Chapter Twelve
Voices. Faint, distant, blurry. But definitely voices. They seemed familiar, and Vixen strained to hear what was being said.
“…still not fully out of sedation yet?”
“No. Not yet.”
Ice ! Vixen fought to open her eyes, struggled to sit up, or even just to move, but she couldn ’ t do any of it. Her whole body felt like it was encased in concrete: heavy, immobile, rock-solid. She tried to speak, or even to make a sound – God, just a tiny sound, come on now – but her throat wasn ’ t working, either. So she lay there, cradled in the hands of the darkness, listening.
“What did Drake say about the kids?”
“The cops are all over it, but so far, nothing. Briley and the boys are losing their minds .”
The kids? The babies? What happened to them?
“Hey, did Vixen just move her legs?” A voice that she now knew to be Viking’s, as faint as if he were standing miles and miles away.
“She does that sometimes,” Ice said, sounding like he was at the bottom of a well. “It looks like she’s running.”
Running.
Suddenly, she was back in the bar parking lot, running from something in what felt like slow-motion, something terrifying and deadly. She had a hand in hers, a tiny hand, so she wasn’t alone in her desperate flight through the quicksand. She was running with…
Keira .
Oh, God. Keira.
Panicked now, desperate to wake up, frantic to hear what the hell had happened, Vixen struggled harder against the heavy darkness. But it was no good, no good at all. She wasn ’ t strong enough to push past the weighted shadows, and she fell into a deep well of endless night. She was out long before she hit bottom.
**
The next time that Vixen emerged from the pillowy dark, all was quiet. She tried once again to open her eyes; once again, she failed. That was when Ice started talking to her.
His voice was rough, low, husky. Like he ’ d been shouting for days, or needed to drink some water. It had an undercurrent of rage, and that made her tense up, made her think about panicking, until she heard the sweet words that he was murmuring to her.
“ I don ’ t know if you can hear me yet, but I figure that you’re closer to being awake than not, so I ’ m gonna sit here like a fucking idiot and talk to a heavily sedated woman… let you know that you ’ re not alone. I ’ m here, and I ’ m holding your hand. You feel it, Vix?”
A pause, and now Vixen focused on her hands, trying to feel Ice ’ s skin on hers. And – yes. Yes, there was a soft, gentle pressure on her right hand, a solid warmth that she hadn ’ t noticed before. She felt him, and her panic went down a few levels.
He spoke again. “ You ’ re safe. I ’ ve got you, Vix. I ’ m here, and here is where I ’ m gonna stay, for as long as it takes. Just – just open your beautiful eyes for me. Wake up . C’mon now, baby . ”
That was the first time that he’d called her anything except Vix – and Ice was the only one who called her that , anyway – and it surprised her. All those nights they’d spent together in Satan’s back rooms, doing every wild and intimate thing that she could imagine, and he’d never once used an endearment of any kind. ‘Vix’ was as soft as Ice got when referring to her and it had always felt like a pet name between just them, and it had made her glow a bit.
But this. This was different. This was special.
It was this more than anything that galvanized her to push through the dark barriers holding her prisoner. Ice was worried, and angry, and calling her baby , and the only thing that was left to do was for her to wake up. So she did.
Her eyes opened, just a bit. The room swam around her, advanced, retreated. She blinked, blinked hard, and her vision cleared.
The room was semi-lit from the lights in the hallway outside, and she saw Ice ’ s enormous shadow on the wall next to her. He was sitting in a chair by her bed, his arms resting on the protective bars, his chin on his muscled forearms. He was holding her hand between both of his, and now she felt him tracing slow, small circles on her palm. It was soothing, calming, and she felt the tug of sleep again. She resisted it, though, pushed it away. She had to stay here with him, at least for a little while.
She took a deep breath, released it. He heard the change, and his head jerked up. His incredible eyes were wide and stunned, but in less than a second, they showed nothing but worry.
“ Vix. ” His one hand slid up to touch the right side of her face, so gentle and tender. “ Hey… can you hear me?”
She tried to nod, found that she couldn’t.
“ Oh, my God.” He leaned closer, and she felt his warmth. “ Don’t try to move your neck, OK?”
She made a sound of sorts, a cross between a moan and a sigh. Now she noticed that her throat felt tight, raw, and she raised her free hand to touch her neck. She winced at the hard plastic and metal encasing it, knew that she was injured. How badly, she ’ d have to find out. Later.
“ Here.” Ice grabbed a cup with a straw. “ Drink some water. Slow and easy, now.”
He lifted her shoulders, and that was when she noticed that she wasn’t actually lying down. She was being propped up in a seated position by pillows and some kind of frame. Ice supported her as she drank, and the cool water hit her throat, and she felt blessed relief. She drank a bit more, then blinked at Ice in some kind of weird attempt at communicating with her eyes only, letting him know that she was done. Carefully, so carefully, he eased her back down, then gripped her hand again.
Gingerly, Vixen opened her mouth and tried a word. The only word that she wanted to say right now, the only word that mattered:
“Keira…”
“She’s fine.” he said quickly. “Totally fine.”
“Yes?”
“Yes. I promise you. Keira isn’t hurt at all.”
“The van…”
Anger flared across that gorgeous face now, and she watched as he fought down his rising rage.
“The guy got away.” Ice’s voice was calm, but his eyes were blue flame. “Jinx is looking over footage from the parking lot cameras. He’ll come up with something, I’m sure.”
“He’s gone?” she croaked, wishing that her throat would cooperate, wondering why the left side of her face felt like a balloon.
“He’s gone for now,” he said grimly. “If I were him, though, I wouldn’t expect that to be the situation for too fucking long.”
Carefully, she touched the plastic and metal again. “Am I hurt?”
“You are.”
“How bad?”
He stood up. “ I need to go get the doctor. She can tell you everything better than I can.”
“ No! ” She grabbed his hand, winced as her neck jarred at the motion. “ No !”
“Hey, hey.” Ice sat down again, seriously alarmed at the pain on her face. “Don’t move your neck, Vix. In fact, try not to move anything . OK?”
“OK,” she whispered, blinking back tears, swallowing the lump in her throat. “But tell me. Please.”
“I will.” He sighed, knew that the medical professional would handle this better than him – but for better or worse, Ice was it for right now. “The first thing you need to know is that you’re going to be fine. No matter how it looks or feels right now, there’s no real permanent damage.”
“OK.”
“OK, well… in order from smallest injury to biggest: you wrenched your ankle, but it’s not broken. Your head is cut from the exploding glass from the car windows and windshields, so the bandages probably feel dramatic, but really, it was just a matter of a few stitches. Your face –” He cleared his throat. “You broke your left cheekbone when you were – when you fell. It’s as bruised and swollen as hell, but the break will heal on its own in a few weeks.”
He paused again, and Vixen put careful fingers to the bandage on her face. Yes, it hurt like crazy, but she supposed that a broken bone wouldn’t ever feel pleasant.
“The thing is – ummm.” Ice sighed. “The impact on the ground cut your face open pretty bad, Vix.”
She stared at him as the penny kind of dropped. “I’ll be scarred?”
“Yes.” Ice decided to just rip off the bandage, so to speak. “You’ll be scarred on your face. Not anything like Scars, but you know… they’ll be visible. I’m really sorry.”
“OK,” she said quietly. She’d think about that later, because he still hadn’t said anything about this contraption on her neck – and she suspected that this was the injury to actually focus on. A few scars on her face were no big deal, in the big picture, though she knew she’d mourn the loss of her physical attractiveness at some point. Later. After all, what was she without her looks? “And my neck?”
“Yeah.” Ice held her hand tighter. “It’s broken.”
“What?” And there she was at code red, utterly fucking panicked, from zero to nine-hundred in one second. “ What ?”
“Hey, hey,” Ice said again, rushing to reassure her. “You’re not paralyzed, and you won’t ever be, and you don’t need to go under the knife. Your spine is totally intact and fine, so it’s a matter of about eight weeks of the brace, and rest, and then your neck will heal.”
“Is that – how is that possible ?”
“I know, right? I thought that a broken neck was end game, you know? But it’s not. Turns out, it’s like any other broken bone. You keep it in traction and limit movement, and it just – it takes care of itself.”
“So I do nothing?”
“You’ll be doing plenty ,” Ice said. “You’ll be healing.”
Vixen was quiet for a few seconds, thinking about everything that she’d just been told, trying to decide how scared she was. After a bit of mental gymnastics, and reflecting that she was incredibly lucky in more ways than she’d fully appreciated yet, she realized that her worries were mostly to do with money. How was she supposed to keep her life afloat while she was flat on her ass healing for two months, probably more? She sure as hell couldn’t work, and treatment like what she was getting wasn’t cheap, and private hospital rooms cost the earth, and it wasn’t like waitressing at a biker bar came with medical insurance. God , the bill for the ambulance alone was going to wipe out most of her modest savings, she was sure.
“What, Vix?” Ice was watching her. “What is it?”
Vixen tried to smile, raised her eyebrows, reminded herself to focus on gratitude because this could have all gone a totally different way, and not a good one. “No, nothing. It’s just a lot of information.”
“Nuh-uh. Come on, now. Tell me.”
“Well…”
“What?”
“Well, I’m worried about –”
“Money?”
She blinked at him. “How did you –?”
“Jesus, Vix.” He shook his head at her. “Do you think that you’ll be paying one fucking cent towards your health care or your bills for the next two months? Do you think you’ll have to worry about making rent, or buying groceries, or paying the heating bill?”
“I – ” She stared at him. “Yes?”
“ No .”
“How no?”
“Because,” said a voice from the doorway. “The bills are on us. Every penny and for as long as you need. Money is the last thing that you should be thinking about. Not after what you did.”
Vixen couldn’t turn her neck at all, but of course she recognized Scars’ voice. He walked over to the bed, and stood there gazing down at her, a look of disbelief and relief all across his face.
“You amazing woman,” Scars said with a tone of awe and respect that Vixen had never heard in a man’s voice when addressing her. “You fucking brave, kick-ass, life-saving, gun-toting, amazing woman .”
She felt a blush spread across her face. “Scars.”
“ Badass .”
She blushed deeper, which meant that she had to be purple by now. “How’s Keira? I mean, how is she really ?”
“She’s really OK,” Scars said gently. “Asking about you every ten minutes, so she’ll need to see you when you feel up to it. It’ll set her mind at rest.”
“She can come anytime she wants.”
“Well,” Ice said doubtfully. “Maybe wait until the bandages are off?”
“Ah.” Vixen thought about how it would look to Keira, for her to see Vixen in a hospital bed, with her face bruised and smashed in, and her head covered in gauze, and with a robot part attached to her neck. “Good point.”
“Maybe Zoe can call and put Keira on the phone with you?” Scars asked. “I know that Zee wants to talk to you, anyway, and she also asked if she can get into your place. She wants to fill the fridge, clean up a bit if it needs it. She wants you to come home to a relaxing space.”
“Really?” Vixen said, totally dumbfounded at the offer. “Uh… yeah. That would be great.”
“So I can give your key to Zoe?”
“You sure can.” She smiled. “I’ve never had anyone clean my apartment except for me, so I’ll enjoy feeling like a lady of the manor for five minutes. Remind me to give you the key before you go.”
“So,” Ice stood up again. “ Now I’m going to go and get the doctor. Tell her that you’re awake.”
Vixen and Scars watched him stride out of the room, a man on a mission, and then they looked at each other again. Suddenly, and for no reason that she understood, Vixen felt tears in her eyes.
“Hey now,” Scars sat in Ice’s vacated chair, took her hand; somehow he knew exactly what was on her mind, and it wasn’t Zoe scrubbing her shower floor. “She’s OK. I swear to you.”
“She wasn’t hurt? Not even when I rolled on the ground with her, or pushed her to Saint?” She wiped her eyes, gave a shaky laugh. “I wasn’t very gentle with her, Scars… I just wanted her out of the way.”
“Listen to me, sweetheart.”
Vixen started a bit, surprised at the second endearment directed her way in less than ten minutes by two of the toughest, scariest men that wandered her orbit. She thought that she could get used to it, actually.
I’d like to get used to it, with Ice.
Yeah. As if. You were attractive to him for exactly one reason… and I bet that a scarred face isn’t part of what he was into.
“I know what you did – I know exactly .” Scars gave her a grin and she wrenched her thoughts away from the absolutely infuriating, drop-dead-sexy Ice Johansson. “Jinx showed me the footage from the cameras that cover the whole parking lot. I’ve seen it from every angle possible.”
“Oh.” For the first time, she thought about how the whole mess must look from the outside: terrifying, confusing, out of control. “That must make for some action-packed viewing.”
“You have no idea.”
“Maybe I do.” She finally managed a tiny smile. “I was there.”
“You sure were, sweetheart. And thank God you were, because you saved my little girl’s life. You did it with zero hesitation, you barely fucking blinked . Man, Vixen, the way that you stood there and held your ground and just kept shooting as the van drove straight at you? Twisted ankle, and blood running down your face, and in high heels? Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Well,” she stammered. “When you put it like that … I guess it was a bit badass .”
“A bit ?” Scars shook his dark head. “I’ve never seen anything like you in that sixty seconds, I swear it.”
“That was it, beginning to end? Just a minute?”
“Less, actually.”
“God. It felt like an hour.” She took a deep breath, remembering how slowly she had seemed to be moving, how far away Saint had seemed from Keira; then she thought about how fast the van came at them, how it hadn’t felt like enough time to get to her feet, let alone get her gun out of her purse. “Also like five seconds.”
He cocked his head at her now, stared at her hard enough that Vixen thought he had to be seeing her soul.
“What?” she faltered. “Am I bleeding through the bandages, or something?”
“I haven’t even asked – how do you feel?” Scars said abruptly. “Are you hurting? You need some painkillers?”
“Weirdly, the most painful thing is my foot.” She moved the sheet off her leg, looked down at the black-purple bruises around her left ankle. “I’d have guessed that was my neck would be the main hurting thing, but I’d have been wrong. Then again, I’ve never broken a single bone in my body before, and of course the first things that I break are my damn neck and my face.”
“Yeah, about that.” He held her hand tighter. “I know that it’ll all heal in time, so we’re going to give you whatever you need. I meant what I said, about you not worrying about paying for shit. The club is covering everything: the ambulance, your stay and treatment here, your life once you get out. You come back to work when you want – if you want.”
“Of course I want to,” she said, puzzled that this was even a question. “I mean, what else am I qualified to do?”
“ Badass for hire?” Scars suggested. “Bodyguard? Contract killer? The cops had to take your gun for evidence as part of the investigation, obviously, but as soon as you get it back, you’re good to go.”
“Yeah, maybe.” Vixen giggled. “I bet the money’s pretty good in the badass-for-hire line, huh?”
“I bet you even get dental.”
They shared a smile, then they heard Ice’s voice in the hallway outside, clearly talking to the doctor. Scars got up to greet them, and squeezed Vixen’s hand again. When she lifted her eyes to meet his, she was stunned to see that he looked a bit teary himself now. That was a look that she’d also never expect to see on this man’s hard, warrior face, but there it was.
And then she got the strangest feeling that there was something else going on… something about…
Briley and the twins?
Then that flash of intuition was gone, and all she saw was Scars, looking down at her.
“What’s wrong?” she asked him, a bit afraid of the answer. “Is – has something happened besides all of this?”
“I’m speaking for me, and for Zoe here, and we won’t ever be able to say to enough,” Scars said quietly, avoiding her second question, just as Ice and a doctor stepped back into the room. “Thank you for our daughter, Vixen. Just – thank you.”
And for the first time, Vixen totally, truly understood what had happened in that parking lot: she had saved an innocent, beautiful, little life. It was at a pretty high cost to her own, but the damage was temporary and what was permanent was possible to live with.
And it was all totally, truly worth it.
Broken bones and scars and all.