Chapter 22
22
Melody
If I could stay in Rogue’s warm bed this morning, I would’ve. Just blown off all obligations and stayed under the soft covers with him by my side. I haven’t wanted to do that for any guy since before med school. And a part of me wishes that I could still be carefree like that. And that the career I chose didn’t eat up my days and nights the way it does. But then there are the families whose loved ones I need to save. The old men and women I can give a few more years to. The husbands and wives I can bring back from the brink of death.
I already worked on one of each since I got here at ten AM. Successfully. Thank God.
Because it makes all the other sacrifices I’ve made and continue to make worthwhile.
Two of the women Rogue brought in last night didn’t make it. One more isn’t expected to last through the night. I want to be the one to tell him that. And at the same time, I never want him to know it.
My shift’ll be over in an hour and then I’ll have to tell him. And afterwards, I’ll make him feel better. I hope.
“Hey, Dr. Daydreamer,” Shelly says, startling me, and making me realize I’ve been staring at a medicine bottle I’m supposed to be putting away for a while now. “I’ve got a patient for you. I think he’s friends with that hunk you’re riding with these days.”
“Yeah? Did he say so?” I ask, sounding way too excited about the prospect of helping one Rogue’s men.
Shelly laughs. “No, he didn’t. And he doesn’t have those lovely angel’s wings on the back of his jacket. But he just looks like the type. A little rougher maybe. And he asked for you.”
She holds out his chart and I take it. “Why’s he here?”
“A cut on his hand he says won’t heal,” she says. “Said he’d rather have a doctor look at it when I tried to. I put him in the suture room for you.”
“All right, thanks,” I say and leave the drug lockup cage.
The biker is sitting with his back to the door in the suture room. He’s wide and tall, dwarfing the hospital bed Shelly told him to sit on. His dirty blond hair is wavy, brushing the collar of his leather jacket that’s unadorned by any club colors.
He turns to me as I open the door and grins. At first glance he looks more like one of the Devils than a member of Rogue Angels MC. His neck is covered by tattoos, snaking up his chin and a small, crudely cross adorns his cheek, just under the left eye. His eyes are deep and dark, the way a well is dark, and I’m guessing he’s seen a thing or two that I’d rather not know about. He has that air of a killer not at peace about it. I know it well. I’ve seen and felt it often in my old life. Men like that I always stayed away from. Too much darkness. Not enough fun.
“I’m Dr. Lockhart,” I say. “What seems to be troubling you?”
“I’m Zane,” he says, his gaze sliding down my body and his grin widening. “I have this cut on my hand that just won’t go away. It’s making it real hard to hold the handlebars, if you know what I mean.”
He holds out his left hand palm upwards.
“Well, first of all,” I say as I start to unwrap the dirty bandage covering it. “You have to keep your wound clean.”
“Easier said than done out on the road,” he says. “I’m sure you know what I mean. Melody.”
I lock eyes on his, the half-unwrapped bandage slipping out of my shaking fingers.
“Do I know you?” I ask even as I try to answer that question very hard in my mind. He does look vaguely familiar, like I’ve seen him before. But I have no idea where.
“You probably don’t remember me, why should you?” he says. “You wanted nothing to do with me back when we first met.”
“I don’t think we’ve met before,” I say, trying to keep my voice from shaking.
“Sure, we did,” he says and grins. The rest of the dirty bandage around his palm falls to the floor.
“I think I would’ve remembered you,” I say and chuckle, trying to hide just how badly this is weirding me out.
“We met years ago, back when you were still living at the Devil’s Nightmare MC clubhouse,” he says, making the laugh catch in my throat like a fishbone going down the wrong way.
Before I left the Devils warned me to watch my back, to be careful because whoever was after them might come after me too. The Prez, Cross even offered me protection down here in LA. But I said there was no need. That I’d quit being their club girl long enough ago for everyone to forget I ever was. Maybe I was wrong about that.
“You have me mixed up with someone else,” I say in the most shaky and unconvincing voice I’ve ever heard come out of my mouth.
“I go by the name Unholy, maybe you remember that better,” he says.
And hearing the name makes a piece of a very distant memory float to the surface of my mind. A picture really. Just a part of it.
He was younger then, yet his eyes were darker and colder than they are now. It must’ve been over nine years ago. I hadn’t been with the Devils long, less than a year. I wasn’t yet used to being around killers the way I later became. He frightened me so I turned him down. And as I remember, the Devils turned him down too, when he tried to join them.
“I’ll get a nurse to clean out your wound,” I say and back away to the door.
He stands up and lifts his hand. It takes all I have not to lower my head and cower. But he’s just showing me his palm.
“No wound,” he says and laughs. “I just wanted to see if I was right about who you were.”
Then he storms out of the room. And once the door is finally shut behind him, I start shaking uncontrollably. I don’t even know why I’m reacting this way. He didn’t threaten me. He just reminded me of all the death and destruction I left behind when I left the Devils. A part of my mind is now stuck in the bloody aftermath of the Devils’ last battle. And the carnage before that. And the one before that.
I should call them. Tell them about Unholy’s return. He didn’t take it well when they sent him away, just as he didn’t take it well when I rejected him. He must be back for revenge. I should tell the Devils.
But all I really want to do is go to Rogue. I never felt safe with the Devils the way I do with him. Probably because the Devils all shared me and I’m his one and only. Or maybe because we were meant to find each other. Or maybe because no man has ever looked at me with the kind of devotion he did last night, under the soft yellow light of the lamps on the pier, as we came at the same time to the whooshing of the ocean waves below us.
So I don’t think too hard about anything. Just tell my Attending that I have to knock off early and leave. I can let the Devils know about Unholy’s visit once I’m safe in Rogue’s arms.