Chapter 28
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
RATTLER
I’m beaten and battered. Stone had kept hitting me with his damn baseball bat until I didn’t know which way was up.
I’ve got a concussion for certain, my eyes are damn near swollen shut, one arm hangs at my side and my legs are utterly useless.
How I hung onto Bullseye on the way back, I don’t even know.
Yet one voice manages to break through the delirium that threatens to take me under. Ames. She’s here.
I don’t have time to brace as she launches herself toward me.
If it wasn’t for Short and Woody’s support, I’d have fallen onto the floor.
Seeing the carnage around me, with my one good arm I gently push her away from me and examine her to check she’s unhurt.
She seems to be, but sometimes looks are deceiving.
“You okay?” My voice is gruff with emotion.
“Me?” she answers with an uneasy laugh. “I’m fine, but what about you?” She looks me up and down from head to toe. “Fuck, Rattler, how are you even standing up?”
My answering snort sounds weak even to me.
Short chuckles from my rear. “He wouldn’t be if we weren’t propping him up. Now how about I get him up to his room, and you can take care of him while I get Bronwyn here?”
I start to protest I don’t need a nurse, but that would be fucking stupid. I don’t think there’s an inch of me that doesn’t hurt, but I can’t tell whether there’s any serious damage. But there’s something I want settled first. “Where’s Stone?”
Ames grimaces. “Not here.”
Bullseye had left me to go chat with Saint. He now returns, his face grim, and had obviously overheard my question. “All we’ve captured are his foot soldiers. And so far none of them are talking. We’re heading out to the barn…”
“I’m coming,” I interrupt him.
“Fuck no, to that, brother. Not until you’ve been cleared by Bronwyn.” Bullseye’s voice is firm.
“I want Stone…”
“Know you do. But Short, Woody? Let him go for a moment.” As Short and Woody remove their hands, my legs buckle. Luckily Short catches me before I hit the ground. Bullseye’s eyes narrow. “Point made, I think.”
Yeah. Point made with fucking bells on. I’m totally useless. I cast an eye toward Ames, but she seems concerned, not worried, that I’m incapable of even supporting myself.
It’s at that moment Freak appears. He takes one look at me, his eyes widening, and then sighs. “Not sure how we’re going to get you over to the bunkhouse. Ames stayed in my room yesterday, you might as well continue to use it for another night.”
After Ames throws a grateful glance toward the enforcer, she says, “Come upstairs.” Her voice sounds pleading. All the blood on me must really be worrying her.
But I still don’t like that I’m being left out of the loop. “You let me know what they say? And if you find where Stone’s hiding, I want to be there when you head out, okay?”
Prez raises his chin. Short turns me in the direction of the stairs, and I view them with horror. How the fuck am I…
Shit, fuck, no. This is embarrassing. Short’s hauled me up into his arms and is carrying me bridal style. I’m pleased when he lets me down at the top, balancing against the wall and breathing heavily.
“Remind me not to do that again,” he manages to get out. “You’re heavier than you fuckin’ look.”
Ames pushes past me and opens the door to Freak’s room.
Short half carries, half guides me toward it, then manoeuvres me in the direction of the bed from which Ames has pulled the comforter away.
Immediately I sink down onto the sheet covered mattress, and sigh heavily.
Even sitting hurts me, and as I lie down, I feel what that asshole had done to my back.
“You gonna be okay?” Short directs his question to Ames.
She looks a bit hesitant, I doubt she’s ever been faced with a broken, bleeding man before. No wonder she’s feeling out of her depth. Though when she answers my brother, her voice is firm. “We’ll be fine.”
He claps his hand on her shoulder, “I’ll go call Bronwyn. She’s just about finishing her shift. She’ll be here as soon as she can.” His eyes land on me again. “Do you think you need a doctor, Rat?”
“Nah.” Truthfully, I don’t know one way or another.
But I can’t go to the hospital, not with my type of injuries, too many questions would be asked.
And Bronwyn’s only recently had to call in a doctor friend to treat Trixie.
Somehow, I don’t think the civilian will be inclined to treat me the same way he was persuaded to help her.
After giving me chin, he leaves.
Ames closes the door behind him, then stands looking flummoxed.
Her hands flutter as her eyes first land on my face, then follow down the rest of my body.
Maybe I should explain, Stone had stripped me bare by cutting off my clothes.
Instead of transporting me naked on the back of Prez’s bike — which would probably have raised questions and not a few eyebrows — I’m dressed in Woody’s spare clothes he’d had in his saddle bags, sweats, already soaked through with blood, and a t-shirt that’s far too big for me.
That too, is covered in patches of crimson red.
My feet? Well, at least Bullseye found my boots for me.
She’ll need to undress me if she’s going to help.
Despite what I led Stone to believe, I never touched her, we never shared that intimacy. Now I can’t find the words to tell her to take off my clothes. We’re no longer at the cabin, we’re back at the compound. Maybe she’s already thinking of me differently.
Instead, I ask the question that’s been playing on my mind. “Why did you use Freak’s room last night? Why not use mine?”
A sob comes out of her, followed by another, and soon tears are streaming down her face.
“Because,” she starts, then chokes up. I give her the time to pull herself together.
“Because I thought you were…” her voice hesitates, then lowers on the final word, “dead.” Then she adds, “I couldn’t bear to be surrounded by your things.
They’d have reminded me how I left you…”
“Oh, darlin’,” I breathe out. It had been bad for me, but maybe worse for her.
I feel a fool for doubting her feelings had changed.
I hold out my arms, well, one and a half of them, my fucking left shoulder is useless, and my hand throbs where Stone had cut off my finger.
“You did what you had to. They’d have killed both of us if you’d stayed. ”
She takes a hesitant step forward. “I could have helped you. Could have prevented,” her hand gestures toward my body, “this.”
“Babe, there were too many. And if you’d been there, they would have achieved their objective. Stone would have had no reason to take me, he’d have killed me on the spot. Believe me you couldn’t have helped.” Seeing she still looks guilty, I emphasise, “You running to safety saved my life.”
My eyes narrow as I realise her initial euphoria at seeing me alive has faded. Her eyes are looking beyond me, her face has paled, and she’s visibly trembling. “Ames?” I prompt, suddenly worried as fuck.
“I killed a man tonight. I aimed and shot him, just how you taught me.” Her voice is monotone.
Jesus. Fuck! I never wanted that for her.
The heart that I never thought I had breaks as I realise how much it must have cost her to take a life, she’d been through her own hell while I’d been gone.
She wouldn’t even contemplate leaving glass lying around in case a squirrel stepped on it, let alone kill someone.
Again, I gesture toward her. “Come here.”
For a moment she seems frozen to the spot.
Fuck, I wish I could go to her, but my limbs are too heavy and painful to move.
I try to encourage her by gentling my voice.
“Ames, come to me.” Then I remember all those little things she’d done for me back at the cabin, how she likes to help someone else.
I rephrase my request, “I need you, Ames.”
The suggestion that the comfort is for me, instead of for her, seems to work, or at least gets her moving.
She takes another step, and then one more.
When she reaches the bed, she goes on her knees and reaches out her arms to me.
At least she’s on the right side where I’ve some control over my arm, I wrap it around her and pull her close, feeling her body vibrate as she continues to shake.
The dam breaks, and she again starts sobbing, this time as if she’ll never stop. And as she cries, I feel a reciprocal wetness on my cheeks, and know those tears are mine. Fuck getting undressed, fuck cataloging my injuries, we both need solace more than doctoring right now.
There had been times in that abandoned building when I’d thought I was going to meet my end.
I didn’t know why Stone was keeping me alive.
He kept switching his reasoning up. Playing sick games to torture me.
My finger was just the start, he’d told me at first. He’d return me to his sister, piece by piece.
He’s hovered around me, knife in hand, telling me next he was going to take an eye.
I think he wanted me to beg, but I’d refrained.
At one point he’d said he was leaving my eventual demise until Ames could be there to witness it. Then, he’d switch it up. When I overhead from his phone call he was going to make an exchange with my club, me for her. I’d fucking lost it at that point. Bullseye would never do that, would he?
And all the time he was mentally torturing me, he was hitting me with that fucking baseball bat.
When he put those fucking annulment papers in front of me, I’d signed them, not knowing his game, if there was a chance she could live her life free, I’d do anything.
By then, I’d given up hope of ever being close to her again, and in those times I wasn’t concentrating on surviving what he doled out, I was regretting not cementing my relationship with Ames, promising to myself if I ever got out, I was going to make what we had real.
The hours I’d been with Stone had fucked with my mind.
I’d started to believe she’d come to her senses and think she was better off without me, that she’d take the opportunity I’d given her, sign that fucking annulment document and use it.
Why would she hang around for someone like me?
Especially seeing how I’d dismissed her advances toward me, and said those cruel things to get her running to safety.
I was shocked as hell by her behaviour since I arrived back at the clubhouse. She so clearly cares and acts nothing like a woman who’s going to take the first chance to get rid of the man who’d entered with her into that fake as shit marriage.
There’s not one part of my body that doesn’t hurt, but the pain means nothing now she’s back in my arms. Although my nose is swollen, I still enjoy the sense of breathing her in, I might be in agony, but feeling her heart steadily beating is soothing.
My mind wonders how I ever deserved this woman who constantly surprises me.
Did she run and hide when the club was attacked?
Apparently, no. She’d used the skills I’d taught her and took at least one of Stone’s men out.
While it’s something she’ll have to come to terms with, I’m so fucking proud of her.
I couldn’t tell you how long we lay there taking comfort from each other. In the end, it’s her who moves first. She pulls away, wiping her tears with the back of her hand. “This isn’t helping you.”
Oh, but it is. I clutch at her hand, pulling it to my mouth, and placing a kiss on it. “Ames, I…”
A knock at the door interrupts me. Ames goes to open it, then steps aside to let Bronwyn in. Short’s old lady takes a moment to examine me with her eyes. Then she opens the bag she brought and starts assembling an IV pole.
“Short told me you’d lost a lot of blood. I haven’t any to give you a transfusion, but you do look like you’ll need fluids and ABs.”
“A painkiller will help,” I rasp.
She nods. “That too. But let me see first how I can make you more comfortable. On a scale of one to ten, how much pain are you in?”
Ames had soothed me, bringing me down from a number off the scale. I can only reply, “Nine.”
Ames gasps. I squeeze her hand.
“Let me see what I’m dealing with. Ames, can you give me a hand? We’ve got to get his clothes off.”
My innocent bride flushes. Of course she does. I hide my amusement. “Have at it ladies. I don’t think I can be of much help.”
Bronwyn starts at my sweats, she loosens the waistband, I help as much as I can to lift my hips, but when I dig my heels into the mattress, my legs buckle.
Under the nurse’s instruction, Ames helps, and soon they have them off.
I’m panting by the time they’ve finished.
And I only just manage to catch Ames’s face flushing red as she realises I’m wearing no underwear.
In the efficient way you’d expect from a member of the nursing profession, Bron solves the situation by covering my groin with a towel she’s quickly sourced from Freak’s bathroom.