by Nikki Wild
I quickly shuffled to the banister, clutching the posts as I crouched down, making myself a small target for Delfino’s hawkish gaze. His flinty eyes always seemed to find me, no matter how well-hidden I imagined I was. But tonight, distracted by the couple standing in our foyer, his superhuman abilities failed him.
I’d never seen him so red in the face before. Not for a long time, at least. I could have sworn that in just the few, short hours since I’d seen him last, he had sprouted a thatch of gray hairs along his temples. His bloodless lips were a thin slash across his face, making the lines at either end of his mouth seem like deep, dark ravines.
“This is absurd. Drive him out of town. Drop him off at a hospital in the city. Leave him in a ditch, for all I care. That boy cannot stay here.”
As I peered beyond him, I saw that the man he was talking to was Mr. Parrish, and beside him was his wife, Jane. They were the night-time security officers for some of the farmland just outside of town. So what were they doing back here? And who was “he”?
My heart dared to leap for one small, painful instant. A tiny seed of hope grew roots deep in my chest. And then it was gone, dismissed as quickly as it had invaded me. No, it couldn’t be him. He’d never come back from me, now that he was free. I was the anchor he’d left behind. I was impressed with myself when, after all this time, my lip finally didn’t tremble at the memory.
Delfino stood stock-still as Mrs. Parrish said, “It’s been done, sir. We couldn’t just leave him lying there, out in the road like that. Or even in the back of our truck. You didn’t see him. How hurt he was…”
He cut her off with a glare, looking now to Mr. Parrish. “I assume you felt the same?”
Mr. Parrish sighed. “Jane was right, Father. What if someone else had found him out there? Someone who wouldn’t have known to come straight to you with it? You might have had a lot of questions to answer. More still, if the boy had woken up on his way to the city hospital and seen our faces.”
Delfino’s expression darkened then. “By then, he would’ve been far enough away not to cause any trouble.”
It was all I could do to keep from wiggling through the opening between the rails. I wanted to know, more than anything else at that moment, more than the thirst that sent prickling heat down my throat, what they were talking about—and why Delfino was affected so.
Because something that could make him act like that? It had to be powerful. I was awestruck. I had to know.
Henry Parrish shook his head. “What if he’d died, Mr. Delfino? The boy would be on your conscience, then.”
Time seemed to slow then. Delfino stared at Henry impassively, his demeanor like that of a hurricane’s eye, the bluster and destruction still whirling all around it. I braced myself for things to get messy—for the tension to break and for Delfino to finally lose his cool—but I couldn’t have done anything to prepare myself for what he said next.
“I washed my hands of Leo Richards years ago. He hasn’t been on my conscience since.”
All the air gusted out of my lungs and I sat back hard, a stab of pain jolting through my tailbone.
Leo Richards. Delfino had said his name—after all these years, he’d said the name of my first love. Of the boy who stole my heart, and my chastity, that one, hot night when I was so sure of everything. So sure of him.
The one who’d sped off into the darkness a few days later, never to return.
Or so I’d thought.
But here he was. Back in town. Back in my life. Just like that.
How? It had all seemed so final back then. The Hounds of Hell had left to avoid starting a serious turf war. Why would one of their men come back and risk upsetting the delicate political balance for everyone else?
“I have to make a phone call,” Delfino said, dismissing our company with one simple, curt phrase. Once he heard the door close behind them, I watched as he unlocked his phone with a passcode—unknown even to me—chose a contact from his list, and then put the phone to his ear.
“It’s Delfino,” he said when the other party picked up. “We have a problem. A mess I’m going to need your assistance in cleaning up.”
The Devil himself had returned to Pleasant Lakes, and now I knew why Delfino was on edge. He was afraid of what Leo would do to this town, to our way of life. He was afraid, too, that the Devil would tempt me again, just as he’d done in the past.
And if I was being honest with myself—if I could admit the spark of elation in my heart that set every one of my nerves on fire—I was worried about that exact same thing.
Three
Leo
At first, I didn’t know where I was. The sounds around me were foreign, and I felt as though my eyes were sealed shut. For a long while everything was muffled as I fought to bring myself back into consciousness. The world sounded strange, with the low hum of conversation not far off, though I could almost feel a sense of calm around me despite the constant murmur. Something didn’t feel right.
You’re dead, obviously, I thought, muddled visions of those bright headlights still burned into my mind’s eye. If that were true and I was dead, then the only conclusion was that I was in heaven.
No, I corrected myself. You’d never make it into heaven.
It was true. If there was a place in the universe where good people went after they died, then I was definitely the last person who’d end up there. After all of my time with the Hounds of Hell MC, I knew that heaven certainly didn’t have a place for me, especially not after my last ride with the group before I’d gone “lone wolf.”
That was a term a lot of MCs used, not just my brothers—former brothers. In the military, you’d call it going AWOL. There was a nuance to it in the biker world. It wasn’t necessarily a show of cowardice. A man could be brave as hell and still take off to become a lone wolf. He’d have to be, considering that the label came with certain… disadvantages.
I’d never be allowed to join any MC, ever again.
I could never rely on the hospitality of any MC, ever again.
I’d live the rest of my life brother-less, and to a guy without a family, that’s a terrifying prospect.
And lastly, for some MCs, being a lone wolf is like having a target on your back. If somebody wants your bike—or anything else of yours—bad enough… well, there’s no brotherhood behind you to stop them. It’s not a crime to kill a lone wolf. At least, not as far as MC laws go. My decision to abandon the Hounds of Hell had left me a sitting duck.
And look where it had gotten me.
I forced my eyelids open, a feat comparable to pushing a massive boulder up a steep hill. The crash must have taken a lot out of me, and afterlife or not, I was exhausted. Can a person get tired after they’ve kicked the bucket? I wondered as light streamed in through the tiny crack between my lashes.
God, it was blinding. I took a deep, drawn-out breath through my nose to help gather some of my strength. The smell of antiseptic, rubbing alcohol, and the faintest hint of someone’s filth didn’t rule out the idea that maybe I’d honestly gone to Hell for all the shit I’d done.
I blinked hard and the glare of the fluorescent lighting began to fade just a tad. I must have been dosed with something strong, because keeping my eyes open for more than a minute at a time was absolute torture. But the longer I kept them open, the more the world around me came into focus: soft beige walls, trimmed with eggshell white; the gleam of an IV pole invading my periphery; the squat, green figure of a lime Jell-O cup on a dining tray in front of me. All perfectly mundane symptoms of the land of the living.
Must have made it, I thought, taking another long breath that ended in a groan. Whatever they’d given me softened the blow of my aches and pains, but it didn’t eliminate them entirely.
My sense of hearing returned to me next, beginning with a soft, repetitive beeping that I’d definitely heard before. It was constant, rhythmic—the droning of a heart monitor. It confirmed my suspicions about what had happened to me and where I was.
<
br /> I’d lived through the wreck. The truck hadn’t run me over, or at least if it had, my injuries hadn’t proved fatal. And now I was in the hospital.
I hated hospitals.
I hated the idea of lying in a bed, needles jammed into my arms, pushing fluids and brands of drugs with names I could barely pronounce into my body. It just didn’t sit right with me—that sense of having to submit your senses, your consciousness, to the will of a substance or another human being. And on the plus side, a fear of needles tends to keep you clear of the more nefarious pastimes that men like myself engaged in… at least, for the most part.
My sudden wakefulness must have drawn the attention of a few of the medical staff, because before I knew it, I was surrounded by nurses who seemed intent on making sure I didn’t get out of that bed.
“Mr. Richards,” said a younger woman in a set of blue scrubs, “you’re up! Thank God!”
“Where the hell am I?” I asked as someone put their hand on my shoulder and attempted to push me back down into the bed. I didn’t like it, that feeling of being held captive, immobile. I counted at least three nurses standing over me, maybe a few more that were just out of my line of sight. I’d never been claustrophobic, but I’d never been one to enjoy being cooped up, either. And at that moment, I’d never wanted space more fiercely in all my life.
The heart monitor began to sing a shriller and more staccato beat. The nurse attempting to subdue me hesitated, then removed her hand from my person. I didn’t test my luck with trying to vault out of bed, and that seemed to satisfy her.
“This is Pleasant Lakes Memorial, Mr. Richards,” she said, her gaze flicking between her fellows. “You were in a serious accident.”
Coming out of the drug-induced fog meant I remembered it all too clearly: the way my skin rubbed raw against the pavement, warm blood spilling out onto the damp asphalt in those small hours of the morning. I was still debating whether or not this was a better option than being dead.
Wait. Did she say Pleasant Lakes?
I blinked, trying to sort through the cacophony of rushing thoughts in my head as the nurses above me began to murmur to one another. If this was Pleasant Lakes, then that meant that I was right where I’d wanted to be. Well, more or less.
“I need to leave,” I rasped as I started to strain against the gentle, but firm grip that the nurses had on my shoulders. “I need to leave now.”
“Mr. Richards!” one of them gasped as I broke free and began to push myself off of the bed. Judging by the looks on their faces they must have thought me too weak to even consider standing—and they might have been right, if I weren’t so damn stubborn. “Get back in bed this instant!”
The moment I set foot out of bed I knew I’d made a mistake. Pain shot up from the bottom of my left sole and all the way to my ribs, wresting a grunt of pain from my lips. I knew that the nurse was right, but I also knew that hospital visits were expensive and that I didn’t have any kind of insurance to cover the costs.
“I can’t stay here,” I said, trying to limp my way to the door.
It was the sharp pain in my arm rather than the protests of the nurses that stopped me in my tracks. It was a sharp, horrible reminder that I had an IV line still jutting out of my vein. I let out a yelp as I staggered back toward the hospital bed to try to pull the damn thing out of me.
“Sit back down!” one of the three nurses hissed, pulling me back toward the bed by my shoulders as I struggled. “You’re not to be out of bed! Doctor’s orders.”
“You can’t keep me here!” I growled, but with the pain shooting through my leg I hardly had enough strength to keep me upright. Before I knew it I was being forced back down onto the plastic hospital mattress as the staff began to fuss over the mess I’d made of my IV.
“You’re going to find that we can,” the oldest of the nurses said sternly. “It’s for your own good.”
“But I don’t even have insurance,” I complained, trying to appeal to the one thing most people understood: money. I knew that no hospital in their right mind would keep a patient any longer than they absolutely needed to when that patient couldn’t pay.
“Don’t you worry about that,” the nurse said, a knowing smile on face—a smile that didn’t at all sit right with me as the two other nurses pushed me back onto the bed. “Your care has been seen to. Money is not an issue.”
Not an issue? “What the hell are you talking about?”
“You’ll be kept here until Father Delfino has decided that you should be released,” the youngest of the nurses said, drawing glares from the other two.
Delfino. I remembered that name. He was the douchebag who’d made it impossible for me to stay in Pleasant Lakes. Her utterance of it made my fists clench and my pulse pound in my temples.
“What the hell does that bastard have to do with any of this?” I demanded, straining against their hands again. “What the hell is going on?!”
“Nothing for you to get all worked up over,” said the oldest nurse, tightening her grip on my shoulder. The way she looked into my eyes gave me the impression that she had no intention of arguing it any further. “Now, you can either stay in bed, or I can sedate you for the remainder of your stay—the choice is yours, Mr. Richards.”
As much as I hated it, I sat back against the uncomfortable mattress, staring into that old hag’s eyes as she released my shoulder. The way she smiled filled me to the brim with a sense of dread that I just couldn’t explain. There was something going on here, something weird, something beyond this hospital.
“Do I at least get a phone call?” I muttered.
“I’m afraid not,” the older woman said. “We don’t allow patients to make calls here.”
“What the hell kind of operation are you running here?” I snorted, shaking my head. “I can’t leave. I can’t make any phone calls. Jesus fuckin’ Christ, I might as well be in prison!”
The two younger nurses filed out of the room, leaving me alone with their older counterpart. That horrible, slightly sadistic grin was still plastered across her face. She reminded me of a psychotic clown with the way her crimson lips glinted in the sickly light.
“Mr. Richards,” the nurse said, her tone even and low in a way that made her seem dangerous rather than soothing, “I think you need to realize that you are here at the behest of those who would like to see you healthy and happy… and that your attitude displays a deep lack of gratitude for that kindness. I won’t be responsible for you hurting yourself again, and if it comes down to it, I will leave you in that bed with your tongue lolling out of your mouth while you drool onto your pillow. Is that clear?”
“Crystal,” I petulantly mumbled. I didn’t need this shit, and I certainly didn’t need it from some gross old hag in scrubs.
“Excellent,” she chirped before turning and walking out of the room, shutting the door with a harsh snap. I had to be content with flipping her the bird as she walked away.
Bitch.
I heaved a sigh, looking out the long window that made up the majority of the wall to my left—a way for the medical staff to check in on you in case a patient started trying to do something stupid. That was when I saw her. The heart monitor gave a hiccup as my pulse tried to go still.
“Lucy?” I whispered to the empty room, my eyes alighting on the angelic figure of the girl I’d come all this way to see. She looked almost exactly as she had the day I’d left her—those gorgeous, wide eyes; plush, soft lips; silky hair flowing down to her back like water. My throat tightened, and for a moment I was glad I wasn’t on my feet, lest my knees give way. For all I’d thought of her over the years, I hadn’t even begun to realize how much I’d missed her until I saw her standing there.
“Lucy!” I called, trying to grab her attention. But try as I might, my sweet Lulu wouldn’t even afford me a glance in return. It was like I was some kind of ghost, like she had no idea I was even there.
Had she really forgotten me?
Four
Lucy
“Wait here, Lucy,” Delfino said as the two of us reached the nurses’ station in the middle of the intensive care unit. The entire ride over—and the night before that—I’d anxiously wondered what this moment would be like, yet even in my wildest imaginings, I didn’t think I’d be this scared.
I’d been to Pleasant Lakes Memorial once or twice in the years I’d lived in town, but my first visit would always be the one that colored my view of the place, and not for the better. I still remembered lying in that bed for days while doctors and nurses alike fussed over me, spending countless hours scared that I would die there due to some horrific complication worthy of a TV drama, bereft of the comfort of looking into the eyes of anyone that I knew or loved. Standing there now dragged all those feelings back to the surface, only this time it was Leo that I was afraid for, not myself.
And not just because he’d been in some kind of accident—it was the fact that he was here at all that disturbed me the most. What was he thinking, returning to Pleasant Lakes after all this time? He couldn’t be here because of me, could he? It had to just be some kind of coincidence…
All around me I could hear the soft chiming of the machines and equipment that were so instrumental in keeping people alive. I admired the work that was done in places like this, and more than once I had expressed a desire to get some kind of medical degree so I could help people when they felt afraid and alone just like I had. But the mere mention of that idea had turned Delfino’s face the deepest shade of scarlet I’d ever seen, so different from the often emotionless mask that he wore every day. He took me by the arm in those moments, pulling me close so that his face was only a few inches from mine as he told me all the ways he could make my life hell if I ever talked about leaving him again.
But in all those years I never truly understood just why I was meant to stay—the reason that Delfino, a man I’d never known before coming to this damnable place, was so dead-set on keeping me here. Was I some kind of trophy? A pretty little thing that he could keep on a shelf? Or was it something more than that? For all the times I’d tried to probe, Delfino only answered in cryptic vagueries, giving nothing away.
