Chapter 3 – Grey
GREY
I needed to see it for myself.
I eased the bathroom door shut behind me, flipping the lock. With a bar full of Saints, it should have been assured that I’d be interrupted, but not today.
Not when the majority could barely roll themselves off the cots and pool tables where they were laid up to heal, most passed out from all the pain killers in their system.
Not me.
I’d gummed the little morphine pill Rook all but forced into my mouth and spit it out when he wasn’t looking. I wasn’t going back to sleep until Ava Jade was back. Until I knew she was safe.
A shaky breath filled my lungs as I turned, carrying the fresh bandages and clean cloth to the bank of stainless steel sinks. I took the time to wipe down the scratched surface before setting down the sterile materials and pressing my palms down against the cool metal.
I looked up, feeling a chill roll down my spine at the reflection staring back at me in the mirror.
It was unmistakably me, which was a sort of relief I supposed. But fuck did I ever look like shit.
The bandage taped over my eye was a gruesome shade of yellowish pink, soiled, bits of gray dust and debris discoloring the edges of the clear surgical tape holding it in place.
My face was gaunt. Paler than I’d ever seen it.
With dark purplish skin beneath the one eye I still had and the veins in my temple a striking blue against the thin skin covering them.
I’d managed to change out of my blood-covered clothes into gym shorts and a baggy t-shirt, one of the few extra sets of workout attire I kept here in the basement, but even the clean clothes couldn’t cover up how absolutely not clean I was.
There was still blood in the shallow wrinkles slashing across my neck.
In my dirty blonde hair sticking out at every angle.
I needed a fucking shower, but that would have to wait. We’d planned to use one of the working girls’ rooms upstairs to clean ourselves up after the meet. But without knowing exactly when Dies and Maverick would be showing up, we’d kept holding out.
I wanted to be there. Put the pressure on Mav if he even thought for a second about denying our request to hand over that little shit, Aries.
Rook was right, I didn’t really think it was him, either. But then why run?
Why was he even there to fucking begin with? He was the clean-up crew, not a frontman. If he wasn’t the guy, maybe he knew something that could help us at the very least. Something he wasn’t keen to share.
I coughed to clear my throat, giving my head a slight shake to bring myself back to the reason I came in here. I was procrastinating, and it wasn’t going to fucking help anything.
I licked my dry lips and gave my hands one final scrub under the hot water, drying them as well as I could before I set to work.
The bandages were practically fucking glued in place, and I cursed as I eased the edges of the surgical tape off my skin, leaving red marks behind.
“Grey,” Rook’s voice came through the door, followed by a soft double tap. “You good?”
“Fine.”
“Sure you don’t want help, Bro? You shouldn’t be standing yet.”
“Look who’s fucking talking. How’s the peg leg?”
No reply, but I could imagine his face on the other side of the locked door.
“I’m good, Rook,” I cemented. “I need to do this myself.”
I heard the faint sound of his hobbled footsteps retreating and finished lifting the last bit of tape from my skin, jostling the bandage enough to cause a sharp pain to shoot all the way back through my skull, setting off a persistent throbbing ache once it subsided.
I gritted my teeth, rethinking the fucking morphine for half a second before I forced myself to pull the bandage the rest of the way off, not stopping once I began to pull despite the agony making my fingers shake.
“ Fuck,” I gritted out, tossing the bandage into the sink and squeezing my one eye shut. The muscles around the missing one tried to flex as well, only serving to worsen the aching.
I slammed a fist against the countertop, the pain in my hand helping to dull the sharpness of the pain in my ocular cavity.
From the look of the bandage in the sink, it wasn’t going to be fucking pretty, but I made myself look again.
I blew out a breath, finding something other than what I imagined.
Not a garish crater-like wound that was caving in half my skull.
Stitches ran down the middle of my upper-eyelid, sewing it back together. The skin of my eyelids and around my eye screamed in shades of purple, red, and yellow. Swollen and brutal.
The thin wet red slash between my eyelids where my eye used to be looked like something out of a horror movie. Just really good special effects.
An all red contact lens.
But I knew the truth. I knew there was no eye there, and what I was seeing was the backside of an ocular cavity injured by the force of a bullet.
It had to be a ricochet. That was the only way the bullet wouldn’t have continued to travel, past my ocular cavity and deeper into my most vital organ.
The guys were right. I was lucky.
My chest squeezed at the thought of Ava Jade ever seeing this.
Not only would she always blame herself for it, but…
I was fucking hideous.
Maybe when the swelling went down… when it began to heal.
I laughed darkly. No. Not even then.
I’d wear a patch for the rest of my life. I’d make sure she never saw it.
All that would be left would be to learn a really good fucking pirate voice and buy a parrot that could ride shotty on my shoulder and the look would be complete.
I choked on the next laugh, swallowing past the bile rising in my throat.
Vance would never walk again, I reminded myself.
This was nothing.
But I’m already the weakest of us, my mind whispered. Now Rook and Corv will only have to pick up even more slack for my sorry ass.
Would I still be able to shoot with one eye?
Drive?
Would I have to relearn everything?
Before I could fall too deeply into a bullshit well of self-pity, I picked up the clean cloth and let the water from the tap run piping hot before soaking it under the stream.
I cleaned the wound, scrubbing off bits of dried blood and some other substance I’d rather not know well enough to name. Once the clean bandage was in place, I felt better, even if the soreness around the wound had only tripled as I cleaned it.
I took the antibiotics the vet gave me, scooping water from the tap to help ease them down my dry throat.
A fist pounded once on the door to the bathroom, and I jerked, hissing, “ What? ”
“Dies just pulled up,” Rook said through the door. “You done? Mav should be here any minute for the meet.”
“Yeah.”
I dumped all my shit in the garbage and swiped the back of my hand over my wet lips before striding out, Rook watching me with a hawk’s eye as I passed him, moving back to the front of Sanctum.
“How bad was it?” he asked as the sound of our father and the other Saints entering from the back door through the kitchen floated to us in the main bar.
I shrugged a shoulder. “It’s fine.”
“That’s a bullshit answer.”
I clenched my teeth. “It’s not as bad as I thought it would be.”
It was the truth but that didn’t negate the fact I was missing an entire fucking eyeball. That I’d never get it back.
“Good.”
From the way he was looking at me, I could tell. “You’ve already seen it, haven’t you?”
“Course I have. Corv was passed out while the vet worked on you, but I watched the whole thing. He said you may be able to be fitted with a glass eye if it heals right.”
So I could actually look like Frankenstein’s monster.
Diesel pushed in through the door to the kitchen with a few Saints on his tail, scanning the bar until he found us.
“Mav’s on his way,” he said, striding over, trying to covertly get a look at us.
He dragged a stool from the bar and shoved Rook into it, dragging out another and patting the seat. “Lift your leg.”
“ Dies ,” Rook groaned.
“Lift your goddamned leg, or I’ll do it for you.”
Rook’s face soured as he lifted his leg, but he barely got it more than a couple feet off the ground before it dropped and he cursed, his body jerking forward.
Diesel grabbed the underside of Rook’s calf, below the bandage there and lifted it into place on the stool, his hand coming away red.
He glared at Rook, not needing to say a damn word, Rook knew he was being stupid. Now, whether or not he cared was another thing.
“Have either of you slept?”
I looked away.
Rook jerked his chin to Pinkie. “Grab me the Jack, would you?”
“No,” Dies hissed, making Pinkie stop in his tracks. “You’ll bleed out if your blood thins anymore.”
Rook’s upper lip twitched, but he didn’t argue.
“No Ava Jade yet?” Dies questioned, his gaze tracking around the quiet pub.
The wrinkles in his forehead deepened. “Where the fuck is Corvus?”
I pressed my lips shut.
If Corv hadn’t threatened the sentries Dies had placed at all the exits, they would’ve notified him Corvus left hours ago.
I assumed Corv planned to be back before Diesel was.
He texted an hour ago to say he wouldn’t make it.
He was only digging his own grave.
“Goddammit,” Diesel said between clenched teeth. “When did he leave?”
“Ten minutes after you did,” Rook admitted, knowing Diesel would find out anyway. Besides, I got the feeling Rook was done covering for our big brother. His slight with Ava Jade wouldn’t soon be forgiven. By either of us.
And if she didn’t come back…
“Where did he go?” Diesel demanded.
“To check on a friend,” I supplied. “We haven’t heard from her in a while.”
“Becca went with him,” Rook added. “His backup .”
Diesel tipped his head back, exasperated as he dragged a palm down his chin.
“The boy is fucking lucky we already swept the entire city. What was he thinking? With his injuries? Taking off into the streets still sour with the smell of spilled blood…”
It was a rhetorical question, and he lifted a hand to silence Pinkie when he tried to say something, lifting his cell phone from his pocket to dial Corvus.
I winced for my brother as the quiet sound of the line ringing filled my ears.
After a moment, the impersonal automated voicemail message from the service provider sounded, rattling off the phone number with a request to leave a message at the tone.
Diesel growled as he hung up, his thumbs flying over the screen as he typed what I knew would be a vicious text message. For a guy who expected us to reply to him immediately, he really did have a double standard with that shit.
Dies stuffed the phone back into his pocket and sighed, resetting himself as he stood at his full height. Out of the skin of an angry parent and back where he fit best, into the battle-hardened flesh of a gang leader.
“Let’s do this downstairs,” he decided. “We don’t need Mav seeing this mess.”
He indicated the broken men around us, not needing to point out the obvious. That the majority of the injured were Saints. Not Kings.
They didn’t quite outnumber us now, but it was close.
Too close for Diesel’s comfort.
Rook lifted his leg off the stool.
“Not you,” Dies hissed at him. “You park your ass there and keep that shit elevated.”
“You know he’s just going to follow us,” I protested.
Diesel glared at Rook, and my brother gave him a plaintive shrug.
“Not if I make you stay,” he challenged, jerking his chin at Pinkie, who stepped forward.
Rook lifted his gun from his waistband and set it on the stool where his leg was only a second ago, between him and Pinkie.
“Try me, big guy.”
Pinkie looked back at Dies. “Boss?”
Diesel’s eyes glinted with malice as he sucked a breath in through his teeth. “So fucking stubborn,” he said. “You remind me of her.”
Rook smirked, replacing the gun back into his waistband, hobbling on his one leg. “It’s why you adopted my ass, remember?”
“Help him down the stairs,” Dies ordered Pinkie. “And see that he sits his ass down and elevates that leg.”
“You got it, boss.”
Rook allowed Pinkie to help him through the bar to the back stairs, and I followed behind them.
“You don’t have to be such a fucking cunt all the time,” Pinkie grunted without any real animosity, taking the brunt of Rook’s weight.
Rook laughed hollowly. “You know I wouldn’t really hurt my Pinkie Pie,” Rook crooned, and Pinkie shoved him into the wall, making him groan.
“ Oops ,” Pinkie muttered, only drawing another laugh from Rook as they made their way at a snail’s pace down the stairs to the underbelly of Sanctum.