Chapter 6

Lester's POV

My heart constricted as I watched Larissa's expression turn from one of quiet apprehension as she watched Jerry swab the inside of my and Bobby's cheeks to sheer terror when Jerry approached with a third swab at the ready. We'd decided to go first so that she could see that it didn't hurt and wasn't uncomfortable in any way, but by the time Jerry was within reach of her, she was thrashing on Denise's lap, shaking her head vehemently and breathing heavily. Jerry paused with everything held aloft, waiting for her to calm down, but Denise's meagre efforts weren't doing much. If anything she was making things worse, trying to restrain her rather than trying to ease her mind and assure her everything was all right.

Bobby and I stood off to the side, not wanting to approach and make things worse, but when Denise finally grabbed Larissa's head in both hands, one on her forehead, one on her chin, bracing it against her chest and forcing the girl's lips to part, it was the final straw for me. That was no way to treat a child.

"Quick," Denise instructed Jerry as Larissa started crying. "I can't hold her long."

"Let her go," I intoned, stepping between Jerry and Denise and receiving a flashing shoe to the thigh mere inches from my crotch for my efforts. I paid it no mind, though. She didn't mean anything by it. She was freaking out and being held down against her will.

Denise's grip didn't appear to loosen in the slightest, "She doesn't like medical stuff," Denise bit out. "This is the only way to get it done."

"She's clearly terrified," I pointed out. "You can't tell me there aren't better ways to get through this. Let. Her. Go."

Denise's eyes flashed. "If I let her go, she'll bolt, or she'll destroy this lab. If I hold her for another minute, then your guy there can stick the swab in her mouth and we can all call it a day."

"Release her," I repeated. And when she failed to comply, I found myself reaching forward, easily dislodging Denise's hands from where they still gripped Larissa's head and scooped her off the woman's lap. I tried to hold her loosely, soothing her quietly the way I did when my nieces and nephews were upset, but she was still writhing and crying, getting louder and wilder by the second until suddenly she was planking in my arms. Stiff as a board and horizontal.

"Outside," Bobby said quietly, jerking his head toward the door we'd entered through.

I glanced around to check that my path was clear, noting that Jerry had stepped away and was busying himself with some paperwork while the other lab technician was sending furtive glances our way. Probably, she wasn't used to this kind of spectacle since I was pretty sure coming to the lab as we'd done was unconventional. Bobby was already halfway to the door, knowing I would follow or verbalise a reason why I couldn't, wouldn't or shouldn't. Larissa was still flailing in my arms, and as I took my first step away from her, Denise commenced cussing me out.

"You can't take her away!" she cried. "You have no right! Put her the fuck down." She surged out of the chair she'd been seated in, likely thinking she could force me to put her down, but I was already striding toward the door Bobby was holding open. If she wanted to try she could, but I'd taken down bigger opponents than her with a broken leg, and both my hands tied behind my back.

"We're not taking her away from you," Bobby assured her calmly, though I could see the subtle hints that his temper was rising to dangerous levels. You don't swear in front of kids, especially not in Bobby's presence. "We're removing her from the environment so she has a chance to calm down. It's not healthy for her to get so worked up over such a small procedure, and restraining her is only going to make it worse."

Out in the hall, I started speaking softly to Larissa, letting her know she was okay, that she was safe, never raising my voice above a murmur even when her pitch and volume rose. She continued to jerk in my arms, and Denise and Bobby continued to argue, which I don't think was helping the situation. I caught Bobby's eye and he gave me the signal to put her down, so I did, slowly descending to my knees and depositing her on the floor.

Once she was free of my arms, I sat back, shuffling to the side of the corridor so I was mostly out of the way, leaving Larissa lying flat on her stomach in the middle of the space, her face red from crying.

Ignoring Denise's glares and protests, Bobby sat down beside me, so close our shoulders were touching. He squeezed my knee and let out a slow breath, probably absorbing my energy as much as I was his.

"How long does she usually take to calm down?" he asked quietly. It was obviously directed at Denise, because how the hell would I know, having only met the kid twenty minutes ago, but he didn't take his eyes off Larissa. Cataloguing her every little change, shift, movement, both physically and aurally, collecting pieces of a puzzle.

"I don't know," Denise said. "I'm not exactly the one who usually does this stuff with her."

"No," I agreed, matching Bobby's tone. "But you've seen her have meltdowns before. You know what she's like. You have an idea."

Denise was stoney faced, looking down at us before cutting her eyes to Larissa who's noise was already starting to die down. "Five minutes, I guess?" She shrugged. "Winnie was really good at, like, diffusing the situation. I don't know how she managed it."

I nodded and we fell silent until Larissa's crying died down, leaving her sniffling and rubbing her eyes as she pulled her knees up under her, before straightening up. She looked blearily around at her surroundings, giving us all the side eye.

"That was pretty scary, huh?" I said when I felt sure she was back in control. "You didn't like it?"

"No," she responded, crossing her arms over her chest in a huff. "Bad Michael soap. It made bad to go in time out."

I nodded again. "Yeah, we don't need to go back in there," I assured her. "You're safe."

"But you still need the DNA sample to do the test," Denise pointed out, still standing in the middle of the hallway. "Or have you decided to give up?"

There was a hopeful spark in her eye that made me wonder if part of Larissa's performance had been deliberately orchestrated to discourage us from seeking the truth about her parentage. She'd been up front about the fact that she hadn't known anything about Larissa's possible father(s) when she'd initially dropped the bomb on us. Winnie had kept it under lock and key, leading Denise to assume she didn't know herself until the reading of the will. If she'd spent the last three weeks since Winnie's death assuming she was the closest thing to a family Larissa had left, then I wouldn't be surprised if she felt threatened by Bobby's and my sudden interest in the girl. She must be afraid of losing the last piece of her friend left in the world.

"I'm not going to traumatise the child just to get the sample," Bobby said, glancing at Denise when Larissa did. "Jerry gave me a couple of kits, and I'd like to try to work with her to get her comfortable with it so we can take the swab without having to restrain her."

"Or we could just do it while she's asleep?" she suggested with a single raised eyebrow, like we were being stupid about this whole thing.

"How would you like it if someone swabbed your cheek while you slept?" I countered, returning her raised eyebrow with one of my own. "You don't think that's a violation?"

She threw up her hands, a derisive sound emitting her throat as she started pacing. "Of course it's a violation!" she exclaimed, and I noticed out of the corner of my eye that Larissa clapped her hands over her ears when the woman's voice rose to that shrill pitch. "But I'm an adult. She's only four."

"She's still a human being," Bobby stated. Through our connection, I could feel the tension winding tighter and tighter in his body, his fingers digging into my leg slightly. We were verging too close to territory that was hard to come back from, and I couldn't blame him, I was about three seconds from carrying this child out of here and away from this woman. The only thing stopping me was the knowledge that that would be kidnapping, and I really didn't need to go to jail right now. The sooner we could end this discussion and move on, the better.

Averting my attention back to the little girl in question, I tried to think of ways that might kick start getting her comfortable with the medical stuff now. Distracting myself as much as her, because the way she was eyeing us all did not I still confidence that we were winning her favour. "Your kits come with gloves?" I asked, digging in my pocket for a pen.

"Course," he responded, retrieving a pair from his cargo pocket and handing them to me without question.

I put one on my left hand and held the other out to Larissa. She took it and held it delicately between her fingers, plucking at it slightly and pursing her lips. "Do you know what that is?" I asked after a moment.

"Uh-oh glove," she said, pointing to a small scar on her thigh where her shorts had risen up slightly in all her flailing. I interpreted that to mean that they were worn when she had an 'uh-oh' moment, such as an injury that would cause the scar.

"Uh-oh glove?" I asked, affecting a surprised tone and keeping my face as open and comical as possible. "Larissa, this is a chicken!"

Her frown was deep and serious as she looked from me and the glove on my hand to the one she was still playing with. Clearly unconvinced.

"Here, I'll show you," I said, holding out my hand for her to pass the glove back. She tossed it toward my hand and it landed with a little thwap on the concrete floor. I picked it up and used my pen to scribe a few details on it before blowing it up and tying it off. "See?" I said, presenting it to her proudly. "A chicken."

"Tha's not chicken," she laughed, holding it between her hands, carefully not to grab it too hard. After a second, her fingers scraped across the surface a few times, emitting that god awful balloon squeaking noise that I hated and Bobby absolutely loathed. I felt his repressed shiver where his shoulder met mine, but ignored it, forging on ahead.

"What are you talking about!?" I exclaimed, leaning into the silly side I pulled out when I was entertaining kids, and throwing my hands wide. "Look, it's got a beak, and eyes, and…. this thing." I turned to Bobby, pointing to the four fingers on top. "What's this thing called again?"

There was a gentle smile on his face as he replied easily, "A comb."

"A comb!" I repeated to Larissa, taking it back from her and dragging the four fingers across my hair. "Like this?"

Larissa shook her head adamantly, grinning from ear to ear. "No!" she giggled, and to my surprise the others were also laughing. Apparently, I should have been a comedian.

I frowned and looked from the glove balloon to Larissa to Bobby, still rubbing the fingers over my hair spikes and hoping against hope that I wasn't doing irreparable damage. "So, it's not a comb?" I asked.

Bobby shook his head, still smiling, but I could see the lingering worry in his eyes. "The funny thing on top of the head is called a comb," he said, splaying his fingers on top of his head and wiggling them a little to show what he was referring to. "But it's not the same as a hair comb. It's too floppy."

When I dropped the glove to my lap, arranging my expression into something like disappointment, Larissa scooted forward on her knees, coming right up close and slowly reaching out, her smile more tentative now as she kept watch on me out of the corner of her eye. I let her grab the balloon and when she sat back with it, she started rubbing it into her own frizzy curls. "Look Auntie Dee Dee! Comb!"

Denise nodded in return, a wide yawn dragging itself out of her mouth. "Crazy kid," she muttered when she recovered. "You think you're funny?"

Larissa jumped up with the kind of energy that only young children and circus performers were gifted and pointed at me, her finger mere inches from my nose as her little butt wiggled side to side. "Legs is funny!" she proclaimed, and proceeded to explain… something to Denise, though her apparent excitement made her speech faster, and with speed, accuracy seemed to disappear, making her words garbled.

Bobby leaned more heavily against my side, his grinning face taking up the space that Larissa's finger had just been in, making me want to kiss him. "I don't think you're gonna shake that nickname any time soon, Legs," he teased, laying a quick peck on the tip of my nose. He was probably right. We'd tried to explain the right way to say it the first couple times she'd called me Legs, but it obviously hadn't stuck.

"I've been called worse," I pointed out, looking past him to where Larissa and Denise were playing with the chicken. "Are you gonna try-"

He shook his head, already knowing what I was going to ask. "Not today," he murmured, turning to join the viewing. "I wanna build trust before trying again. I think the chicken was a good first step, but more work needs to be done before I'll feel comfortable trying to swab her." With that, he squeezed my knee again and surged to his feet, offering me a hand to haul me up as well. "We should get going or we'll be late for work," he said to Denise who looked up from Larissa with wide eyes.

"You don't want to-?" she started, dipping her head toward the child.

"We'd love to catch up for dinner," he said, like that's what he thought she was asking. She clearly wasn't, and he knew it, but we weren't going to acknowledge that little bit of manipulation. We needed the DNA test, and since there was a chance there'd be a positive match, we didn't want to create negative associations with us and the trauma she experienced with the medical procedure. "Are you free tonight?"

"Oh, um… I… 'Rissa's bedtime is seven o'clock and she's gotta have a bath before that so we'd have to-"

"We can meet at five or five thirty," I suggested easily. "It's not a problem." And stooping down, I pulled a little dirty trick of my own. "Larissa, what's your favourite food?"

Rather than tell me with words, she let out a mighty, but high-pitched roar, holding up her hands - one with the chicken glove and one without - at chest height and stomping around.

"Dino nuggets and fries," Denise sighed, pinching her nose. Something told me her lack of sleep and the stress of the last twenty minutes was wearing her patience thin. And thin patience often went hand in hand with one of two types of resistance: thin, or iron-clad. I was hoping for thin.

"They make dinosaur nuggets?" I asked incredulously, looking at Bobby with bright, excited eyes.

"Don't look at me like that," he said, shaking his head. "You're the one who does the groceries. If anyone should have known about dinosaur nuggets, it's you." There was a warning in his eyes, reminding me that all nuggets were processed crap from the worst parts of the chicken. Not that I needed the reminder, I wasn't gonna go out and buy dino nuggets for our own dinner. I knew better than that. It wasn't the kind of junk he'd set his rules aside for like the other stuff I brought home.

I quirked an eyebrow at him reassuringly, returning my attention to the dinosaur imitator at my hip as I started back down the hall toward the elevator, forcing everyone to follow along or be left behind. "Are they made from real dinosaurs?"

"It's chicken!" Larissa cried, holding up the glove and clucking madly at me.

"Like this chicken?" I asked, poking the thumb-beak. "Seems like it would be kinda chewy."

"No!" she giggled, reefing the glove back away from me like she thought I was gonna try and eat it. "A real chicken!"

"Why are they called dino nuggets, then?" Bobby questioned. He hit the button for the elevator and miraculously, the doors sprung open, not an occurrence we were used to happening outside of the Rangeman building when we were with Steph. The guys liked to keep the elevator ready on whatever floor she was on as much as possible so she didn't have to wait. It was a small gesture to help brighten her day, especially when she'd had a hard time with her skips.

We stepped inside and Larissa repeated her little hesitating hop step to get on board. "They're shaped like dinosaurs," Denise said with an eye roll. I didn't know if she thought I was an idiot, or she was just done with being awake. Possibly both, but it didn't bother me.

"I like stegusses best," Larissa said, bracing herself under the railing at the edge of the elevator just like she had on the way down, only this time there was a rubber glove chicken sticking out at an odd angle. She even tried to lick it again, which Denise stopped with another half-hearted hand over her face.

Larissa must have licked her hand instead, because a second later, she jerked it away, a disgusted groan escaping her as she wiped her hand on her sweats, frowning down at the giggling kid. "You're so gross."