Chaos (Raging Barons MC #20)

Chapter 1

-:- CHAOS -:-

Ending my five-mile run along the river, I hear shouting and pick up my pace quickly. My reaction, as always, is to check out what is going on, see if I can help, or avoid a situation.

There is a small crowd all looking into the river. The river's overflowing thanks to all the recent rain. It’s rushing downstream higher and faster than I’ve ever seen it before.

A woman in jogging gear who had been running on the jogging path in front of me dives into the river and disappears under the water. As I reach the area, another woman is screaming and throwing her arms around.

“Help! Help!” I look at the woman and frown before I look at a man who is obviously taking it all in, but standing motionless, not making any attempt to help.

“My son, my son is in the river,” the woman wails, and the man steps closer to the river but I notice he doesn’t try to get in and help.

Nobody is attempting to help the woman who has dived into the river. The woman and boy have not surfaced as yet, and I’m checking the surface for any signs of where they are.

I am about to dive in when the woman surfaces a little further downstream. She is holding the child, and he’s coughing and crying. Thankfully, he’s traumatized but not dead as I thought he was going to be.

I rush to where they are, wade in fast and grab the child, quickly turning to hand the child to the guy. “Here, help you fuckin’ asshole,” I snarl. I make sure he has hold of the kid before turning in time to see the woman slip and smack her head against rocks on the side of the riverbank.

Not waiting any longer, I grab the woman as she slides under the water. Shit! She’s knocked out and has a nasty gash with blood pouring from it.

I struggle to climb out while holding the woman, but thankfully two more guys appear and give me a hand. “Call 911,” I say as I lay the woman down and check if she’s breathing.

“Is she okay? What happened?” One of the new guys asks as he squats beside me.

The wailing woman is holding her kid tight to her, and he’s creating a hell of a racket with his crying. That shows he’s okay thankfully, but the woman hasn’t asked how her kid’s hero is, and that’s what this woman is, a damn hero.

“She hit her head on a rock. Probably will have a concussion, but she’s breathing okay,” I reply as the guy looks up to his friend.

“On their way.” Squatting beside us this guy looks at the woman with a frown. “She just dove in and saved that kid with no thought to her own safety. The mother hasn’t even asked if she’s okay. People are such assholes.”

Nodding because I agree people are assholes and when someone does something like this they do it, not asking for thanks, they do it because it’s the right thing to do.

I move her hair, which is plastered to her head, and see a deep gash. “Do you have anything we can put on this to stem the bleeding?” I ask, looking at each of the men.

“I have a clean handkerchief,” the first guy says and digs one out of a briefcase I hadn’t noticed. In fact, the guy is in a suit, so he’s a businessman and may come in useful as a witness if one is needed.

The medics are here, and they quickly take the boy and mother into the ambulance. I’m getting into a temper, and I can feel it rising. If I blow, the fuckers will know it.

“Hey, the kid is fine. That fucking woman needs to wake the hell up!” the second guy with me shouts. “You need to come look at this lady, she’s unconscious…”

I grunt because I couldn’t agree with him more. I don’t, however, want to go into ‘Meat’ mode and throw a crazy at this point. But, you know, if I have to I am quite capable of doing just that.

A medic rushes over and quickly checks the woman. “How long has she been out?” he asks as he parts her hair.

“About fifteen to twenty minutes I would guess,” I reply. Taking my phone from the pocket of my joggers, I send a message to Wings.

Chaos: Going to the emergency with a woman who nearly drowned. I’ll be back when I can. Inform Target and Axel.

Yeah, I keep things short and sweet. No use wasting words or time. I get a thumbs up from Wings so know he’ll deal with everything.

“She has to go to emergency and be looked over. She’s obviously got a concussion, but how bad I don’t know.

She’ll have to have a scan to see if her skull was cracked.

We can’t wait to see if she has any brain swelling or bleeding.

” The EMT shouts his work buddy over and they quickly gurney her and get her into the ambulance.

“You coming?” One of the EMTs asks, and I nod as I climb in with her. I take the purse she has fastened to her waist and check it out as best I can without making it obvious. Her drivers license shows she is Victoria Meadows, twenty-eight, 5’7”, green eyes. Her address is in a decent part of town.

My mind snaps to attention when the EMT asks who she is to me, and I’m about to say nobody when I blurt, “Girlfriend, we’ve not been together long, but gotta start somewhere!” I smirk, trying to cover up my snap decision.

“She’s a pretty lady,” the second medic says, then continues, “I hope she hasn’t any brain bleeds or swelling. The gash is damn nasty. I’ll tell whoever is on when we arrive not to cut a substantial chunk of her hair. They are too fucking happy to chop huge amounts of hair when they don’t need to.”

The other medic joins the conversation, “Yeah, and their excuse is they need the area clear. But you don’t need five inches of baldness for that.”

“Why are there three of you on the rig?” I ask because it’s normally only two.

“I am helping wherever I can while I wait for a solid partner. The one I’m hoping to replace is having a baby, and she’s trying to drag it out.

She’ll want to come back I reckon, but I’ll fight to keep my place if that’s what happens.

I don’t want a temp position. I want to get my place and hold it. ”

“I understand that. I did a year with a great guy and then his old partner came back and I was shifted to form another team. I told them I wanted a solid place, or I was leaving. Then I got with Cal and we’ve been a great team.”

The two of them banter back and forth, but I notice they are keeping a close eye on Victoria. It doesn’t take long to arrive, and I follow as closely as I can without getting in the way.

When Victoria is rushed into a side room, a doctor is waiting, and I attempt to follow behind the gurney. I am told to wait outside, but you know me, I push inside anyway. “This is my girlfriend and I want to know what the fuck is going on. Is she okay?”

Although I’m getting some nasty looks, I don’t give a shit. I stand with my arms folded but stay next to the wall, giving space to the doctor and the two nurses with him.

When they get to cutting her hair, I snarl, “Don’t cut too much or I’ll make sure you are bald when you go home tonight, and I mean all three of you.”

The EMTs grin and give me a nod as they pass me leaving the room. “Good luck. I hope she’ll be okay.” I nod in acknowledgement of their comment but keep my eyes on the bitch who is cutting Victoria’s hair.

Victoria is very pale and hasn’t become conscious yet, which is worrying me now.

The doctor orders a scan of Victoria’s head and they rush her away.

Turning to me the doctor speaks for the first time.

“We are going to scan Victoria’s head. I couldn’t feel any movement in her skull, but as you can imagine we don’t want to be poking at her if something is wrong.

The gash is deep, but I have it stitched and the bleeding has stopped.

I think we are talking about a nasty concussion, but the scan will verify that.

Do you want to wait in the waiting room down the hall until we know more? ”

I head to the waiting room and look up when I hear my name. Wings, Meat and Stitch are storming my way. I flick my hand, which tells them to follow me.

Inside the waiting room, I’m still in jogging pants and a t-shirt, but my brothers have their kuttes on so you can believe a woman who was waiting quickly heads out of the room.

Why? I never understand because we are known all over this area for helping and not causing trouble.

We fundraise and do good deeds, but you know, when this sort of thing happens it makes me think, fuck it, why bother!

“What’s going on?” Stitch asks as the door closes behind the woman.

I tell them what happened, and my girlfriend’s idiocy, which as you can imagine has Wings and Meat smirking like a pair of fools. “What does she look like?” Wings asks with that look that tells me he’s wanting to fuck around with me.

“I wasn’t looking at her that closely. She was bleeding from her head and bleeding a lot. I was more concerned at that than checking her out.” I give an eye roll, which is my new habit thanks to Star and Kenzie.

Stitch slaps my shoulder, “I’m going to find out what’s happening. I know a few of the nurses and doctors here now. Get in touch with Forest. Make sure everything is as it seems.”

“What do you mean?” I ask, thinking literally, what is he getting at?

“Well, don’t you think it’s odd that a kid ends up in the river? It’s a distance from the running path isn’t it? Have you checked if the kid is okay?”

“Have I fuck!” I snarl. “The bitch never even looked or asked if Victoria was okay, so I don’t give a fuck about her. The kid was crying his ass off so he was okay from what I could tell.”

Grunting when I speak has me turning to look at Meat, and the frown on his face tells me he feels the same as I do. Wings speaks again, “Why the fuck would you not check how someone is when they saved your kid's life? That doesn’t make fucking sense?”

Before I reply, Stitch walks out of the waiting room, and along with me, Meat and Wings take a seat. I run over what happened in my mind and it’s like a video playing. Me running along the path. I see the woman screaming with the man beside her.

“I’ve called Forest, he’s on his way,” Wings says and I nod to let him know I heard.

My mind is still playing out the scene. They look at each other, then the woman continues to cry out. Victoria stops running, scans the river and thinks nothing of what she’s going to do. She launches herself into the river.

I push my mind to see what the woman and man were doing. Nothing…they were doing nothing! She was screaming but did not get closer to the river. He stands just watching. When I reach them the other two guys appear.

At no time does the woman make any effort to grab the kid. She doesn’t hold him until he’s out of the river, and the man thrusts the kid at her.

Something is not right! I’m going to tell Forest my gut is saying something is not right!

The door opens and Stitch walks back into the room.

“They are just bringing Victoria back from scans. She’s going to be admitted because she’s not regained consciousness as yet.

You’ll have to keep up the girlfriend shit, Chaos.

Did she have a key with her? You could get her some things from her place for when she wakes. ”

“I can do that. I have her purse. It’s small but had her driver’s license, a few dollars, and yeah, a key.

” I check out the purse again and that is all that’s in it.

“I have the address on her license so once we know she’s in her room I’ll go check her place out.

” I look up when the door opens again, and the doctor steps inside.

“Victoria has a concussion. She’s in a coma at the moment. She has no sign of a brain bleed, cracks in her skull or anything else that we have to fix. But she is in the ICU as she’s not regained consciousness as we expected, hence we say, in a coma.”

Meat grunts, Wings growls under his breath, and I blurt, “So, what are you saying? She’s not gonna wake up?”

“No, no, she’ll wake, but in her own time. Our issue is, will Victoria have any vomiting, seizures, slurred speech, or memory loss. Any or all of those things could happen. We have to wait and see when she wakes.”

Stitch gives me a look that says be quiet, and I hold back what I was going to say next. Stitch takes the lead and discusses a few things with the doctor, while I watch Wings and Meat, who are both looking as pissed as I do.

Wings cuts into Stitch and the doctor's conversation, “What about the kid? Is the kid okay?”

“The child is fine. He took in some river water, so we are keeping him twenty-four hours just for observation.”

“Thanks, Doc. Can Chaos see Victoria?” Stitch asks, and I know he’s cutting the doctor off, too.

“Yes, but only for a few minutes at the moment. Once we’ve got her settled, you’ll be able to visit tonight for a while.”

“Thanks, Doctor Bellamy,” Stitch responds, and if it wasn’t a serious moment, I’d take the piss out of him for showing such reverence to the doctor. Kissing ass comes to mind.

Gemmy, who works at the Sheriff’s Office is Stitch’s woman and she runs him a merry dance. All the while with a huge smile on her face. She’d have made fun of him at this moment too.

As the doctor leaves, Forest steps into the room, but I pass him as I hear Wings filling him in on what happened. Stepping into the room and seeing Victoria lying quietly with a bandage around her head, has me wondering why she never had a phone on her, and if she has anyone that will miss her.

I walk over to the bed and study her. She’s pretty even though her color is off.

She has brown hair that is deep and if I had to describe it I’d say it was chestnut colored.

She has long lashes which nearly lay against the top of her cheeks.

She has cute bow lips that look like they are ready to be kissed.

She’s fit. Not thin, but she’s not carrying extra weight either. Just my type, if I have to admit that.

I’ve been a player, and I know it. Too many women over the years, and it makes it less likely I’ll find a woman who will be able to resign herself to that.

Looking back, I could have been more selective, but I wasn’t ready to settle down.

After retiring from the forces, I didn’t feel that I was in the right place to have a woman in my life.

I’m okay with being on my own, but you never know what life will throw at you.

“Vicky, I’ll be back, babe,” I murmur. I head out, let my brothers know I’m ready to leave, and I embarrassingly have to ride bitch behind Wings, which is going to cause an issue I’m sure.