by Ashley Hall
Sky stared at me, eyes flashing. Then she whipped around and stormed out of the room.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Sky
Ever since the car accident, I hated hospitals, and having to wait in one for so long to find out if Shadow would make it, if he would survive, had left me on edge. Seeing him in that bed… He had still looked strong somehow, despite being so pale. That he hardly moved his body at all worried me. Was he really going to recuperate?
Of course, despite everything, I wanted him to recover. I wanted him to heal—both body and soul. Emotionally, he would never salvage anything worthwhile, not without help, and that help he clearly didn’t want.
Suicide. I snorted as I rushed down the stairs. A woman slowly walking up them glanced at me strangely. I ignored her. Suicide was no joking matter. It irritated me, frustrated me, killed me that he would do something so reckless and stupid. It had been my fault in a way that he had gone off like that, on the mission by himself. My leaving him the first time had left him in such a really bad state that he had tried to push me away a second time by shooting a guy right in front of me.
Because he had saved my life from those guys with the van, I had hung around, trying to save him, and now I had. We were even.
But something had happened between the van and the apartment. We had both fallen back in love with each other. Yes, I loved him. A part of me would always love him.
Love wasn’t enough though. I had only saved his body physically. Emotionally, he was still a broken mess of a man. Maybe I couldn’t save him. Maybe he was beyond saving.
By now, I had reached the last step. I grabbed the railing like it was a life preserver and leaned my head against the cool wall. A few tears trickled down my face. Was walking away the answer? On the other hand, staying didn’t feel right either.
The anger I had felt in the room had long since dissipated. I felt drained. I had slept on and off during the wait, and I wasn’t sure how much time had passed.
Shadow, what am I supposed to do? With you? With me? With us?
I had no answers.
I opened my eyes and left the hospital. In my pocket were the keys to Shadow’s father’s car. I’d take it and go. He could call me when he was ready to leave, and I’d pick him up. Or I’d leave the keys with Sam the Slayer and call Marie. I needed someone to talk to about all of this. Even though I knew what she would say, I still needed to hear it. My memory was almost fully back now, and I realized I had only ever complained to Marie about Shadow, only spoke ill of him. No wonder she thought I was so crazy for sticking around after I’d told her he was a bad man. She didn’t know about the good parts of him. Well, I had told her about how great he was in bed, which was why she referred to him as Wonder Cock, but nothing about the love we had shared.
Despite his darkness, there was a little bit of light remaining in Shadow. If he wasn’t careful, that light would be extinguished, and then there would be no way to ever bring him back.
Twilight had fallen, casting strange shadows on the ground as I sped my way through the parking lot to the car. I was just opening the door when a meaty hand came out of nowhere and slammed it shut.
Whirling around, I spied a man I had never seen before. He was taller than me, but much shorter than Shadow, not nearly as strong as Shadow either, by the looks of him.
“Can I help you?” I asked, edging away from him. If he wanted the car, I was inclined to give it to him. Life was too precious, I’d learned again and again since the car accident and the van incident, even from Shadow and his missions. Which was why I felt so betrayed that he would turn one into a suicide mission.
He didn’t say a word. His arm cocked back.
I ducked.
His fist slammed into the car.
What the hell?
I scrambled away and held up the keys. “Here. You can take it.”
But he was following me, stalking me as I darted around the other cars in the packed lot. He had a slight limp, I noticed, but he was still gaining on me.
Backing up, I slammed into a car’s side mirror. “Ow!”
I opened my mouth to scream again. Even though we were toward the back of the parking lot and despite the huge number of cars, no one else was around to hear me. He raised his hand again and backhanded me. On his wrist was a distinctive dragon tattoo, black but intricate and detailed.
Blood filled my mouth from the blow, and I spat it out, right in his face. He lunged for me, his thick-fingered hands reaching for my neck. I ducked and dodged him, running to the right, but he grabbed my long hair and dragged me back to him. His hands found my neck after all, and he squeezed.
Oh my God. This was going to be the end. I couldn’t breathe. My vision was turning dark. I was clawing at his hands, at his face, kicking at him as hard as I could, but he only squeezed all the harder…
Sudden light shone our way. A car was approaching, looking for an empty spot. The guy dropped me and backed away.
Gasping for air, I dashed to the hospital, my hands at my throat. A nurse did a double take when I entered. I had to be a sight to see. Wild eyes, probably wild hair, blood stains from Shadow on my shirt, my fat lip, any marks around my neck…
Too frightened to slow down, I stumbled up the stairs. Sure, I could’ve taken an elevator, but right now, I was feeling trapped enough as it was. I didn’t need to be enclosed into a small space potentially crammed with a lot of people.
Trapped in my body when I first woke up from my coma.
Trapped in the hospital for my entire recovery and inpatient therapy.
Nearly trapped and kidnapped by guys with their van.
And trapped and attacked by some random guy.
What could be next? I didn’t want to know.
As frightened as I felt, I was too numb to cry. I just kept putting one foot in front of the other, and I marched myself back to Shadow’s room. His father wasn’t sitting by the window anymore. Maybe he had gone to get food or was in the bathroom.
Shadow didn’t look over as I approached the bed. Although sitting on it earlier had caused him pain, I risked trying to sit next to him again.
Now he glanced over. His eyes widened and softened, but then they hardened again. His right hand came up and touched my cheek. Then he brushed my hair back. His thumb rubbed against my lips, and I winced.
“What happened?” he growled.
Maybe I shouldn’t tell him. He’d just add another mission onto his never-ending list. Another guy to kill.
But the tenderness in his eyes, the worry, the concern… This was the Shadow I loved. He had saved me once, and there wasn’t anywhere I felt safer than in his strong arms.
I took a deep breath. “I…” The words wouldn’t come out. I couldn’t talk. My throat hurt too much. My neck… Swallowing wasn’t fun either.
Shadow handed me a paper cup. I drank the water greedily. It helped to numb some of the pain away.
I tried again. “I was leaving.” My voice still sounded raspy, but I could talk at least. “I was going to take your father’s car. I was trying to decide where to go when a guy came out of nowhere and attacked me. I have never seen him before! I have no idea who he is, and he just… He chased me around the lot, and then he caught me and… and…”
“Breathe, Sky, just breathe,” he murmured, caressing my cheek. “You’re all right now. You’re safe now. I’ll keep you safe.”
I wanted to believe him. I wanted that so badly. My life had been so shitty for so long now. I needed something good in my life.
No more words came. I just stared at him, taking in his pale face. He was so handsome. Hot, sexy. My badass biker dude.
That is, if I still wanted him to be mine.
Which I did and I didn’t. It was a constant tug-of-war with my heart wanting to be with him but also wanting better for him too, which was further complicated by my not knowing if I could stand by and watch him destroy his life if he never did change.
He would’ve hauled that
guy off of me in a heartbeat and beaten him to a bloody pulp, maybe even enough to kill him with his fists. Shadow would always keep me safe, even if the world he lived in were a dangerous one that threatened his own life.
“Did you get a good look at him?”
His voice had taken on an edge. A slight one, but I heard it. He was pissed, beyond pissed, but he was holding it in. Attempting to control his emotions possibly. That was progress, right?
“He…” I closed my eyes and tried to picture the guy’s face. “He was about this tall…” I held up my hand. “And he honestly didn’t have that memorable of a face. Carried a little extra weight. The only thing that stood out was…” I rubbed my lips. The one corner was split, but it wasn’t bleeding anymore. Then I dropped my hand to my neck. I could still feel pressure there as if his hands were still trying to crush my windpipe.
“What stood out, Sky?” Shadow asked quietly.
“He had a tattoo on his wrist. A dragon.”
His eyes grew so wide I thought they would pop out of his head. “Do I have my phone anywhere?”
After a little bit of searching, I found it on the nightstand. He fiddled with it and then handed it to me. “Is that him?”
The guy staring up at me with a blank look on his face was the same guy who’d tried to strangle me.
Before I responded to Shadow’s question, I scrolled down to read the article. The guy was Frank Greene. The daycare pedophile. The one who was the reason why Shadow was lying here in the hospital with gunshot wounds.
“It is him, isn’t it?” Shadow pressed.
I nodded, trying to piece everything together. “What happened when you got to the apartment?”
“It belonged to a friend of his.” Shadow’s voice was low, quieter than a whisper, and I had to lean closer to him to hear. “He was the one I shot and who shot me. While we were trading gunshots, the pedo jumped off of the balcony.”
“I thought so.” I felt almost proud to have figured that out already. “Maybe he didn’t leave right away. He must’ve seen your father and I drive up. Maybe he followed us here and…” My eyes widened. “You have to get out of here!”
“I’m fine. Security here is top notch.”
“It’s not in the parking lot,” I said coolly.
“Maybe not, but with doctors and nurses and all of the other patients and their visitors and there’s no way—”
“He wants revenge,” I said desperately. Was he still on that damn woe-is-me kick? “You have to be smart—”
“I am being smart,” he said sharply. He dropped his hand from touching my face and curled it into a fist on the bed. “I can’t leave this bed right now. If I want to take a piss, nurses or my father have to help me out of bed. There isn’t another hospital for me to go to. This is the best place for me to be. That pedo has been getting away with his sick shit for years. Years! The first kid to come forward is fifteen. He only went to that daycare for a year—when he was five. For at least ten years, he’s been molesting kids. Greene is smart or else he never would’ve been able to pull that crap for so long. No, he won’t dare step foot inside the hospital. I might not know everything, but I’m certain about that.”
He had a very compelling argument, and he definitely needed hospital care.
So where did that leave me?
I touched his still-tight fist. “I’ll go to Marie’s—”
“The hell you will,” he growled, sounding more and more like his old self. All of his quiet tones had felt off. He had to be hurting. I hadn’t heard him ask for any pain medicine. I knew he had a history with drugs, but I didn’t know which ones, and that was not something I needed to know right now.
“Why not?” I demanded. Where exactly we stood, I didn’t know, but I did not appreciate him thinking he could tell me what to do.
“What if he keeps following you? You want to endanger Marie?”
I narrowed my eyes. “You don’t care about Marie. You hate her.”
“She’s your sister, and you love her. You and my father both will stay at the clubhouse until I recover, find the son of a bitch, and kill him.”
It was a solid plan. A good one. No way would the pedophile dare take on so many bikers. In fact, the more I thought about it, the way he had waited so long to attack me, and exact his revenge, made me think he was a coward. He could’ve gone after us in the apartment parking lot when Shadow had been bleeding, nearly dying. He could’ve gone after us when we first got to the hospital. No, he waited until I, a woman, was alone. He was a chickenshit. He wouldn’t risk going after Shadow directly, not while he was in the hospital, and the fright from that car had hopefully sent him packing, so Shadow’s father and I could leave. Once we reached the clubhouse, we’d be safe.
“All right. I’ll stay at the clubhouse with your father.” But I didn’t make a move to leave his side, I just continued to hold his hand. I didn’t have to leave at this very moment.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Shadow
A couple of weeks that feel more like months passed, and I was itching to be discharged. Sky visited me every single day, and the hours we spent together were the highlights of my time here. All we did was talk. Well, and kiss some, but nothing more serious than that. With all of the checks by nurses and therapy for my arm, there was no way we could try for more than that. And I wasn’t sure Sky was ready for us to be intimate again. We were closer than we had been in a long time, maybe ever, and it felt so strange not having the physical connection too.
Then again, maybe that was what we needed if we were going to get through all of this horrible shit that life continued to dump on us. She was so fragile right now, especially after that fucking pedo went after her. Whenever I thought about that, I wanted to rip into that guy, tear him limb from limb. A bullet would be too quick a death for him. He’d burn in hell that was for sure.
The hell that was her life, though, man. She had been through so fucking much. It burned me up that life had dealt her such a shitty hand. She deserved better. She needed better. I’d asked her what she wanted for the future, and her goal was so simple but so smart. She wanted to go to beauty school and maybe open up her own place one day. I would make that happen for her. Regardless of whether or not we stayed together, I wanted to make sure her life turned around.
It was nearly two in the afternoon, and I was pacing around in my room. I’d done my arm exercises earlier in the day, but I did them again anyway. Another two hours passed before the nurse came in. Gloria was smiling. “You’re good to go.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. “Finally.”
She laughed. A nice, older woman who had hinted on several occasions that Sky and I would make cute babies together, she was one of the few good ones. “I know you’ve been itchin’ to get out of here. But be careful. Do your exercises. But, don’t overdo it.”
“Don’t you worry.” I grabbed my jacket and shoved my arms into it.
“And that includes your homecoming celebration with your little lady.” She wagged a finger at me. “Nothing too wild yet.”
“Me? Wild?” I winked at her.
She snorted. “Yes, you, wild. Don’t overdo it. I’m serious. You had a very serious… injury.”
Somehow, it wasn’t awkward talking to her about sex, even if we were beating around the bush about it. “Your concern touches me, but I’ll be fine.”
“Good. In that case, I hope we don’t cross paths again. Unless…” She gave me a sly grin. “I wouldn’t mind an invitation to the wedding.”
I laughed, but it was a little forced. Marriage? I had almost proposed to Sky once, back when she had been Allie, but I had wanted to make sure she knew exactly who I was, all of the details of the past that had transformed me into the man I was. Telling her about my being a contract killer at one time had caused her to flee. When she came back to me after the car accident as Sky, I vowed to never tell her about that part of my life. My father had, though, and she once again left. Would I ever ask her to
be mine forever? Would I ever give her the ring? I didn’t know. I wasn’t about to ask unless I knew for sure what her answer would be, and right now, I had no clue which way she would go.
“Yeah, yeah,” I muttered as I shoved my cell into my jean pocket.
“What is it?” Gloria put her hands on her wide hips. “I see the way you two look at each other. And, yes, I know there’s a lot going on what with…” She gestured toward my injured but healed side. “But everyone can make mistakes. It doesn’t mean you can’t have happiness too.”
