Chapter 10
JAGGER
I clutched the box of donuts in my hand — a cardboard tray filled with coffees from Cassie’s shop balanced on top — and stared at the bland interior of the hospital elevator as I rode up to Cassie’s floor.
Cassie had been in the hospital for three days and was in less pain now than she had been at the beginning, but she still couldn’t see, and I couldn’t help wondering if maybe the damage to her brain was permanent.
Even thinking it felt dangerous, a curse I was visiting on myself.
On her.
On the plus side, Nurse Treadwell, the battle ax who’d kicked us out of Cassie’s room the first day, had finally resigned herself to our presence, although not at all happily.
It was Vigo she hated most. He’d become a kind of impish thorn in her side, chatting up the nurses (male and female alike), engaging in wheelchair races with Jagger in the halls, and introducing himself as Doctor Trauma (complete with a white coat when he could steal one) to the other unsuspecting patients on Cassie’s floor.
One time I’d even caught him answering the phones at the nurses’ station, his feet on the desk while he plowed through a party-sized bag of Doritos Roulette like they were chocolate chip cookies.
The elevator dinged and I stepped out in front of the nurses’ station where two of the nurses — Harvey, a big black man, and Dawn, a younger woman with brown hair — laughed behind the long counter that separated them from the general population.
They looked up as I approached and I set down the donut box and looked at Harvey. “I got two of those strawberry ones you like.”
“My man!” Harvey moved his considerable girth to open the donut box and peer inside, his dark eyes shining with anticipation.
Dawn groaned. “I’m almost glad you’ll be gone tomorrow. At this rate my jeans won’t fit by the weekend.”
I’d been preparing to head to Cassie’s room, but now I stopped and backtracked. “Why will I be gone tomorrow?”
“Your girl's being discharged,” Harvey said, removing a donut and placing it on a napkin.
Dawn winced. “Although maybe not to you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
I followed the tip of Dawn’s head just in time to spot Bram stepping into the elevator.
“Fuck.”
“Sucks to be you, man.” Harvey’s mouth was full of donut. “And I don’t mean that rhetorically. I mean it really sucks to be you.”
“You aren’t kidding.”
Everyone was scared of Bram: Dawn, Harvey, even Nurse Treadwell. Hell, being scared of Bram Montgomery was a universal pastime. He’d been stalking the halls for three days like a black cloud, trying to avoid Hawk, Vigo, and I while we all jostled for time with Cassie.
That she didn’t seem to care — about anything — was another problem entirely.
She was depressed, and who could blame her? She was battered, wounded, blind.
I fucking hated that I couldn’t change any of it. Hated that we were as at the mercy of time as she was, forced to wait, hope the swelling in her brain would diminish, hope that would restore her eyesight.
I hated even more that she couldn’t remember anything that had happened in the moments before she’d driven off the road on the mountain.
I’d thought about paying Travis Dorsey another visit, but the possibility that he’d had something to do with Cassie’s accident clanged wrong in my brain.
Dorsey was a loser, not a criminal mastermind.
He wasn’t smart enough to be in deep with the Russian who’d hired him to run Cassie’s parents off the road.
And he definitely wasn’t smart enough to be involved with the people who’d wired millions of dollars through Kensington Trust, the private bank Cassie’s parents had been investigating when they’d been killed.
“You good, man?” Harvey asked, his mouth full of strawberry donut.
I shook myself loose from the questions surrounding Cassie’s accident. “All good. See you around.”
I wanted to take advantage of the time when Bram was out of Cassie’s room.
I headed down the hall with a knot in my stomach. Cassie was going home tomorrow.
With Bram.
Hawk and Vigo were in Cassie’s room when I got there, Hawk in the chair next to Cassie’s bed while Vigo sat on the mattress, painting Cassie’s nails bright green.
She was as beautiful as ever in her hospital gown, her copper hair pulled into a ponytail, her face bare of makeup. I’d gotten used to seeing the bandage on her forehead, the cast on her arm, but that didn’t mean I liked it.
An episode of Grey’s Anatomy played on the TV, the volume low.
“Morning.” I’d gotten used to announcing myself as soon as I entered the room, had gotten used to announcing a lot of things since Cassie couldn’t see anything for herself.
“Thank god,” Hawk said when he spotted the coffees. “The coffee here sucks ass.”
“I stopped by the shop,” I said. “Figured I’d check on Kaylee and Drew.”
I gave the update for Cassie, but she was staring into space with the blank expression that had started to freak me out.
Not because there was anything wrong with being blind — lots of people were blind and lived full, fulfilling lives — but because it seemed like all her vibrancy had been left at the bottom of the ravine where Hawk and Vigo had found her in the mangled Subaru.
“Keep still while those dry, mouse.” Vigo said, dropping Cassie’s hand and crossing the room to get one of the coffees. “Are Kaylee and Drew keeping things running for our girl?"
This was something we did a lot now: had conversations with each other that were actually meant to impart information to Cassie.
She didn’t seem interested in much of anything, but we soldiered on, trying to stay cheerful, trying to keep her posted about the shop even though she didn’t seem to give two shits about it anymore.
“Everything looked good,” I said, taking one of the coffees to Cassie.
I lifted her good hand off the bed and wrapped it around the paper cup, careful not to smudge the nail polish Vigo had applied.
“Here you go. Can’t have you drinking shitty coffee.
Kaylee said to tell you she misses you like crazy, but not to worry because she ran payroll and she hasn’t bankrupted you yet. ”
“Thank you,” she said.
I kissed her temple. “You’re welcome. I was going to stop for breakfast burritos but I couldn’t wait to see you. Figured I’d send one of these other losers out instead.”
We’d been taking turns at the hospital, making sure Cassie was never alone. It meant ducking out when Bram was there, but that was better than letting Cassie be alone.
“You missed Bram,” Vigo said, wrapping a spare hospital gown around his clothes.
“I saw. He was getting in the elevator when I got here.” I hesitated. “Dawn said you’re going home tomorrow, Cass.”
She blinked, but her beautiful green eyes held none of their familiar shine. “I know.”
“Bram says he’s taking her back to the loft,” Vigo said, playing with the ties to a hospital gown he’d wrapped around his body.
It was a good thing he had clothes on, because the gown was meant for someone a lot smaller.
It didn’t cover much.
“Over my dead body,” Hawk muttered.
He’d barely uttered the words when the door opened and Bram stepped into the room holding a giant plastic cup with a lid.
“Quite possibly,” Vigo said.
“Hey, Cass.” Bram stalked across the room to Cassie’s bed. “Rem wanted me to get you a smoothie. Said your body needed the protein to heal or some shit.”
I cursed myself for not stopping for the breakfast burritos. Cassie loved breakfast burritos and Remy was right: she needed protein, real food. I couldn’t even think about the fact that I’d somehow ended up competing with Bram for his sister’s attention.
Maeve eased into the room behind him, her hair in a ponytail, watching him like a nervous dog owner whose Doberman had a bad reputation at the dog park.
“Hey,” she said.
I flashed her a tight smile. “Hey.”
She walked over to the bed. “Hi, Cass.”
Cassie glanced just to the right of Maeve, which was understandable since Cassie couldn’t actually see her. “Hi.”
“You look good,” Maeve said. “Want me to braid your hair?”
“Okay.”
Maeve opened the drawer in the bedside tray and removed a hairbrush, then pulled out Cassie’s ponytail.
Her hair fell around her shoulders in fiery waves, and my heart clutched in my chest at the sheer beauty of her.
Even here. Even now.
I didn’t really know Maeve. Other than the day at the loft when Cassie had told Bram she’d joined the Hunt and lost — to us — I hadn’t spent any time with her at all. But she seemed to be good for Bram, if being good for someone meant curbing their homicidal instincts.
Bram took the coffee I’d given Cassie out of her hand and replaced it with the smoothie cup. “Need anything else?”
She shook her head. “Jagger brought coffee.”
“Coffee isn’t food,” Bram said.
What a dick.
He turned around to look from Hawk to Vigo to me. “You can leave.”
Hawk leaned back and stretched. “No thanks.”
I side-eyed Hawk, wondering what was up. Over the last three days we’d made a point to leave whenever Bram was around. Our truce — necessary to center Cassie and her recovery — felt as fragile as the layer of ice that covered the Blackwell River in winter.
Vigo looked down at the hospital gown, which he’d finally managed to tie in some complicated configuration that probably wasn’t even close to right.
“I just figured this thing out.”
Bram’s expression hardened. “It wasn’t a request.”
I cut a glance at Maeve, her gaze darting between Bram and Hawk like she was preparing to wade into battle while she brushed Cassie’s hair.
“We need to talk,” Hawk said.
“Nothing to talk about,” Bram said.
Hawk’s eyes flashed. “Wrong. We need to talk about where Cassie’s going when she gets out of this place tomorrow.”
“That’s easy,” Bram said, folding his arms over his wall of a chest. “I’m her family. She’s coming home with me.”
Hawk leveled his gaze at Bram. “Wrong again.”