Prologue #2
I nod, grateful for his presence but unable to form the words.
Ruger understands.
It's why he's a good man.
He knows when to push and when to just fucking be there.
Another hour passes before a doctor approaches, his face carefully composed in that way medical professionals have when delivering bad news.
"Mr. Mercer?" he asks, looking between the bikers uncertainly.
I stand. "That's me."
"I'm Dr. Renyolds. Your wife is stabilized, but it was close. The Narcan reversed the opioid effects, but she experienced respiratory depression for an extended period. We'll need to monitor her for potential complications."
"Is she awake?"
"Semiconscious. She's been asking for 'Blood.' I assume that's you?"
I nod. "Can I see her?"
"Briefly. Room four."
Leah squeezes my arm. "I'll come check on her after my rounds."
I follow the doctor through swinging doors into the emergency department, past curtained areas where other dramas unfold.
Vanna's room is at the end, monitoring equipment beeping steadily beside her bed.
She looks small against the white sheets, oxygen in her nose, IV in her arm.
Her skin has lost the blue tint but remains too pale, stretched tight over her cheekbones.
Her eyes flutter open as I approach. "Blood?" Her voice is raspy, barely audible.
I take her hand, careful of the IV. Her fingers are ice cold. "I'm here."
"You found me again." Her cracked lips attempt a smile. "My dark knight."
"Don't talk. Rest."
She shakes her head weakly. "Need to explain... wasn't trying to die. Just wanted to feel good for a while."
"Vanna—"
"Everything hurts all the time," she continues, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes. "When I'm straight, it's like I'm suffocating. Like this whole fucking town is sitting on my chest."
I know the feeling.
Morgantown's a city of ghosts—empty mines, empty promises, empty futures.
Some escape to the university and never look back. Others, like us, get trapped in its gravity.
"We can get you help," I tell her, the same words I've said a dozen times before. "Rehab in Pittsburgh. Meetings. Whatever you need."
She looks away, focusing on the window where dawn is just beginning to lighten the sky above. "I can't do it, Garrett. I've tried. I need it."
"You need to live."
"This isn't living." Her fingers tighten around mine with surprising strength. "This is just... existing. Waiting for the next fix."
We've had this conversation before, each time she hits bottom. Each time, I think maybe it's the wake-up call she needs. Each time, she proves me wrong.
"When can I leave?" she asks, already thinking about her next score.
Fucking idiot.
I want to scream at her: do better for me. Live for me. Give us a chance to be what we were, but I don’t.
"Doctor wants to monitor you. Brain damage risk."
She smiles bitterly. "Brain's already damaged, Blood. Has been since the day I was born in this fucking state."
I don't have an answer for that. West Virginia's beauty hides its poison—coal dust in the lungs, pills in the bloodstream, and hopelessness in the heart.
A nurse enters to check Vanna's vitals, and I step into the hallway, leaning against the wall.
Exhaustion hits me suddenly, my legs nearly buckling under the weight of the night's events.
"You look like shit."
Leah appears beside me, offering a cup of vending machine coffee.
Her shift must be ending; dark circles shadow her eyes, matching my own.
"Feel like it," I admit, taking the coffee. It tastes like tar but I need the damn caffeine.
"The conference room's empty," she says, nodding down the hall. "Got a minute?"
I follow her into the small room with its view of Mountaineer Field in the distance.
The wall is plastered with WVU healthcare awards next to opioid crisis response protocols—the perfect encapsulation of this town's dual nature.
"This is the third OD in six months, Garrett," Leah says without preamble, closing the door behind us. "She's killing herself, and you're letting her."
"What am I supposed to do? Lock her up?"
"Let her go." Her voice softens. "Get divorced, sign the papers, stop being her safety net and move on with your life."
"She has no one else."
"That's her choice! She's pushed away everyone who ever tried to help her." Leah's frustration breaks through her professional demeanor. "Her mom’s gone. Her dad’s as good as gone. The only person she hasn't completely alienated is you, and that's only because you refuse to see what's happening."
"I see exactly what's happening."
"Then why are you still here? Why do you come running every time she calls? Why do you keep paying her rent when she spends every cent on drugs?" Leah takes my hands, her eyes pleading. "What are you going to do now, Garrett?"
I stare out the window at the rolling Appalachian hills, trying to distract myself, distract myself from my fucked up life.
"She has no one," I repeat, knowing it's not an answer. "I'll be here until she kills herself."
"You can't save someone who doesn't want to be saved," she says finally, wiping at her eyes.
"I know." I finish the coffee, crushing the cup in my fist. "But I can make sure she doesn't die alone."
It's the Appalachian way—you don't abandon your own, even when it's killing you.
Loyalty to a fault, our mother used to call it—the Mercer family curse.
When I return to Vanna's room, shift change has brought fresh nurses with West Virginia-shaped pins on their lanyards.
The local radio station plays softly in the background—John Denver's "Take Me Home, Country Roads," the unofficial state anthem that every kid here learns before they can talk.
Vanna's eyes are already calculating, fingers twitching against the sheets.
I've seen this before—the moment the fear of death recedes, replaced by the desperate need for the next high.
I reach into my wallet, removing the emergency cash I keep there.
Five hundred dollars meant for a new transmission part.
I slide it into her hand, folding her fingers around it.
"Don't take this wrong," I say quietly, "but at least get clean shit. That dealer on Walnut Street. No one else. This shit they're cutting with fentanyl will kill you, and I don’t want you dead, Van. I don’t…fuck, I don’t want you to die."
Her eyes meet mine, a flicker of the old Vanna visible for just a moment. "Why don't you hate me, Garrett? After everything?"
"Because I can't."
It's the truth, simple and devastating. Seventeen years of loving Savannah Smith—ever since I was a nine year old little boy and she just moved here with her family.
Nothing will make me stop loving her, and maybe that makes me the biggest fool in Morgantown, but it's who I am.
I press a kiss to her forehead, memorizing the feeling, knowing it might be the last time. "Call me when you're discharged."
She nods, already distant, the money clutched tight in her fist.
We both know the cycle—she'll be using again within hours of leaving the hospital, chasing the high until it nearly kills her, then I'll get another call from another trap house.
The morning shift doctor enters as I'm leaving, clipboard in hand. "Mr. Mercer, we should discuss your wife's treatment options. There's an excellent recovery program at—"
"She's not interested," I cut him off. "But thank you."
He looks between us, understanding what’s going on—she doesn’t want help, and trying to force it on me gets her nowhere.
"I'll have the discharge papers prepared," he says finally. "Mrs. Mercer, please consider the resources we've provided."
Vanna nods, not meeting his gaze.
We all know those pamphlets will be in the trash before she reaches the hospital doors.
I leave the hospital, leaving my wife there, and ride slowly back toward the club, passing coal miners starting their day shift, heading to the few remaining operations outside town.
Their faces are already marked with the black dust that will eventually fill their lungs. Different poison, same result.
By the time I’m back at the club and park my bike, I've locked it all away—the fear, the grief, the helpless rage.
My brothers will see nothing but Bloodhound, the cold, reliable Sergeant at Arms who handles problems without any emotion.
The name fits.
A bloodhound keeps tracking no matter how hopeless the trail, no matter how lost the quarry.
Even when the hunt is slowly killing him.