to the ground by Kenner.

“How does it feel?” Dr. Rae’s question snatched Bex’s attention. “Any soreness or pain?”

Bex frowned, shaking her head.

“On a scale of one to ten with ten being the worst pain you’ve ever felt, where are you today?”

Pain was a relative concept for Bex. She learned early on not to show how much anything hurt. It usually led to a vicious cycle of being beaten and asked the same question time and time again until she learned not to say a word and hide it all away. Bex liked to think of it as a small compartment in her mind. She put all the abuse and pain in a box and tucked it away. She desensitized herself to it. Learned to take everything her father gave her without giving him the ounce of satisfaction he craved when she cried. She had been inside the endless loop of torture for so long, she couldn't say remember the last time she shed a tear.

“Bex?”

She glanced up at Dr. Rae and sighed. “T-Two.”

Dr. Rae frowned. “Are you sure?”

---