Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
Xavier
The evening shadows stretch across the gleaming floor of my new clinic as I make final adjustments to the exam room.
Three weeks in, and I still can’t quite believe this place is mine.
I smooth my hand over the leather padding of the examination table, feeling the cool, pristine surface beneath my fingertips.
The Devil Souls logo subtly embossed in the corner makes me smile.
Zach’s touch, added without my knowledge.
I straighten the blood pressure cuff hanging on the wall, organize the tongue depressors in their glass jar, and adjust the height of the rolling stool.
Every detail matters. This isn’t just any medical practice, it’s a sanctuary I’ve created where anyone can receive care without judgment, regardless of their cut or color or criminal record.
“Last room,” I mutter to myself, checking my watch.
The illuminated face reads 8:52 PM. Zach will be wondering where I am by now.
I promised I wouldn’t work late tonight, but setting up the pediatric room took longer than expected.
The animal-themed decorations had to be perfect: teddy bears with bandages placed just so, cartoon dolphins swimming across the wall mural, exam table shaped like a friendly dinosaur.
I want the children of club members to feel safe here, to grow up knowing there’s at least one doctor who won’t look at their parents with suspicion or disdain. Who won’t call Child Protective Services just because their dad wears a leather cut with a skull on the back.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. A text from Zach, right on cue.
Dinner’s getting cold, Doc. You still alive in there?
I smile, typing back quickly, Just finishing up. 10 minutes.
I flick off the lights in the exam room and head toward the lobby, mentally reviewing tomorrow’s appointments.
We’re already booked solid, a mix of Devil Souls family and regular community members who’ve heard about the new doctor in town.
Word travels fast when you’re backed by the most notorious MC in three counties.
The reception has been better than I expected, though I still get occasional suspicious looks from those who recognize me with Zach, the respectable doctor who sleeps with an outlaw.
The whispers follow us sometimes when we’re in town together, but I’ve stopped caring.
Let them talk. They don’t know what we’ve survived together.
The lobby is dark except for the security lights casting a soft blue glow across the waiting area.
The chairs I carefully selected, comfortable enough for long waits but not so comfortable that people linger unnecessarily, throw elongated shadows across the polished floor.
I reach for my jacket hanging by the reception desk, already tasting the dinner Zach promised to cook tonight.
Something Italian, he’d said this morning, pressing a kiss to my temple before I left for work.
A sudden movement outside the front windows catches my attention.
A flash of motion where there should be only empty sidewalk.
I pause, jacket half on, squinting through the darkness.
Shadows shift against the glass. Human shapes moving quickly, hunched and furtive.
Three figures, maybe four, their features obscured by hoodies pulled low.
My pulse quickens, adrenaline beginning to course through my veins. I reach for my phone, thinking of Zach, of the panic button app he insisted I install after what happened at the hospital.
Before I can unlock the screen, there’s a shout from outside, angry and slurred with alcohol.
“Devil-loving faggot!”
The window explodes inward with a deafening crash, glass shards spraying across the lobby like deadly confetti, glittering in the security lights.
Something large and heavy tears through the air directly toward me.
A brick, my brain registers with clinical detachment, even as my body tries to jerk away.
Too slow. Too late.
Searing pain explodes across the side of my head, white-hot and blinding. The impact knocks me sideways, my body crumpling against the reception desk. My shoulder hits the edge with bruising force before I slide to the floor, legs suddenly unable to support my weight.
Warm wetness immediately floods down my face and neck, soaking into the collar of my shirt. The metallic tang of blood fills my nostrils, copper and salt on my tongue where I’ve bitten the inside of my cheek. My vision swims, darkening at the edges as I struggle to stay conscious.
The alarm begins wailing, the security system Zach insisted on installing activating automatically when the window shattered. The sound pierces through the ringing in my ears, high and urgent. Help will come. Zach will come. I just need to stay awake.
I press my hand to the side of my head, feeling torn flesh and the alarming slickness of blood pouring between my fingers. Scalp wound, I think hazily. They always bleed heavily. May not be as bad as it feels.
But the pain is blinding, nauseating. Colored spots dance across my vision as I try to focus, to assess my own injury with the detachment I’d use for a patient. Possible concussion. Definite laceration. Need pressure to stop bleeding.
I try to push myself up, but my limbs won’t cooperate, my body suddenly impossibly heavy. The floor seems to tilt beneath me, the room spinning in lazy, sickening circles. More shouting outside, angry voices, the sound of running feet, a car engine revving.
“Cowards,” I try to say, but my tongue feels thick and unwieldy in my mouth. The word comes out slurred, barely recognizable.
My phone lies a few feet away, screen cracked from the fall but still glowing. Zach’s message still visible. Dinner’s getting cold, Doc.
I reach for it, fingers trembling, leaving smears of blood across the polished floor. Just need to call Zach. Need to tell him… what? That I’m hurt? That someone attacked the clinic? That I should have listened when he said not to work alone at night?
My fingertips brush the edge of the phone just as the darkness at the edges of my vision begins to close in. The alarm continues its relentless wailing, but it sounds farther away now, as if I’m hearing it from underwater.
Stay awake, I command myself. Just stay awake until help comes.
But the darkness is so tempting, promising relief from the throbbing agony in my head. I think of Zach, of his face when he finds me here, of the rage that will consume him, of what he might do to whoever did this.
“No,” I mumble, the word thick and indistinct. “Don’t… don’t hurt them…”
The lobby door bursts open with enough force to slam against the wall. Heavy boots cross the glass-strewn floor in rapid strides. Through the haze of pain and encroaching unconsciousness, I catch a glimpse of leather, of tattoos, of familiar hands reaching for me.
“X? Jesus Christ, Xavier!”
Zach’s voice, tight with panic. His hands on my face, gentle despite their urgency. I try to focus on him, but his features blur and shift, refusing to come into clarity.
“Stay with me,” he’s saying, his voice seeming to come from very far away. “Xavier, look at me. Stay with me, baby.”
I want to tell him I’m trying, that I’m fighting the darkness with everything I have. Want to tell him I love him, that he can’t go after whoever did this, that violence will only bring more violence. But the words won’t form, my tongue leaden in my mouth.
The last thing I register before consciousness slips away entirely is Zach’s voice, not speaking to me now, but barking orders into his phone, cold fury underlying the panic.
“Grey, get everyone to the clinic. Now. Someone’s attacked Xavier. And when I find out who, they’re fucking dead.”
The darkness swallows me whole, but voices penetrate through. Urgent, angry, frightened. I drift in and out, catching fragments like radio stations between frequencies.
“…need to get him to a hospital…”
“…going to fucking kill whoever…”
“…stay with him, Zach, we’ll handle…”
* * *
When I finally claw my way back to consciousness, I’m lying on a gurney with bright lights overhead. The emergency room. Not as a doctor this time, but as a patient. The pain in my head has dulled to a persistent throb, and something tight wraps around my skull—bandages.
“He’s waking up,” someone says. Tiana, I realize, as my vision clears.
Zach’s face appears above me, his features tight with a rage I’ve rarely seen, even during the club war. His eyes are red-rimmed, and his jaw is clenched so hard I can see the muscle twitching.
“Hey,” I manage, my voice sounding strange to my own ears. “Not exactly how I planned our evening.”
“Don’t,” he says, the word raw and broken. “Don’t make jokes. Not now.” His hand finds mine, squeezing with desperate gentleness. “You could have died. If I hadn’t come looking for you…”
“But you did,” I remind him, attempting to sit up, only to be gently pressed back by Tiana’s firm hand.
“Stay down,” she orders. “Doctor’s orders, and I mean the doctor who treated you, not you.”
“What’s the damage?” I ask, automatically slipping into clinical assessment.
“Mild concussion, twelve stitches,” Tiana reports. “You were lucky the brick caught you at an angle instead of head-on. No skull fracture, and no bleeding on the brain.”
“Lucky,” Zach repeats, the word dripping with bitter irony. His fingers tighten around mine. “Someone throws a brick at your head and calls you a—” He cuts himself off, jaw working as he struggles to control his fury.
I remember the slurred shout before the window shattered. Devil-loving faggot. The words sear through my memory, ugly and hateful.
“Did they catch who did it?” I ask, already knowing the answer from the dangerous gleam in Zach’s eyes.
“Not yet,” he says, voice deceptively calm. “But we will.”
“Zach “
“Don’t,” he interrupts me once more, something wild flashing behind his eyes. “Don’t tell me to let it go. Don’t tell me to let the cops handle it. Someone tried to kill you, X. In your own clinic. Our clinic.”
“We don’t know they were trying to kill me,” I reason, though the words sound hollow even to my own ears.
Zach makes a sound, half laugh, half snarl. “What do you think they were trying to do? Welcome you to the neighborhood?”
Before I can respond, the curtain around my bed pulls back, and a doctor I recognize from my time at this hospital enters. Dr. Reeves, a competent physician who always treated me with professional courtesy.
Right behind him is my parents, frantically trying to lay eyes on me. My mom looks like she has been crying, and my sister pushes her way through.
“Dr. Blane,” the doctor greets me, his eyes flicking nervously to Zach and then back to me. “How are you feeling?”
“Like someone hit me with a brick,” I reply dryly.
He manages a tight smile. “Well, your sense of humor is intact, which is a good sign. Your CT scan looks clear: no fractures, no bleeding. We’d like to keep you overnight for observation. Standard protocol for concussions.”
“No,” Zach says immediately. “He’s coming home with me.”
Dr. Reeves hesitates, clearly intimidated by Zach’s imposing presence, but also concerned for my well-being. “Mr. Kennedy, I understand your concern, but—”
“It’s fine,” I interject, not wanting this to escalate the situation. “I’m a doctor. I know the warning signs and what to watch for.
Dr. Reeves looks unconvinced but recognizes a losing battle. “I’ll prepare the discharge papers with detailed instructions. Someone will need to wake you every two hours tonight to check your responses.”
“I won’t be sleeping,” Zach states flatly, his eyes never leaving my face.