Chapter Three
Ramona
I pulled the hospital room door closed behind me and stopped.
Everyone was still there.
Anchor leaned against the wall across from Ash’s room with his arms folded over his chest.
Skull stood beside him, drinking what looked like a fresh cup of coffee.
Cross was next to him, while Prime and Shay were a few feet away.
Two more people had joined them while Ash and I had been talking.
I recognized Push and McKayla from the clubhouse last night.
The PI.
She was tucked against Push’s side, his arm wrapped around her while they talked quietly.
I looked from them to Ash’s door. Then farther down the hallway. Then back at the group.
What the hell?
Did the Kings of Anarchy get some kind of group discount at this hospital?
Shay caught my eye.
I tried to make my face look normal. Apparently, I failed.
She smiled. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“That is definitely not a nothing face.”
I glanced around again. “I’m just wondering if you guys have considered getting your own wing.”
Prime snorted.
Anchor’s mouth twitched.
Shay laughed. “It’s been a rough couple of weeks.”
“That might be an understatement.”
McKayla looked over at me. I remembered her from last night. Or at least I remembered figuring out she was with Push before anyone told me. We hadn’t actually talked.
Shay bumped her shoulder into Push’s arm.
She looked tired.
Not regular tired either. There were dark circles under her eyes, and even though she smiled, there was something behind it.
I knew that kind of tired. I’d seen it in my own face enough lately.
“You here to see Bob too?” I asked.
McKayla shook her head. “Erin.”
“Erin?”
“My sister.”
“Oh.” I waited for more.
Nobody said anything.
I looked at Shay and her expression shifted.
There it was again. That thing these people did.
A look. A pause. Like everyone knew something except me.
“What happened to her?” I asked.
McKayla glanced toward Push before looking back at me. “She got hurt.”
My eyebrows lifted. That was almost exactly what Prime had said when I asked about Ash. I looked from McKayla to Ash’s door. “She’s in the hospital too?”
“Yeah.”
“How badly was she hurt?”
McKayla drew in a breath. “Bad enough that they’re keeping her for a while.”
Push’s arm tightened around her.
I nodded. It wasn’t any of my business, and I wasn’t going to start asking a woman I’d known for thirty seconds for her sister’s medical history.
Still.
Bob had almost died. A woman named Bernice had died. Now McKayla’s sister was in the same hospital. And judging by the way everyone had gone slightly quiet, there was more to that story too.
I had been on Skull Island for less than a day. What the fuck had I driven into?
Shay walked over and hooked her arm through mine. “Come on. Prime is taking us back.”
Prime frowned. “Why am I taking you back?”
“Because we rode with you.”
“That sounds like poor planning on your part.”
She smiled sweetly. “Keys.”
Prime stared at her.
Shay held out her hand.
“What?”
“I’ll drive,” she smiled.
“No.”
“Then you’re taking us back.”
Prime looked at me. “She’s always like this.”
“Good,” I laughed.
“Why is that good?”
“Because you need someone to keep you in line.”
“Skull will follow you guys. Cross is posting up here,” Anchor said.
Prime nodded and gave a chin tilt to Anchor. “Let me know if you need anything.”
Shay tugged me toward the elevators. “Let’s get back to the clubhouse.”
I glanced back once. Anchor had already turned toward Ash’s door. Cross was talking to Push while McKayla leaned against him.
I wondered how long they’d all been doing this.
Hospital.
Island.
Hospital.
Island.
Whatever had happened to Ashland hadn’t just happened to him. It had hit every one of them. That was obvious. And I had the feeling McKayla’s sister being here had done the same thing all over again.
The elevator doors opened, and I followed Shay inside.
Prime stepped in behind us. “You two are going to be a problem together, aren’t you?” he asked.
Shay and I looked at each other. “No,” we answered at the same time.
Prime sighed.
For some reason, that made me feel a little better.
By the time we got back to Skull Island, I needed to be alone.
Not wanted.
Needed.
The whole drive back, I’d sat in the back seat listening to Prime and Shay talk while my brain ran in circles.
Ash.
The wheelchair.
The wound across his throat.
The roughness in his voice.
The way he’d tried to push himself higher in the bed like he had something to prove to me and ended up hurting himself.
Because I knew you’d help.
I closed my eyes. Maybe I shouldn’t have said that.
It was true. That was the problem.
I’d driven to Skull Island because I needed Ash. Bob. Whatever the hell I was supposed to call him now.
In my head, he was still Ashland Moore. The eighteen-year-old guy who had stepped into my bedroom when my father was out of control. The guy who had put himself between me and a raised hand without stopping to think about what might happen to him.
I’d carried that version of him around with me for twenty years.
I hadn’t been pining over Ashland Moore while I traveled around the country, waiting for the day we’d be reunited. But when things got bad enough that I couldn’t handle them anymore, I’d thought of him.
And today I’d found him in a hospital bed.
Someone had nearly killed him and that bothered me way more than I wanted it to.
Prime pulled into the parking lot behind the clubhouse, and I was out of the SUV almost as soon as he put it in park.
Shay climbed out after me. “You okay?”
“Yeah.”
Prime shut his door. “She’s not.”
I glared at him. “Nobody asked you.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because you keep answering questions nobody asked.”
Shay laughed.
I looked toward the path leading around the haunted house. “I want to go to my RV.”
“No.”
My head whipped toward Prime.
He hadn’t even hesitated.
“I wasn’t asking you.”
“Still no.”
“It’s my RV.”
“Congratulations,” he chuckled.
I stared at him.
He stared back.
Shay stepped between us before I could say something that might get me thrown off the island. Which, actually, would solve this problem.
“Prime,” she said.
“No.”
“You don’t even know what I was going to say,” she sighed.
“You were going to tell me to let her go to the RV.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
I threw my hands up. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Nothing.”
“I just want to go to my own home.” It was pretty damn simple.
“The clubhouse has rooms.”
“I know. I slept in one.” I put my hands on my hips. “But I want to be in my RV.”
“Then use the room you slept in. It’s private like your RV,” he tried to reason.
“I don’t want to use it.” Prime started toward the clubhouse and I followed him. “I’m not asking to drive the damn thing anywhere. It doesn’t even run.”
“I know.”
“I just want to sit in it.” It was my home.
“No.”
“Stop saying no!” I shouted.
Shay covered her mouth.
Prime stopped and turned around. “You done?”
“No.”
“Figured.”
I pointed toward the parking lot. “That RV is my home. I have been living in it for years. My clothes are there. My stuff is there. My coffee is there.”
“There’s coffee in the clubhouse,” he pointed out.
“Not my coffee.”
He stared at me.
I knew how ridiculous that sounded and I didn’t care. I needed something familiar. Something that belonged to me. The room they’d given me was nice. Pearl and Shay had been nice. Everybody had been nice, in their own weird, bossy way.
But none of it was mine.
I wanted my crappy couch. My little kitchen. My bed. My stupid magnets. I wanted to shut the door and sit somewhere that didn’t belong to the Kings of Anarchy.
“I just need an hour,” I said.
Prime shook his head. “Can’t happen.”
“Why?”
“Because I said so.”
“Oh, that’s a great reason.”
Shay grabbed his arm. “What if we all go?”
He looked at her.
“We take Ramona to the RV,” she continued. “She can get whatever she needs, sit in there for a little while, and we’ll hang out outside.”
“No.”
“Prime.”
“I have shit I need to do, Shay.”
“So go do it,” I interrupted.
“And leave you two sitting in a parking lot?” Prime shook his head.
“Yes.”
“No.”
I stared at him.
Something in me snapped. “I don’t need a babysitter.”
Prime’s face changed, but I kept going.
“I’ve been taking care of myself for a very long time. I managed to drive all the way here by myself. I’ve lived in that RV by myself. I don’t need someone standing outside the door making sure nothing happens to me.”
Prime folded his arms over his chest. “That might’ve worked before you showed up here.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It means you’re here now.”
“Exactly. I’m here. On an island full of bikers. I’m pretty sure my former boss isn’t going to jump out of the bushes and drag me away.”
Prime’s eyebrows lifted.
Shay looked at me.
I realized what I’d said.
Damn it.
“What about your former boss?” he asked.
Shit. I did not want to talk about this right now. “I quit that job. He was a little mad. It doesn’t matter.”
“If it didn’t matter, why would you say that about your old boss?” Prime asked.
“I was trying to think of something ridiculous that would never happen,” I nervously laughed.
“But that is exactly what could happen if someone isn’t with you,” Prime insisted.
I could feel myself getting more worked up, and I knew I needed to stop. I knew it, but apparently knowing something and actually doing it were two different things. “I just want to go to my fucking RV.”
“You can’t be out there alone.”
“Why?”
“Because you can’t.”
I laughed. There wasn’t anything funny about it. “Great. So I drove all the way here to get away from one controlling asshole, and now I’m surrounded by a dozen of them.”
Prime’s face hardened.
Shay said my name quietly. “Ramona.”
I shook my head. “I know. I know I’m being ridiculous.” That was probably the most annoying part.
Prime hadn’t done anything to me. Nobody here had. They’d fed me. Given me somewhere to sleep. Taken me to see Ash. Let me into their clubhouse without knowing a damn thing about me.
And I was throwing a fit because I wanted to sit in a broken RV, but I couldn’t stop. Because every time I closed my eyes, I saw Ashland in that hospital bed.