Chapter 36 Knight
KNIGHT
My team prepares to head out, suiting up and making sure every weapon is fully loaded and accounted for. When my phone rings, I glance down, not really having the time to deal with anything other than my squad, but seeing Blackstone Private Hospital Security appear on my phone, it brings me pause.
“You guys keep going,” I say, already answering the phone. “I’ve gotta take this.”
I lift the phone to my ear, and hold it between my face and shoulder, freeing up my hands to holster my gun. “Now’s not a great time,” I say, assuming it’s Carly. “Is it important?”
“Yeah,” Carly says. “It’s that girl from down in the morgue. Your niece.”
The fuck. “The girl from the morgue?” I ask, knowing damn well that Harper is home in her bed, recovering from surgery. Hell, even if she thought she could manage going to work, it’s not even close to her work hours.
“The one from the surveillance feed,” she confirms. “I figured I’d call you before they shoot her up with a sedative and have her committed.
I think you need to get down here. She seems to be having some kind of breakdown.
She’s in her pajamas, wailing in the morgue.
She keeps saying something about missing bodies and carvings. ”
“Fuck. I’ll be there in ten.”
Ending the call, I shove my phone straight into my pocket before finding both Diesel and Ace staring at me. “It’s Harper. I have to go,” I tell them, turning my gaze to Diesel. “Can you take point?”
He nods, and I turn on my heel and run, knowing the boys will have each other’s backs. After stopping by the locker room to grab my keys, I race down to the parking garage and hurry to my truck.
I wasn’t there for her last time she was in trouble, and because of that, she almost died in a back alley, and I was forced to sit there and wait, hoping like fuck that she was going to be alright. But today isn’t going to be like that. If she’s burning, I’m burning.
My truck roars to life, and within seconds, I’m hauling ass out of the parking garage to the main road, racing to get to her through the pouring rain. I have no fucking clue how she ended up in the morgue in her pajamas. What the fuck happened between last night and this morning?
I should have stayed and taken the time off work, even if it meant just sitting outside her apartment and making sure she was alright.
I reach the hospital in just under eight minutes, breaking every fucking road rule on the way to get to her, and as I peel through the parking garage, I see her Honda and immediately want to bitch her out.
She knows damn well that she’s not supposed to be driving, especially while on those painkillers.
But more than that, how did she get down to her car?
Did she walk down all those flights of stairs herself when she can barely stand without grasping the wall?
Fucking hell.
Why does loving someone mean always being furious with them? How the fuck am I supposed to look out for her if she won’t look out for herself? Damn it.
I park my truck only a few spaces down from Harper’s Honda, and within seconds, I’m flying through the main door of the hospital, having no fucking clue where to find her.
I head toward the reception desk when an internal door opens, and I hear her voice from down the hall.
“LET GO OF ME,” Harper screams. “I HAVE TO FIND HIM. I HAVE TO FIND LAITH.”
Fuck.
I race through the internal doors.
“Hey, you can’t go back there,” someone yells from reception, but I don’t bother to even glance back as my feet pound against the hospital’s cheap linoleum. All that matters is Harper at the other end of the hallway.
Three security guards hover around her, holding on to her too tightly as other doctors and her colleagues stand around her, talking about her but not to her.
I reach her in all of three seconds, barging past the doctors. “Get your hands off my fucking girl,” I rumble, the threat clear as day in my tone, making all three of the security guards stop what they’re doing and shoot their gazes straight to mine.
At my voice, Harper’s head snaps up, her eyes wide and full of fear, and there’s something there I’ve never seen before. It’s as though she’s not even in there.
“Knight,” she whimpers as if begging me to make it all go away, the pain in her tone like nothing I’ve ever heard from her, and it crushes every ounce of my soul.
I step closer as the guards hastily release her, letting her fall heavily to the ground, her knees crashing into the linoleum. I grit my teeth and dive after her, not daring to let her go as I pull her back to her feet and straight into my arms, cradling her as though I’ll never let go.
The guards will have me to deal with as soon as I’ve dealt with Harper and figured out what the fuck is going on here.
Being in my job for as long as I have, I’ve had more than my fair share of encounters with these guys, and they know damn well that I’m about to bury their asses for even thinking about putting their hands on my girl, let alone letting her drop to the ground like that.
“What’s going on, doll?” I ask, my thumb brushing over the side of her face as I hold her to my chest, her tears soaking into my Kevlar vest that I never had a chance to remove. “What are you doing here?”
She shakes her head, her voice barely a whisper now. “I have to find him.”
“Find who?”
“Laith. His body is gone. I have to know that it’s real.”
“It’s okay, doll,” I tell her, wishing there was some way I could make this go away while knowing that she’s going downhill fast. There is no body. There never was. Hell, there’s no fucking stalker. She’s sick, and I have to get her the help that she needs. “We’ll find him.”
She pulls back just an inch and lifts her gaze to mine. “Really?”
I nod. “Yes, but I need to get you back home and into your bed first. This is too much stress on your body. It’s still healing. You can’t handle all of this moving around so soon after your surgery.”
She watches me closely, and for a moment, it almost looks as though she’s going to let me lead her away, but when her brows pull down, I quickly realize that I’ve lost her. “You’re lying,” she says, her chest heaving, panic in her bright green stare. “You told me you would never lie to me.”
“Doll, please let me help you,” I beg her. “You’re not well.”
“I knew it,” she cries, ripping out of my hold and making the guards reach for their guns, and I immediately step forward, putting myself between Harper and their guns. “All of you are liars. Where’s Laith? What did you do with him?”
“Sir?” a doctor says from behind me, one I’ve never met before. “She’s having what I believe to be a psychotic break. I need to sedate her before she hurts herself or anybody else.”
My gaze shifts back to Harper, and she shakes her head, having heard every fucking word. “No,” she says, horror in her eyes. “No. I’m not sick. You have to believe me.”
Every piece of me shatters seeing her like this, but there’s no talking to her when she’s like this. There’s no reasoning with her. She needs help, and despite how she feels, at some point, I’m going to have to step in and take it into my own hands.
“Do it,” I tell the doctor, knowing that there’s going to be one hell of a big conversation when she wakes up.
Harper looks at me with betrayal, tears rolling down her beautiful cheeks, and as the guards and the doctor rush in, she hastily tries to get away, but there are too many of them. She’s immobilized while frantically trying to free herself, her eyes locked on mine for every damn second of it.
The doctor quickly prepares the sedative, and within seconds, he’s grasping her upper arm and injecting it into the muscle. Her chest heaves, and as the doctor steps away, her body starts to relax.
I hurry in, taking her from the guards and lifting her right into my arms, and as she watches me through her sleepy stare, she gently shakes her head, a tear still sitting on her perfect cheek.
“How could you?” she whispers, and not a moment later, she gives in to the sedative, her body going limp in my arms.