Forty
W hen Reacher returned, it was hours later, and he looked depressed. There was no other word for it. He had one of the prospects deliver a meal for us, and then he sat on the bed with me, and picked at it, while he hid away in his thoughts, rather than talking to me.
“Reacher? It’s bad, isn’t it?”
He blinked, finally looking at me.
“Yeah. I think it is. They’re booking scans and a biopsy for him. He’s… he’s fucking scared, and who wouldn’t be? This isn’t something we can beat up on, or murder in the basement. Hell… I don’t know what to do, Ally.”
This is one of those moments where a biker relies on his old lady, I’m almost certain of it.
“Reacher? Will you snap the fuck out of it?”
He stared at me, dropping his fork onto his half full plate.
“Seriously?”
I tried a half smile. “I thought it might help. You know like when I’m upset, and you decide that fucking my mouth will distract me.”
He snorted, reaching over to cup my cheek.
“Don’t ever fucking change, you hear me? Keep sassing me and pushing me, and Jesus… mocking me. All of it. It keeps me out of my head.”
I grinned at him. “I’m pretty sure I can manage to do that, Reacher. I mean, you’re kinda easy to wind up, old man.”
He stared at me, the intensity in his eyes practically burning me.
“I’m gonna help Stitch with this, and then I’m fucking marrying you, Ally. I don’t even care anymore if anyone opposes things. I’m gonna marry you, and then I’m gonna make you my fucking old lady.”
Then he frowned. “No. Old lady first. Actually, yeah… Fuck everyone here. Stitch is on our side, and that’s all we need. We’re gonna fucking do this. Today. We’re fucking doing it today.”
I grabbed his hand as he tried to shove up from the bed.
“Reacher. Stop.”
“What?”
“This is a knee-jerk reaction to what’s going on with Stitch. This is you feeling the burden of mortality. All of our mortality. We don’t have to do everything this instant. Let’s help Stitch first, and then we can talk to the club again. Together.”
He slumped back on the bed with me.
“I fucking hate this. In the last few months, it seems like everything that could go wrong fucking has.”
“Including me?”
He grabbed my hand and squeezed it.
“You fishing for compliments, woman? You know you’re the only good part of all of this shit. I just need to figure out how to get my club back on track, and maybe do it without keeling over again.”
Reacher
T he next morning I was at the hospital, a place I’d seen way too fucking much of lately, and it looked like that wasn’t about to change anytime soon. It was good news this time though. Ice was finally coming home.
I’d gone with Ryder and a prospect, so we could bring him home in a van, since he couldn’t ride yet.
When I reached his room, he was just arguing with a nurse over a wheelchair.
“Jesus, help me out here, Pres. I can walk, for god’s sake.”
He still didn’t look or sound quite like himself, but he was alive and moving, and that was better than we could have hoped for when he was first attacked.
“Brother, just let them look after you. There’s plenty of time to be a stubborn ass, once we get you home.”
He sighed, and let them wheel him out of the place, and then we carefully loaded him into the van to take home.
Ryder sat up front with the prospect, and I sat in the back with Ice. He was quiet.
“You okay, Ice? You’re finally coming home.”
He ran his hands through his hair, tugging at it in agitation.
“I don’t know how much of me is coming home, Pres. I’m not sure who I even am anymore.”
“Without the drugs, you mean.”
“I’m not just off them, Reacher. I’m a fucking addict. I… I was reliant on them just to function. I needed them, and I still need them. It’s like a fucking burning urge inside me. Like everything will be fine, if I just fucking go back to the way I was.”
Jesus. “Look, we’re gonna help you, okay? We’ll get you home, and things will start to feel normal again.”
He stared at his hands.
“Normal was me doped up to the fucking eyeballs. Everything about me now feels wrong, and I still can’t fucking remember what happened.”
I watched him carefully. He’d answered some questions when he first woke, but since then he seemed to be less sure of what happened.
“It was the cartel, that’s what you told us.”
He sighed. “It makes sense. I remember I was trying to infiltrate their little operation, but I don’t remember what led to the attempt on my life. They said I might never get everything back. I was on so much shit then, and I was barely sleeping before what happened.”
He wouldn’t even say what had happened, just kept tiptoeing around it.
“You were stabbed, Ice. Someone stabbed you, with the intention of killing you.”
He finally looked at me.
“Yeah… so they tell me. I wish I could fucking remember.”
His recovery was definitely gonna be a fucking tough job. We got him home, and up to his room, with many of his brothers waiting to greet him along the way. By the time we walked him into his room, he looked exhausted, and took one look at the place and cursed.
“You bastards have been through all my stuff.”
Ryder helped him to his bed.
“Bro, the place was a shithole, of course it got tidied up. And FYI, you can apologise to the prospects yourself later for that.”
“Where’s all my equipment?”
He resisted when Ryder tried to help him onto his bed.
“For fuck’s sake, I’ve been in a bed forever. I want to be anywhere but in a fucking bed.”
“I see being sober hasn’t improved your personality.”
“Yeah? Well, sadly it didn’t improve your face either. Will you back the fuck off?” Ryder lifted his hands, and stepped away.
“Just trying to help.”
I turned to the prospect who’d driven us back.
“Get the doc, yeah? I wanna make sure we’re all set here.”
Ice turned to glare at me, his floppy pale hair practically sticking up, from all the pulling at it he’d been doing.
“Oh great, is this where you bastards start fucking with every element of my life, because you think somehow you have the right to get into my shit?”
Ryder grinned, leaning against the kitchen counter.
“Actually, yeah. That’s exactly what we’re gonna do. We own your fucking ass now. Do you have any idea how fucking scary it was? First you were missing, and then we find out you’re in the fucking ICU?”
I caught his eye, and jerked my head at the door.
He didn’t look happy about leaving, but after he’d gone, and the door was closed, I sat down on Ice’s sofa, and pointed at the seat across from me.
“Sit.”
He rolled his eyes, but followed my instruction.
“What? Haven’t you done enough already? Or do you just not trust me to be your tech guy anymore? Jesus, is that it? Are you booting me from the club?”
Could I slap some sense into him? It was probably frowned upon by medical professionals, but it wasn’t off the table just yet.
“Will you shut it? I wanted to explain how things are gonna go, because I’m in charge, and you’re gonna listen. First off, no, of course I’m not fucking booting you out. Secondly, your tech shit is now set up in a spare room. From now on, your work and resting spaces are staying separate. It’s not good being on this shit nonstop, and we’re gonna stop forcing you to do just that. Everyone needs downtime, Ice.”
He was chewing the inside of his cheek, his eyes finally meeting mine again, when I explained that we weren’t booting him.
“So… you still trust me?”
“Is there any reason not to?” I wondered if there was something he was remembering, and not telling me.
“No. I mean, I don’t think so. I just, I guess I figured that things would just be normal, and then everything was gone, and…” He let out a harsh breath, running a hand over his hair again.
“Ice… we all let you down, and it’s not gonna happen again. So, things will be different from now on, but I hope you’ll give it a chance, and understand that we’re a family, and you are not alone.”
“Yeah. So uh… someone went through my place?” He looked worried.
“Yeah,” I stood up, preparing to leave him to rest, “and we removed every fucking substance we found, including the rape drugs you were keeping for Ryder and his old lady, and that shit stops too. No more supplying them, got it?”
He stared at me with wide eyes.
“You know?”
“I know a lot of shit. Some of it I really wish I didn’t. All that matters now to you, is getting back to full strength, and learning to live without some fucking shit in your veins. Oh… and you’ll be training some of your brothers on that tech stuff you do. It’s not all gonna be on your shoulders in future. I know that was too much for one guy, and you should have said so, instead of trying to manage it all alone.”
He watched me walk to the door.
“I handled it.”
“Yeah, until you didn’t anymore, but that wasn’t your fault. It was mine. And it’s fixed now, so rest up, and tolerate your brothers popping by. You were missed, by all of us. If you get the urge to fall back on that shit, you call me, find me, wake me, whatever. We can’t go back there. Understand? This is the line right here. No going back.”
He let out a sigh, rubbing at his hair again.
“Yeah. Gotcha.”
I grabbed the handle and pulled the door open, just in time to see Doc approaching.
“Welcome home, brother. Glad to have you back.”