by Addison Jane
I shook my head. “No. You’re gonna go home and look after your fucking self.”
Shake stepped in instantly, his eyes meeting mine and giving me a knowing nod before slipping my son from my arms and walking away. I held my breath as I watched him go, meeting Meyah, Laken, and Angel at the edge of the police cordon, who quickly ushered him into the back of Meyah’s SUV.
“Come on, man,” Bandit urged, stepping forward and placing his hand on Adrian’s shoulder, giving it a hard squeeze.
Though his bloodshot eyes didn’t deviate from mine. “She was awake, conscious, not in too much pain. She’ll be okay,” he announced with confidence, his head bobbing up and down like he was noting the things to himself as well as to me.
“I know.”
That was all I could say.
There was nothing else.
AVERY
My throat was dry.
It tickled, and I tried to clear it, but each time I did, it just got worse.
I coughed, trying to fight that tingle, that twitch.
“Baby, drink.”
Shotgun?
I blinked, the bright lights fighting me.
Who the hell turned the sun on inside?
My vision slowly cleared, everything so fucking white. So clean. So fucking pristine. All except the shadowy figures standing over me. Maybe with all the shit I’d done in my life, I was finally headed to hell, and these were the demons sent to take me there.
Maybe I should have been scared.
Petrified.
But it was the shadows that gave me comfort. Their leather smell, the way they spoke, and even the touch of Shotgun’s rough, calloused hand in mine as he gave it a squeeze.
“Hey,” I croaked, trying to force a smile and instantly regretting it. My lip smarted, the split down the center what I remember being courtesy of my steering wheel, instantly splitting open again. “Damn,” I muttered, the vision I’d just been thankful for clearing now blurred by tears.
“Drink some water,” Shotgun ordered, holding a glass and maneuvering a straw into my mouth.
I sucked up a few mouthfuls, but I swear all I could taste was blood.
My blood.
God, I’d got it everywhere.
The wheel. The airbag. All down my cloth—
“Gage!” I gasped, my fingers clawing at Shotgun’s hand, my eyes looking up to meet his. “Is he…”
“Fine,” Shotgun placated me, pressing his hand to my head and forcing me to sink back into the bed. There was pain, and it was not fucking nice, but so far, it was bearable. “He got checked out and went home with the girls.”
It was the sigh of relief that got me.
The pain in my side forcing me to curl in on myself and squeeze my eyes shut. Shotgun didn’t let me go, allowing me to squeeze the crap out of his hand as I fought to find a comfortable position again.
“You’ve got a couple of bruised ribs. A sprained ankle. And a handful of cuts and bruises that will be fucking uncomfortable for a few days,” Shotgun rattled off, his thumb stroking the back of my hand. “Your lip is probably the worse. Four stitches in that fucking split.”
My tongue flicked out, feeling at the little fuzzy ends of the stitches.
“They’ll dissolve in like a week.”
“Good.”
“We’ll leave you two for a little bit,” Shake announced with a nod to Shotgun before ushering the handful of brothers in my room to the door.
“Shake,” Shotgun called before the door was pulled shut. He kept his eyes on me, his hand still brushing gently at mine.
“Yeah.”
“Can you ask one of the girls to bring Gage in to visit?” My hand squeezed his a little tighter, and he let out a huff of laughter while shaking his head. “Think she wants to see him more than she wants to see me.”
“He’s cuter.”
“He still poops in his pants,” Shotgun challenged, his smirk growing wider.
“We all make sacrifices for the men we love.”
Shake’s laughter followed him down the hall. His announcement at the end of the hall that I was going to be just fine was one even I found myself letting out a thankful sigh too.
Shotgun pulled the hospital chair right up to the bedside without letting me go for a second. “He’s actually okay?”
“Actually…” he answered simply, his eyes falling to the bed for a second, “… I’m fucking done with this, Ave.”
Dread struck me in the chest, the weight of his words making it feel like someone had sat on me, making it hard to breathe, hard to focus.
This is where he leaves.
This is where he walks away like everyone else.
Maybe I could ask him why.
No one else really told me why.
Maybe if I knew, I could do something different next time.
“I’m fucking done trying to explain to people what we are. So, here it fucking is,” he announced, and I held my breath, waiting for that final blow, the final strike. “As far as I’m fucking concerned, you’re my old lady. And you have been for a long damn time. You wanna run. You wanna protest about shit? Go ahead. Fucking do it. If I have to prove to you that I’m not those people in your past, the ones who didn’t see how fucking beautiful and amazing you are, I will. If I have to chase you across the planet and show you just how far I’ll go to keep you in my life, and in Gage’s life, then I will.”
“That’s insane,” I whispered, not able to keep myself from smiling, though. He wasn’t looking up at me.
His eyes were focused on the bed like he’d rehearsed what he was going to say, and he was trying to remember if he’d forgotten anything. And it was fucking cute as hell.
“Well, baby, I’m a little fucking insane, and you knew that the night you showed up and never fucking left.”
“Okay.”
He blinked, his brow knotting between his eyes before they flicked up to meet mine. “Okay?”
I wanted this.
I wanted him.
I wanted Gage.
And the club.
And those thoughts that had plagued and taunted me for so long were right. I was in so fucking deep. But it wasn’t this deep, dark ocean I always imagined, where I was tossed in when the water got rocky. Where I just sunk into their depths and into the darkness, alone and not knowing whether someone would reach in and drag me back to the surface.
This was a different kind of deep.
One where I recognized that other people’s choices didn’t make my worth any less.
One where I recognized that the water was never going to always be smooth sailing, things were never going to be perfect, and occasionally we were going to end up in the water.
So maybe the deep is the same. The waters are still dark. They still get rough sometimes.
Maybe the thing that changed this time was that I learned how to swim.
“I don’t want to be anywhere else,” I admitted through a crashing wave of emotion. “I love you. And I fucking love Gage. And I love the club.”
“That’s everything I needed to hear,” he answered with a chuckle, shaking his head. “I wish I could fucking kiss you right now, but…”
“You can kiss my ass,” I answered, tugging on his hand.
“That’s it. I changed my mind.”
“No takebacks! You’re stuck with me.”
He groaned loudly and rolled his eyes. “The fuck have I done.”
“Come on now.”
I crinkled my nose, struggling to force my eyes to open. Was I really that tired? Why hadn’t it been this hard last time?
“Time to wake up.”
Shotgun?
No, it wasn’t Shotgun.
He’d gone to get Gage while I had a sleep.
Who was—
There was a sharp pinch in my arm, and I gasped, sucking in a long, deep breath like the last breath of life had suddenly been injected into my body. My heart began to race, that kind of feeling you got when you saw that b
oy you were crushing on, or when you got your first speeding ticket.
Only, it didn’t begin to calm.
It kept building.
My breathing building with it.
“That’s a good girl. Now, look up at me.” The voice, it sounded so far away. Like it was calling to me through a thick fog.
I managed to crack one eye open just a little, but everything was so bright, it made my entire body shudder, and I quickly squeezed them tight again. I wanted to rub at my eyes, try and get them to adjust, but every time I tried, nothing happened. My arms wouldn’t lift. It was like they were weighted down. Tied down, maybe?
My heart continued to race.
No matter what I did, it wouldn’t stop, it wouldn’t slow.
I forced my eyes open again, this time, the both of them flickering slowly. Little by little, I fought against the brightness, the light, the white ceiling, the white walls. Everything so damn white. “Wha…”
My stomach churned.
Don’t be sick.
Please don’t be sick.
You can’t get up.
“Avery, it’s so nice to see you again,” a deep voice murmured, a man in scrubs stepping into my vision and drawing up a chair beside me. He was pulling on a pair of gloves. Blue ones. He reached up with them, tugging the white facemask from his face, the sadistic grin behind it one I knew instantly.
Garrett Drake.
No.
Please, no.
Someone, please help me.
I couldn’t turn my head, just move my eyes. My heart at this point was racing so fucking fast like a horse around a track, pounding hard into the ground, searching for that finish line. Though, I was pretty sure if I didn’t get it to slow down soon, my finish line was going to be it exploding into a million pieces.
Garrett leaned in, so his face was directly above mine. “Sorry about forcing you to destroy your car earlier. I needed a way to get you here.”
It was him.
He’d forced me off the road.
I struggled to keep my eyes open, my heart racing internally, but my body feeling like it was exhausted. Frozen. It was like one of those bad dreams—those nightmares where you want to run, but your legs simply refuse to move. Only I knew this wasn’t a dream.
The smell of hospital cleaner had hit my senses, and when the asshole reached out, brushing my hair back from my face and tucking it gently behind my ear, I wanted to scream.
My fingers.
They moved.
The muscle in my arm twitching, making Garrett pull back suddenly with a grin. “You know what, I thought you were all tough talk...” He chuckled softly, reaching behind him for something. I kept fighting with that one limb, sweat collecting across my brow as I fought to lift it from the bed. I felt it rise as he scooted his chair back, flicking the needle he was holding.
A soft sob fell from my lips, and I felt warm tears slide down the side of my face.
“Hopefully, I can get this balance right,” he said slowly but loudly like he wasn’t about to inject my already highly alive body with something new. “Adrenaline to make your heart race, and this little beauty to make your body completely numb. Means you just have to lay there, helpless, while your heart feels like it’s about to explode into tiny little pieces.”
I wanted to yell.
Scream.
Plead for help.
I was in a hospital, so there had to be other people. But as he forced the needle into my arm, it was like someone placing a large rock on my body, so fucking heavy it felt like it was pushing me down into the bed and through the floor below.
“This really is unfortunate,” Garrett rambled, looking down at me with a gentle smile. “I did warn Shotgun. He knew better, knew not to fuck around with my world. A world I have fought so hard to fucking create.” The anger cracked in his voice, and he quickly cleared his throat, forcing a smile again despite the way a soft red flush of anger crept up his neck.
“An eye for an eye, that’s what I believe,” he began, getting to his feet and pulling a white sheet from a drawer behind him. He shook it out, letting it float through the air and land over my body. There was a couple of clicks, the bed jiggling and moving, making me realize just what he was doing.
He’d taken the brakes off.
He was moving me.
“Shotgun took my wife, he took my job, my home, my money. Everything I worked a lifetime to gain,” he hissed, standing over me, his breathing heavy and erratic.
Shotgun had pushed him to the edge of the ledge, and he was ready to jump.
“So, I’m going to do the same,” Garrett continued, wrapping a gown around him, and pulling a mask over his face and a piece of cloth on his head, so it looked like he was going into surgery. “And I’m starting with you.”
I couldn’t move, couldn’t talk, couldn’t do a single thing as Garrett pulled the sheet up over my head and rolled me out the door.
I fought, fought against my own fucking body, knowing all I would need is one movement to catch someone’s attention.
The voices in the waiting room got louder as we reached the end of the hall, one voice hitting me hard, yet not a sound left my mouth as a tear-streaked the side of my face.
“She needs to sleep. I’ll take the little man in there in about twenty minutes,” Shotgun explained to someone.
He was right there.
So close I felt like I could touch him.
“Austin have any leads on who the other car was?” Repo questioned, the voices moving further away now.
“Not yet, but I could easily take a guess. We’re just lucky he didn’t take her, probably too many people around.”
Help!
I’m here!
Please!
More tears streaked down my face as the voices disappeared into the background, and I knew they were gone.
I was on my own.
SHOTGUN
Pressing my palm to the door, I eased it open, Gage sitting in the crook of my elbow.
My muscles stiffened as I stepped into the room. My body was frozen to the spot while Myth, Meyah, and Kennedy stepped around me.
“The doctor said he wanted to get her some more scans,” Myth reasoned, trying to be the steady fucking minded one while I continued to stand there, holding my son and wondering where the fuck my old lady was.
He was right.
The doctor had said earlier she should be able to be released tonight, but he wanted to get a couple more tests and scans done first just to be thorough.
“Kennedy and I will go and check with the front desk before we start to panic,” Meyah added, bouncing Juliet in her arms as she headed back out the door, with Kennedy right on her tail.
It didn’t matter, though.
My gut screamed I’d missed something, and I was about to fucking pay for it.
It was barely a few seconds before a nurse rushed through the door, flipping furiously through a clipboard of papers. “Could she have gone for a walk?” the flustered woman questioned.
Myth answering with a loud snort. “The whole fucking bed is gone, lady,” he stressed, jabbing his finger at the empty space in the room where there should be a fucking bed.
With Avery in it.
“Where is she?” I ground out through clenched teeth.
Gage let out a gentle cry, and I finally shifted from the spot I’d been glued to, refusing to move, knowing I was going to fucking lose my shit the moment I was out of here and my son wasn’t in my arms.
“Better question,” Kennedy interjected, crossing her arms. “Where the hell could someone remove a bed with a person in it from the hospital.”
“Oh, fucking hell,” I growled, the loud heavy rumble in my chest startling Gage. “That fucking bastard.” I rushed forward, passing Gage off to Kennedy and storming out the door. Myth was hot on my heels, the both of us ducking and diving around nurses and patients, my eyes searching the hospital signs for the morgue.
We hit the staircase going do
wn into the back part of the hospital, obviously eager to keep the stacks of deceased away from the healthy and close to somewhere they could have easy access to load the bodies out to places like funeral homes or the coroner.
“You really think he dragged her down here, on a gurney, somehow, without her kicking and screaming, and they would just let him load her into the back of his car and drive off,” Myth rambled as we shoved through two swinging doors.
“He was never fired,” I explained, scanning the dungeon-like space. “The hospital didn’t want that kind of press, so they simply decided not to renew his contract, which means a lot of people working at the hospital who are familiar with him wouldn’t know he’s not meant to be here.”
“Hey! You can’t be down here without ID,” a young guy protested. He was wearing a blue apron that covered him from head to toe and white gloves that reached his elbows. “You need to leave.”
“Dr. Drake come past here?” I asked, ignoring the guy’s demands and walking further into the space. He seemed hesitant as I came closer, though I can’t imagine someone who loves working with dead people had great people skills when it came to the ones who were breathing.
“Dr. Drake?” he questioned, his eyes moving to the right, giving me the answer I needed before he even said, “Yeah, moved a body through to the loading bay. Said the family was coming to see it before we went through the motions.”
He came after Myth and me as we rushed down the long hall that opened out to a large space with a roller door that was wide open. “How long ago?”
“Like fifteen minutes?”
“Check it out,” Myth called, stepping outside.
I followed, instantly noting the empty bed and the sheet blowing in the breeze.
But no fucking Avery.
“Goddammit!” I screamed, grabbing the bed with two hands and hurling it across the concrete area outside, sending it crashing into the high wire fences. The young guy backed away slowly, but before he could escape, I rushed over, my hand going straight to his throat.
I slammed him back against the wall, jolting his body hard and knocking the air from his lungs.
So Garrett had her.
I could get her back.
I fucking knew that much, at least.
