"Hardy was a romantic," he said, and even though I wasn't sure I fully understood his meaning, it sounded like he was agreeing with me to an extent, which made me feel a little less silly.
"It's good to talk to them," I supplied, folding up to a seated position, pulling the blanket up to my shoulders. "When patients seem lost in their own heads," I clarified. "It's good to talk to them. A lot of people who wake up even from comas say they could hear things, but just couldn't wake up. Does she like poetry?" I asked.
"I don't know."
"Isn't she your friend?"
"Yeah."
"You never asked?"
"Do your friends ask if you like dead poets?" he shot back.
It was probably not a good idea to let him know that I didn't really have any friends. Any family. Any significant other. Anyone who would notice I was missing, would look for me.
"I guess not," I said, shrugging.
Ace's attention went to Red, then back to me. "We are going to need to move her," he said, mostly to himself.
"We moved her earlier," I told him. "To change the sheets," I clarified.
"I meant in a car."
"To a hospital?"
"No."
"She shouldn't be moved. She's... she's covered in wounds. If you're not careful, the stitches will open up."
"Well, then you will need to stitch them up again," he said, rising, making his way to the door.
It certainly sounded like he planned to bring me with them.
"Where are you going?"
"We are going home," he told me, strolling out and closing the door before I could ask anything else.
I was left alone to contemplate his words.
I guess I thought they were home. It was certainly someone's home we were in. If it was not theirs, then why were they here? Where was home?
My stomach clenched at the idea of being dragged anywhere else, but I was also not naive enough to think I had any sort of control over the situation. Not with so many men in the house.
Ace, Lycus, Aram, Seven, Drex, Bael, and the guy Daemon that I hadn't seen but had heard. Plus Lenore. I was more than outnumbered. If they wanted to take me somewhere, they could and would. And, really, the only control I had was over not getting myself too hurt in the process.
Maybe, if we were changing locations, it would give me a chance to come across some other people who might help me.
Whatever the move was, it didn't happen that day.
Not the day after that, either.
It wasn't until the third day that I was startled awake by a small group of the men as they burst into the room, flicking on the overhead light, leaving me with a frantic heartbeat, trying to force my eyes to adjust to the brightness.
"What's the matter?" I asked, clutching my blanket tighter to my chest.
"We're heading out," Aram supplied, being the one who seemed to take more sympathy on me.
"Heading out where?"
"Home," Ace snapped. "Like I told you."
"Where is home?" I pressed.
"I can't imagine why you would need to know that," he told me as he made his way toward the bed, looking down at Red. "Come over here and get her ready to go."
"She shouldn't be moved," I snapped at him, throwing off the blanket to stalk across the floor. "She's still barely healing."
"Yeah, well, we waited as long as possible," he told me. "So do what you can. Because we are leaving within the hour," he said as the other men grabbed things out of the closets, the dressers, shoving them into suitcases.
With little choice, I did a quick cleanse of the wounds with saline, dried her, then gently wrapped as much of her in gauze as possible, hoping to minimize any tearing during the transport.
I gave her another pain pill, then turned to find Ace watching me, arms folded over his chest. "That's the best I can do," I told him, shaking my head.
"Good. Aram, get Bael and Ly," he said. "We are going to carry her on the sheet like a makeshift stretcher. "You, get over here," he demanded, daring me to object.
I wanted to tell him to go screw himself, but I also understood that not ending up hurt was in my best interest. I needed to be sharp. I didn't need another concussion.
So with gritted teeth, I moved toward him, figuring it out a moment too late what he intended to do.
Because my wrists were encircled in cuffs in what felt like two seconds.
It wasn't in my best interest to antagonize him, but his cold, indifferent arrogance just rubbed me the wrong way. I couldn't seem to keep control of my runaway mouth.
"That's fine. I can still scream," I said, shrugging.
"No," he told me, but the word was strangely soft, almost apologetic.
I didn't understand it until his hand lifted, and I felt a sharp pinch stab into my shoulder.
I looked down to see the needle sticking out of my arm for a second before the wooziness swirled through me, making me feel like I was floating, like I was half-asleep in seconds.
I swayed on my feet, and Ace's hands went around me, pulling me to his body, my face resting against his chest.
I could have sworn he whispered Sorry before I drifted off.
But, no, that wasn't possible.
Men like him never apologized for anything.
They had too much pride.
But soon I was unconscious.
And nothing mattered.
Chapter Seven
Ace
It was a fucking miserable ride back home.
Daemon and Bael took off first with Drex, Seven, and Aram, getting a head start on their bikes while the rest of us piled into the SUV with Red and Josephine unconscious in the back, our own bikes in a trailer.
We couldn't stay another day, even if I was more worried about moving Red than I would let on. The house was a rental. And they had another client coming to stay in two days.
We had to clear out with plenty of notice.
Especially when we were traveling with a fucking hostage.
I should have taken her out to the woods and done away with her, but had somehow convinced myself that Red might need her on the long ride home.
It was something like a thirty-five-hour drive back from Utah. But I'd convinced Lycus, and Minos to drive it in shifts so we didn't have to stay over anywhere.
There was a lot of bad that could happen with Red's condition from our start to end points. And I'd reasoned that it was easier to transport Josephine with us than to possibly have to abduct someone else halfway through the trip.
It had been Drex's idea to drug the nurse to keep her from drawing attention to us. I'd had no good argument against it, even if, for some reason, I didn't like the idea.
I took the first leg of the drive while Minos slept in the passenger seat and Ly and Lenore slept together in the middle row.
We stopped eight hours later when the nurse started to rouse. We'd pulled up to a gas station that had a detached bathroom, backing up to it, and helping a groggy Josephine out, letting Lenore take her inside.
"Please don't," she said, gaze finding mine in the mirror as I walked in behind her as Lenore moved outside again. "I don't feel good."
"This will help that," I told her, pulling out the second needle.
"Ace, please," she begged, eyes getting glassy. "I won't scream," she said as a tear fell down. "I don't like not knowing what's going on."
"Nothing is going on," I assured her. "One person is driving. Everyone else is sleeping. Including you," I told her, sticking the needle in her arm before I could think any better of it.
I felt bad doing it to her the first time when she had no idea what was going to happen.
I felt a fuck of a lot worse doing it the second time, when she did, when she pleaded for it not to happen again.
But, I tried to comfort myself, it wasn't going to hurt her. It was just to knock her out for a couple hours.
The first time, so I could drive.
The second time, so I could sleep.
Maybe after s
he got up the next time, I could keep her quiet without the drugs.
"How is she?" I asked Lenore as she fussed over Red while I shuffled Josephine in beside her.
"From what I can tell, she's okay. I gave her more of her antibiotic," she said, shrugging.
"She's not bleeding anywhere?"
"Not that I can see. I will keep an eye on her while you sleep," she said, giving me a small smile as we both climbed into the backseat with Minos and Ly in the front.
The next eight hours, I was dead to the world, the exhaustion from the past few nights weighing down on me.
"Ace," Lenore called, waking me.
"What?" I asked, slow-blinking into the darkness. "What's the matter?"
"She's crying."
"Red?" I asked, rubbing my dry eyes.
"No."
I was awake and turned over the backseat in a blink, finding Josephine curled on her side, knees to chest, palms pressed to her eyes.
"Minos, we need to stop," I called, climbing over the backseat to wedge myself in the minuscule space between the nurse and Red. "What's the matter?" I asked, reaching out to press a hand to the back of her neck, feeling her tacky skin, wondering if Drex had fucked up the dose.
"I don't feel good," she said, whimpering. "What was it?" she asked.
I didn't need to ask to know what she was asking. What did I drug her with?
I just knew she wasn't going to like the answer. Hell, I didn't like the answer. But Drex assured me it was the only thing I could give her with an injection that he could get from one of the MCs in that area.
"It doesn't matter," I told her. "It should be wearing off. You'll feel better in a little bit." I hoped. Really, I knew nothing about it. Sure, we provided all sorts of party drugs when we threw events at our place. But I'd always drawn the line at this kind of shit. The "make her forget what happened" shit.
"My heart feels like it is beating out of my chest," she told me, making me reach out toward her throat, pressing my fingers in.
"It's not. You're panicking."
"Gee," she said, sniffling hard. "I wonder why. It's not like my kidnapper injected me with some unknown drug or anything."
I didn't engage with that because she was right. It was a shitty thing to do. I figured, though, if she knew the choice was ketamine in her system or dead in the woods, she would choose being in a bad K-hole over a grave any day of the week.
"We will get some food in you," I said. "Some coffee. You'll feel better."
"Until you inject me again," she whimpered, rocking back and forth, trying to comfort herself.
"I won't do it again."
"Right. Because you're so trustworthy."
I couldn't expect her to trust me. If there was one thing I'd noticed about humans the past fifty years or so, it was that they didn't trust anyone. Even if the other person hadn't given them a reason to be so distrustful.
Meanwhile, I'd kidnapped her, held her hostage, manipulated her physically, and now I'd drugged her.
Her anger was understandable, if inconvenient.
We didn't plan on any stops aside from fueling up.
Getting Red home was of the utmost importance.
The other guys would be several days behind us, not having the option of shift driving, but they would hit up a couple MC chapters along the way, friends we'd made over time, and secure more supplies we might need for Red going forward.
We needed to get back as soon as possible.
But it wouldn't do us much good if the nurse overdosed on the way back.
"Alright. Lenore and I will take her to the bathroom to clean up," I said, nodding toward the detached bathroom at the rest stop. "You go get her some food and coffee," I told Minos, the one of us who knew most about feeding the humans since he'd been in charge of feeding all the witches when they came to us as sacrifices over the years.
"Got it," he agreed as we parked, leaving Ly with the SUV and Red as we all went off on our separate ways.
Lenore was in the bathroom with the nurse for fifteen minutes before they emerged again, Josephine leaning heavily on Lenore.
"She's dizzy," Lenore supplied. "And a little confused," she added as I took her other arm.
"Confused how?"
"She asked me who I was twice."
"Alright. Can you get in the back with Red for a while?" I asked. "She needs someone to keep an eye on her. You know more than the rest of us."
"Okay," she agreed, letting me help Josephine into the backseat where she groaned, her hand pressing to her stomach, then leaned over into my shoulder, resting her head against me.
"I'm spinning."
"You're not," I clarified, grabbing her arm to ground her. I couldn't count how many times I'd seen people get shitfaced at one of our parties, leaving them laying flat on the floor to shake off the overheated sensation, arms and legs thrown out to touch walls or tables, trying to assure themselves that they weren't, in fact, spinning.
"I am," she objected, letting out a whining noise as she pressed her head harder against me.
She was so short that her feet dangled just above the ground, making me grab her legs, draping them over mine to make her feel more stable.
"You're nice," she declared, snuggling closer.
"I'm not," I told her. "I'm really not," I added as I saw Minos making his way out of the fast food place.
It never really occurred to me to give a shit if I was decent or not. That wasn't exactly my nature, was it? But I'd been finding that the longer we were all trapped here, the more we became aware and even concerned by our lack of humanity. It appeared in small ways sometimes even years apart, so it got easy to forget it was a growing problem.
The last time I remembered giving a shit about humans was when the guys and I were on a run to a biker meetup in Florida and we happened by a fresh car wreck.
Everything in our nature should have told us to keep going. It wasn't our problem. We weren't supposed to give a shit if there were humans screaming for help inside of their totaled cars that had caught fire in the engine.
Yet we'd all stopped in unison. We'd worked to free them. We'd waited until the paramedics showed up. And only then were we off again.
Before that, I remembered a kid being taken from its mother while she was looking away. I'd stepped in then as well.
And before that, shit, I didn't even know.
But none of it, according to our nature, should have ever happened.
There was no denying that as time went on, we adopted human ways as our own in many ways. It was changing how we reacted to certain situations, to the humans themselves.
I knew, as a leader, as the oldest, that it was dangerous. It could impact our small, but important role on this plane. Bringing the humans' innate evilness to the surface so they acted on it more readily. If we cared too much about them, could we continue to do that? If we somehow felt like we couldn't, what did that say about us, as creatures of hell? Were we no longer as evil? Would we not be able to go back home, to take over our old jobs, our only reason for existence?
It was important to separate ourselves from the humans and their many pesky emotions.
Still, as I sat there with this near stranger of a woman draped over me, trying to steal some strength and stability from me, there was no denying I was giving a shit.
Guilt was not an emotion I remembered personally feeling in the past. Yet I'd felt that way several times just since I'd come in contact with this woman.
It didn't make any sense to me.
And not knowing things, that never sat well with me.
"Ugh, no," Josephine groaned when I tried to get her to eat.
"You'll feel better."
"I'll throw up," she told me, and Minos snatched back the bag so fast I barely caught the motion.
"We're in a moving car," he grumbled. "I'm not getting stuck in here with vomit. Deal with that shit enough at the parties."
That was fair enough. There was never a house party we hosted that
didn't end up with one of us hosing down the back patio or scrubbing one of the bathrooms.
Humans and their weak stomachs.
"Alright," I said, reaching for the coffee. "Try this then," I said, holding it up to her lips when she refused to reach for it. Because one of her hands was tucked behind me, and the other was somewhat obsessively tracing the stubble that had grown on my face without me noticing.
"Gross," she grumbled, but took a couple more sips before resting her head against me again.
"You should sleep."
"Mmhmm," she agreed, sounding halfway there already.
"What?" I asked, seeing Minos shooting me a look over his shoulder as Josephine passed out, arm draped across my waist.
"I didn't say anything."
"What's the look for then?"
"This just looks really familiar."
"What? Like with you and your claimed woman?" I snapped, still more annoyed than I had a right to be over something I understood he and Ly could not control. I had no idea who Minos's woman was, but I knew she existed. I knew she rejected him. And I knew it had irreparably changed him ever since.
"No," he said, sighing out his breath as a mask came down over his face. "Reminds me of Ly and Lenore," he clarified before turning forward, and putting on some of that sad sack music he liked so much these days. Music to slit your wrists to was what I'd heard Drex describe it as, and it wasn't too far off the mark.
I wanted to shake off his comment, but as the hours dragged on, as Josephine climbed all over me like a fucking cat in her sleep until I wound up cradling her on my lap, my arms around her so she didn't go flying when we braked or took a turn, I couldn't stop them from swirling around my head at a break-neck pace.
See, I'd missed the signs with Ly. I guess because Claiming was rare with our kind. And after Minos went through it, I thought that would be it for us.
But in the weeks after I realized what had happened under my nose, I'd started to analyze that time when Lenore came out of our basement and found her way into Ly's world.
Minos wasn't completely off.
Because Ly had always been hard and rough and even cruel at times. But there had been a softness with Lenore I'd never seen with him before. And if I were being perfectly honest, I was starting to see some of that same shit with the nurse. Even after just a couple days.
The Healer (Seven Sins MC Book 2) Page 6
