Chapter 3 Levi
LEVI
The bluffs swarmed with Slayers by the time we reached the top of the long, winding path that snaked its way up the side of the cliff face from the beach below.
Fang strode right past me, beelining for his sister. “Violet!”
She lifted her head at his voice. “What are you doing here?”
He stopped a few inches short, not hugging her, even though I knew him well enough to notice his fingers twitching like he wanted to but wasn’t sure if that sort of contact between the two of them was okay.
But his gaze ran all over her with big-brother concern.
Satisfied she was in one piece, he answered her question.
“Chirp called me after Levi stole his bike.”
Violet looked at me with questions in her expression.
I caught Whip’s arm, steadying him and making sure he wasn’t going to pass out.
“I didn’t steal his bike. X left us out…
” I was going to say at the Murder Squad dump site, but after what we’d found there, the bodies of a dozen mutilated and abused women, I didn’t want to scare Violet.
So instead I just said, “In the middle of nowhere. We hiked out on foot until we had phone reception, and then I called the club for a pickup. We got your message while we were waiting.”
Violet’s mouth twisted into a line. “Oh.”
Truth was, Whip and I had both been wild with fear over Violet and anger over X by the time the prospect had shown up on his bike, like a bloody dumbass.
I didn’t know how he’d thought he was going to get both Whip and me anywhere with only one bike, and with Violet’s message burning a hole in my brain, we’d left him there and taken the bike for ourselves.
I glanced over at Chirp now and cringed at him. “Sorry.”
At least the kid had been smart enough to make sense of the tumbled mess of words we’d shouted at him as we’d stolen his bike and had gotten the rest of the club out here, even if it had been too late to help.
Everyone was in one piece, and that was the main thing.
Well, except for the cliff face.
Whip coughed again, spitting up water.
I eyed him but said nothing.
Hawk studied all of us. “If you aren’t going to the hospital, you all need to come back to the clubhouse so we can assess you. I’ll get Grayson and Kara up to help.”
But X shook his head and moved toward his van. “I don’t need a doctor. I’ve never felt better in my life! Look at the grass, blowing in the breeze! Isn’t it magical? Hear that owl? What a magnificent creature!”
Violet frowned at him. “I really think you should let Hawk check you over… You might have a concussion…”
I was more concerned his brain might have been starved of oxygen while he’d been underwater, but then again, X acting crazy wasn’t actually all that unusual. To his credit, X did not seem to be in any sort of physical distress. He pulled himself up into his van and waved at everyone.
“Enjoy this splendid night, friends! Live every moment to its fullest!”
Everyone stared at him like he’d lost his mind.
Because he probably had.
Hawk twitched. “He shouldn’t be alone right now. None of you should. You all need to be monitored.” I’d seen Hawk studying for his paramedic’s degree at the table in the Slayers’ compound and knew he worked shifts at the hospital too, so his warning wasn’t taken lightly.
But X was too high on his second chance at life to listen.
“I’ll go with him,” Violet offered. “Can someone take Bliss’s car? Keys are in the ignition.”
I wanted to argue, or at the very least, go with them, but there weren’t enough seats for all four of us in X’s van, and he clearly wasn’t going to be talked out of anything tonight.
My bigger concern was Whip and the way he kept fucking coughing.
Was nobody else noticing that?
“We’re all on our bikes,” War said to me. “Can you drive Bliss’s car? Just take it back to the clubhouse, we can get it back to her in the morning.”
I gave my prez a curt nod. “Yeah, of course.”
He eyed me. “You’re good to drive?”
If X was, I was. “I’ll be fine.”
“Does anybody think I could be a pro hockey player?” X called through the open window of his van.
Whip raised an eyebrow in his direction. “Uh, no?”
X pointed at him. “Wrong! I’m going to try out. I think it’s my destiny.”
“Do you even skate?”
X shrugged and flapped his hand around. “Details, details, Whip. I survived! I can do anything!”
Violet rolled her window down. “I’ll try to get him to rest. I’m sure he’ll calm down once he’s had a hot shower and some sleep.”
I doubted it. But I strode to the side of the van and pressed my lips against hers. “Watch him. I don’t know how long he was underwater for, and his behavior is erratic.”
She glanced over at X, who was flipping through radio stations and singing a few lines of the song on each before moving on again. “His behavior is always kind of erratic though.”
She had a point.
“Call me if you need me.”
She nodded, kissing me back. “I love you.”
I couldn’t help but grin. “Love you too.”
“Get Whip home safely.”
I promised I would, though my words were probably lost to her in the spin of the ice cream truck’s tires. X had clearly grown tired of waiting and decided our conversation was over.
Or he’d heard her say she loved me and was deliberately trying to kick mud up into my face.
Both could have been true.
I wiped the flecks of dirt from my cheeks, thanked my brothers from the club for coming, even though it had all been over by the time they’d gotten here, and made my way to Bliss’s car.
Whip already sat in the passenger seat waiting for me, his arms wrapped around himself. A violent shiver racked his body.
I turned on the engine and then the car heater, cold to the bone as well after being in that freezing ocean for who knew how long.
The bluffs weren’t far from the club grounds, and it was less than ten minutes before we were following the convoy of bikes down the dirt road that led to the Slayers’ gates.
It was only then Whip seemed to notice where we were. “I need to go home.”
I shook my head. “You need to see a fucking doctor.”
“I’m fine. Just take me home.”
I eyed the stubborn prick. “Why? So you can dry drown in the privacy of your own bedroom with no one watching?”
“What the hell is dry drowning?”
I huffed out an impatient sigh. “Something you’re not going to die from because you’re coming back to the clubhouse where it just so happens a doctor lives. And so I can keep an eye on you.”
Whip went back to staring out the window. “Fine.”
I gripped the steering wheel and nodded. “Fine.”
The warm air from the heater hadn’t helped much by the time I was parking Bliss’s car within the Slayers compound. If anything, it just burned my cold, wind-chapped skin painfully.
Grayson stood at the door, nodding at each of the guys as they walked through into the bar and communal area. Whip and I were the last to get there. I eagerly anticipated a bourbon with my name on it.
Gray stepped in front of us before we could enter. “What the hell happened out there tonight?”
I sighed. “Can we talk about this when we aren’t soaking wet and half drowned?”
Grayson eyed me, but his gaze quickly turned to Whip and hovered there, visually checking him out with his doctor’s eye, even though his words were for me. “Or you can give me the CliffsNotes now because I won’t sleep a fucking wink until I know what the hell happened with all of you tonight.”
I sighed, palming the back of my neck and trying to pick which piece of information to feed him first. “There’s a pile of bodies out at Trigger’s favorite dump spot.”
Grayson shrugged. “So?”
“Female bodies,” Whip filled in wearily. “Mutilated, tortured, abused bodies, who, without checking their ID, I’m sure are not on the list.”
Gray recoiled. “You think Trig and Ace and Torch…”
I shook my head. “No. Shit, I dunno. Maybe. It could be this fucker messing with us, trying to set us up.”
“Or yeah,” Whip practically drawled. “Or we’ve been looking outside the group the whole time when maybe we should have been paying attention to those in it.”
The thought left a sour taste in my mouth, and clearly one in Grayson’s too. None of us wanted to believe Trigger or Ace or Torch were responsible for that pile of bodies we’d found. And yet, the possibility couldn’t be ruled out either.
Whip coughed again and leaned heavily on the brick wall, looking like he was ready to pass out on his feet at any minute.
I moved in, making sure I was close enough to catch him if he decided to go and faint or something.
Gray noticed too, and ran his hands through his already messed-up hair, his brain clearly working overtime. “Nobody says a word about this until we can properly debrief with X and Violet. Where are they anyway?”
“Pretty sure they’re off celebrating life by running with the bulls or swimming with sharks,” I said dryly.
Whip coughed. “Please don’t even joke about swimming right now. I don’t think I’m ever getting in the water again. Why does he get to feel like a million bucks while I feel like death?”
“Because he’s fifteen years younger than you maybe?”
Whip shot me a dirty look.
Grayson nodded. “Go on. We’ll talk more tomorrow. Whip, if that cough gets out of hand or you start having chest pain or breathing difficulties—”
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll call you.”
Grayson crossed his arms over his chest and nodded, clearly not one-hundred-percent happy with the fact not much could be done tonight.
“He doesn’t go out of your sight, Levi. Not even for ten minutes.
Someone needs to watch him, and if he’s not going to go up to the hospital, then it needs to be you. ”
I nodded, taking the responsibility seriously because I knew Grayson wasn’t just blowing smoke up my ass. Even I could see Whip was exhausted, and he had to have taken in a lot of water when X had been holding on to him for dear life.
“I’ve got him,” I assured Doc, while Whip muttered complaints over us talking about him like he wasn’t even in the room.