Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Leslie
I was having a nightmare. One I used to have a lot as a kid but hadn’t experienced in years.
I was lying on a cold metal slab in nothing but a pair of white boxers, my body frozen.
I couldn’t move, but I was awake, my eyes staring at a bright light, unblinking.
At the edge of my sight, I could see blobs of people moving around me.
They got closer and looked down at me, studying me.
I was certain they were aliens, and they had abducted me. I could feel their tools poking and prodding me, their knives slicing me right down the middle. I couldn’t scream but I felt the searing pain in my abdomen as they moved my organs around, dissecting me like an insect.
The terror usually shocked me right out of the dream.
When I was a kid, I’d wake up in a little room and find the nightmare was real.
Except it wasn’t aliens but adults experimenting on me, hurting me.
Sometimes when I woke up, I got sick and an old nurse would come in, force me back into a corner like an animal while she mopped it up, leaving my room wet and smelling like bleach.
Sometimes I’d hear a tapping on the walls, either from Dom or from someone else.
Other times I’d hear the cries and screams of the other kids.
This time, the nightmare and memory blended into one fucked up dream that I couldn’t escape. I pleaded like I was that kid again, begging for it to stop.
Stop.
Stop.
STOP.
LESLIE.
The voice was familiar but distant, screaming in my head. I jerked awake, and everything went dark.
I laid there staring at the ceiling, panting, body shaking, hot and cold at once. That didn’t bother me, I’d woken up like that plenty of times. It was the voice and the confusion, because I knew I wasn’t in my room and that scream had given me a feeling of dread.
It took my brain a second to fire on all ends before I started to realize why. I shot up, pain crawling up my back, my head throbbing, my stomach turning like I might get sick, but I forced it down.
Dom. Dom was in a wreck. And Lena…
The last thing I remembered was her being separated from me at the last second as that car hit my bike.
I was in the hospital. I wasn’t strapped down which was a good sign and I could move my limbs, another good sign.
My left arm was wrapped, and it ached to breathe a little but I couldn’t find any other trauma.
I was lucky in that, but I remembered how Dom had taken that roll.
I had a bad feeling he hadn’t been as lucky.
He had to have gotten out. Because he was strong like me. I needed to find him. Then we needed to find Lena. She had to be okay. She better be okay. If she wasn’t…
That dread brought on the beginnings of a panic. I shifted off the bed, putting my shaking legs on the floor. I tugged off the IV in my arm and tried to stand, getting hit by a wave of dizziness.
Fuck. Fuck.
I forced myself back down and gripped the side of the bed, my body damp with sweat as I shut my eyes, trying to ride out the wave.
I heard voices outside in the hall, feeling bad for whoever walked in and had to try and fight me first, because they would need a SWAT team to keep me here.
I just needed to walk straight, just one step at a time, so I could start looking for my brother and girlfriend.
Footsteps approached and I waited for the squawk of surprise by some nurse at seeing me up then berating me, sending me over the edge.
The footsteps stopped. “Hello, Leslie…”
I opened my eyes and glared at the woman in front of me. A familiar red-faced blond with a disappointing look.
“What are you doing here?”
Andrea fixed me with a sad little smirk. “I work here, remember?” She approached me, looking over at the monitor. “Your vitals are better already, no surprise. Had a nice nap?”
“Where’s Dom and Lena?”
“Leslie, I think you should lie down.”
“What the fuck happened?” I demanded.
Andrea sighed. She went and brought the chair over, sitting next to me. “What do you remember?”
“We were driving down Michigan Avenue to the clubhouse. A pair of cars came out of nowhere and attacked us, gunning at Dom. He rolled off the road then they hit me. Lena was…she was behind me on the bike.” Fury washed over me like a silent bomb as I recalled it all.
“It had to have been those fucking snakes,” I whispered.
“Snakes?”
“Never mind, I have to go.”
“You can’t.”
“You really gonna try to stop me?”
“Leslie.” She leaned forward in her seat. “You were in a bad accident.”
“No shit.”
“You were transferred here on request. Dom had me as an emergency contact for you both.”
Of course he did. “Dom knows what’s best, I guess.”
She gave me a solemn look. “You’ve been here since last night.”
I glanced over at the window and the light from the sun was barely peeking above the horizon. My eyes drifted over to the clock on the wall. Eight pm.
“I was out that long?” I snapped.
“You were in and out of consciousness. The drugs probably didn’t help but you needed stitches on your arm and you have a cracked rib. Your body’s gone through trauma. You got a slight concussion—”
“Where’s my phone?”
Frowning, she dug in her pocket and handed it over. I had several calls and messages, none of them from Dom.
“A few visitors—friends, I assume, have come by. A police officer too,” Andrea said as I went through the messages.
“They wanted to ask questions, but I told them you weren’t in any state to talk.
My guess is they’ll come back soon.” When I didn’t say anything, she reached over and put a hand on my leg, making me flinch. “What have you gotten into?”
I shrugged her hand away. “Do you know where my brother and girlfriend are or not?”
She straightened in her seat. “I don’t know where Lena is. They didn’t find her at the accident.”
I closed my eyes, taking a deep, shaky breath. They took her. Of course they had. And now I would have to kill them all. I’d kill them all for touching her. “And Dom?” I said, my voice cracking.
Again, she didn’t answer. Instead, she left, coming back with a wheelchair. “I’ll take you to him.”
Reluctantly, I allowed her to help me into the chair. She wheeled me out of the room and down the hall to the elevator. We went two floors down and she rolled me out, taking me toward the ICU.
My heart sank into the pit of my stomach as she took me into a darkened room and the first thing I heard was an oxygen tank pumping air. She pulled a curtain away and turned on an overhead light before positioning me at the foot of the bed.
I stared at my brother. Or at least I had to assume it was him. His face was wrapped on one side and an oxygen mask covered his mouth. The parts I could see were bruised so deep his skin was dark purple. His leg was covered in a cast and he had several bandages up his arm and around one hand.
I couldn’t speak, I could hardly breathe. Andrea walked over to him, fixing the blanket over him.
“He’s stable for now. The doctors think it’s a miracle he survived but we both know better. He’s strong like you.”
“Has he...woken up at all?”
“No.”
My heart felt like it was shriveling up. “Will he…”
“We don’t know.”
I was starting to see shadows in the corners, sinister faces smiling along the walls. I rarely had hallucinations anymore, they only came when I was in a bad headspace, and now they were seeping into my reality like a poisonous gas, flooding my senses, breaking my mind.
Andrea touched my shoulder. “I’ll give you a moment.” She left the room and I hardly noticed. All I saw was my brother on the edge of death before me. I envisioned his car rolling over and over again.
Then I started hearing Lena’s cries. Distant at first then growing louder.
Leslie.
LESLIE.
My hands turned to fists as my body shook. The cries were right beside me, all around me.
I couldn’t shut them out. They might lead me to the brink of madness, but that was okay. Maybe that’s where I needed to be.
Leslie.
Help me.
The cries started to fade, replaced with a crackling in my head. As it roared in my ears, I calmly pulled up my phone.
Dom was out, I could do nothing but wait and hope he made it through. But Lena was still out there.
I would find her.
Find my girl and make them pay.
They had to pay for what they did.
They would.
I called Kris first, telling him to grab the Gemini members.
Someone had given up our location and betrayed us.
I needed to root the snake out first, then I’d make my move.
I’d call in every favor from every ally we made.
I would unleash hell on earth until every snake was rotting in their graves and Trevor Vulli was on his knees before me, begging for his life.
They would regret ever messing with what was mine.