Here's the next little bit, a touch repetitive, but for a reason.
She couldn't believe she shot him.
She shot Erik Piston.
It was the only thing going through her mind.
She shot Erik Piston.
Out of all the people in the world, she shot Erik Piston.
She had sank to the ground and leaned back against her one tire, staring at disgust at the gun she held in her hands. Henry never should have given it to her.
She shot Erik Piston with it.
She was going to jail; he was certain to press charges. As if there hadn't been enough things that had gone wrong in her life already.
She didn't know how much she injured him, but he hadn't left yet.
She had shot him.
What was she thinking?
Why had she panicked enough to shoot him? She couldn't believe she had shot him. What had she been thinking?
She had only wanted him to leave her alone.
She didn't need his help. She could take care of herself.
She could change her own tire. Something that would have just been accepted when she was pretending to be a man. She wouldn't have needed babysitting then, even if it was late at night.
Why of all places for a flat tire to happen, was it where a Piston happened to be. She was trying to hide from anything Piston related, and now she shot one of them.
One of the important ones. Erik Piston.
She didn't hear the car, or notice the flashing lights. She hadn't noticed the crunch of boots on gravel either.
"Miss... Miss... Miss..." He put a hand on her shoulder, making her jump and finally hear what he was saying. "I need you to give me your gun. Will you give me your gun?"
She finally tore her gaze away from the weapon in her hands, looking at the officer crouched beside her, the same one who came across her earlier. Before looking back down at the gun she was still holding.
She thrust it towards him, and he gingerly took it from her grasp before bagging it.
"I'm going to need you to come with me Miss. Just until we can get everything figured out."
She offered her hands out to be cuffed.
"What are you doing?"
She furrowed her eyebrows.
"Aren't you going to handcuff me?"
"Are you going to try to run or fight me?"
She shook her head.
"Then if you're going to come willingly, I don't see the need to."
He offered her a hand to help her up and ushered her into the back of his patrol car.
Erik Piston was already sitting in the passenger side in the front.
She didn't speak as she was driven back into this town for the second time tonight, blankly staring out the window.
Piston was dropped off first before she was taken to the jail and placed in a cell.
"Do you have anyone to call Miss?"
"Hudson, Jessica Hudson. My brother is back east."
"Do you want to phone him now? Or wait until it's morning?"
"In the morning."
"I'll let you try to get some rest before then."
She laid down on the cot in the cell she was placed in, but she couldn't sleep.
All she could do was keep replaying the fact that she shot Erik Piston.
The longer and more she thought about it, the more her head hurt.
She doubted that Henry had actually expected her to shoot anyone. Let alone a Piston.
Her thoughts kept her awake, all while tossing and turning, until finally giving up and just sitting on the edge of the cot.
Henry was going to be so disappointed in her.
Why had he thought it was a good idea to give her a gun.
She knew he wanted her to be safe, but she could have been safe without a gun. Without a gun, she wouldn't have shot anyone.
She was exhausted by the time she got to make her phone call.
She was lead into a place that had to be someone's office to make her phone call in private.
She didn't understand why she wasn't being treated harsher, she had just shot someone only hours ago.
She tried Henry at the garage first. The phone rang about five times before he picked up.
"Smokey's-"
"Henry..."
"Jess? What's wrong! You sound exhausted. How long were you driving for?"
"Too long-"
"You can't keep doing that to yourself. Where are you now?"
"In Arizona, in a town called Radiator Springs... Henry... Henry... I shot Erik Piston. In the leg."
"You did what now?"
"I shot Erik Piston. In the leg."
"The full story Jessica, now."
The tears came as she described how the night before went.
How she wound up with a flat tire not far out of town and had been picked up by an officer then taken into town for the night. Only to come face to face with Erik Piston, leading her to immediately turning and nearly run back to her car to change her flat tire not wanting to hang around where there were Pistons.
"He just wouldn't leave me alone, and kept coming towards me... I had warned him to stop, to go away, to get back in his car and drive away, but he wouldn't..."
"Shh, Jess, it was self defence. You felt threatened and you protected yourself. Do you want me to come out there?"
"No... they haven't even charged me yet. They're just holding me."
She didn't know how long of a conversation she had with Henry, but she knew it was much longer than five minutes.
They had let her have a complete conversation with her brother.
She didn't know what to think when she was led back to her cell.