Chapter 15 #3
Together, they worked on getting Ghost’s clothes cut from him so they could diagnose his injuries. It was agony, lying there uselessly while his people needed him. Ghost caught sight of other club members helping the fire department clear the scene. He should be among them.
“Oh fuck!” Bear suddenly shouted. Rushing away, the giant man met two firemen as they dragged someone from the bar.
Ghost sat up, needing to see. For a moment, all he could make out was the long hair, black with soot. It was only the way the firemen were struggling under his body weight that clued Ghost in that it wasn’t a woman between them. The only other person Ghost knew with long hair like that was Grumpy.
He pushed the paramedic who had been bandaging his hand aside as he tried to get up again. “What’s happening?” he demanded from behind the mask.
Another stretcher was brought forward, and Bear lifted their club brother onto it with ease. Ghost’s eyes widened in horror when he saw the large shard of glass sticking out of Grumpy’s face where his left eye had been.
Cameron must have seen something that Becks didn’t because she suddenly pressed the gun harder against the back of Becks’ head, pushing Becks forward a step. “Don’t even think about it, Ranger! The vein.”
Still bent forward slightly, Becks looked up through her hair to see Liam’s disgruntled, and rather pissed off, look.
She could only assume that, despite the tourniquet, Liam had tried to inject himself intramuscularly instead of in a vein.
Becks wasn’t a medical professional, but knew enough to know what Liam’s goal had likely been to slow down how quickly the drug took effect.
Liam removed the needle from his arm, repositioned, and then reinserted it. Rather than pushing the plunger, though, he lifted it. “I don’t give a fuck what you do to me, Cameron, but hurt my sister, I will end you.” Then he pushed the plunger down.
Becks wasn’t sure what she was expecting. Liam didn’t suddenly implode or drop to the floor. He casually pulled the needle from his arm and removed the tourniquet, dropping both down onto the couch. He turned his gaze on Cameron, utter hatred in his eyes.
Time seemed to slow as Becks waited, not even sure if she was breathing as she watched for some reaction from her brother. His shoulders sagged, and he shook his head as if trying to clear it.
Cameron must have been satisfied with it, though, because she stepped back away from Becks. She even lowered the gun to her side with a satisfied smile on her face. “Such a good boy,” she praised, mockingly.
Becks winced. Seeing her big brother willingly inject himself with an unknown drug to protect her snapped her from her frozen state. Not caring if Cameron shot her, she rushed forward to Liam’s side.
It happened so quickly. One second her brother looked fine, and the next his blinks slowed and he swayed on his feet. Becks caught him, wrapping an arm around his waist. But he was big, heavy with muscle. Thankfully, he didn’t fall. Just stood there with a blissful, dopey look on his face.
“Liam? Liam, are you okay?” When he didn’t answer right away, she rounded on Cameron. “What did you give him? What did you do to him?”
“Well, look who grew a backbone.” Cameron laughed manically. She approached, keeping the gun out but no longer pointed at them. “Truly thought you were going to piss your pants there like the pathetic little bitch you are.”
Becks’ eyes narrowed. Liam clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth.
A siren went by the window. It wasn’t the first, but Becks hadn’t paid attention to the others with her sole focus on the gun pointed at either herself or her brother.
Liam’s head swayed on his shoulders like it was suddenly too heavy for his neck.
“Pretty,” he mumbled, and then walked forward towards the window as if he wanted to chase the lights.
Cameron picked up the discarded needle, tourniquet, and cap from the syringe.
She placed all three in her purse. “Now, the three of us are going to go for a ride in my car. And before you try to grab anyone’s attention or call out for help, remember that, one, I have the antidote to what your brother just injected himself with, and two, the police are a little busy right now. ”
As if her mind had rewound to Cameron’s first words when she’d pulled the gun, Becks realized only now what Cameron had said. “You planted a bomb? That’s what that was?”
Cameron nodded. “Bought off a group of brothers who had beef with the bar. They were only too happy to make it for me, and all I had to do was blow them a few times. Men, am I right?” she scoffed with an eyeroll as if she and Becks were bonding over the eccentricities of the opposite sex.
Cameron approached Becks and Liam, patting Liam’s chest. “But then again, we already knew just how stupid men could be. Gotta be the protectors, the big man on campus, and yet it’s always a shock when women come out on top.”
Becks ignored Cameron’s ramblings, her brain still trying to piece together the last ten minutes of her life. “You put a bomb in the bar?” The bar where Ghost was working. Oh God! Where was he? Was he okay?
Becks needed to get to him, but how? Liam was completely out of it.
He was entirely useless in this state, and Becks couldn’t abandon him.
She had no choice but to simply pray her husband was okay while she figured out what the hell was going on with Cameron and her brother—who was now staring up at the ceiling, circling his head around and around as he watched the fan spin above him.
He seemed…blissed out. When Becks had been younger, she’d been given oxycodone before getting her wisdom teeth pulled.
To her teenage horror, her dad had recorded Becks’ reaction when she woke up so he could send it off to Liam, who’d been overseas at the time.
She still couldn’t believe she’d been so upset that polar bears didn’t have access to ice cream stores in the arctic.
No doubt the thought had been on her mind because her mom had promised her ice cream meals for the next several days after surgery—though Becks still had no idea why she’d been fixated on polar bears too.
It had been the closest thing to a high as Becks had ever experienced.
And while Liam wasn’t rambling about the unfairness of polar bears’ lack of access to ice cream franchisees, the only way she could describe his look was high.
Or cooked? Was that the word kids were using these days?
She had no idea. Whatever had been in that syringe had loosened her brother up enough that he was more entertained by Cameron’s ceiling fan than her gun.
“Ranger, baby,” Cameron cooed. “Let’s head down to my car.”
Becks watched, horrified, as her brother smiled down at his girlfriend. “S’kay,” he said like his tongue weighed heavily.
Liam took a step forward, then a step back, and then a step forward. Cameron gave Becks a look of impatience.
“Be a dear and help Big Brother out. Wouldn’t want him to trip down the stairs now, would we?
” She slipped her gun into the back of her jeans before flipping her shirt down over it.
“You two go first, and if you try anything, just remember that I only need one of you—and right now, your brother is the perfect target.”
A cold chill filled her veins. Looping her brother’s arm around her shoulders, Becks nodded her obedience.
For all that had happened in the apartment, the place looked immaculate.
Liam’s beer bottle and her water glass still sat on the island, and there was no sign of any struggle or wrongdoing now that Cameron had cleaned up the syringe.
She touched her wedding ring. It was the only thing on her that was removable and obvious.
As she worked it off her finger, she’d have to wait for the opportune time to drop it.
She had promised Ghost she wouldn’t remove it, but knew he’d forgive her because it would clue him in that something was very wrong.
“Where the fuck is my wife?” Ghost tried to shout, and not for the first time. Like the other times, though, his voice was barely above a croak.
Tessa rounded on him. “I will sedate you, Ghost, so help me God. If you do not stop trying to get out of that bed, I will knock you out and then you’ll have to wait to get the answer to that question. I’m sure Becks is on her way.”
It took all of Ghost’s dwindling energy not to growl at her, and it was only the fact that he was in no state to go head to head with Bear that stayed his reaction.
He was in the emergency room of Mount Grove Memorial Hospital, where Tessa was one of the doctors working the ER.
He’d been in here many times since moving to Mount Grove, but never as a patient before.
The bar was destroyed, but that wasn’t the worst of it.
Prior to Ghost being locked into an ambulance and transported to the hospital, they’d pulled another body from the wreckage.
Scott Pan, another of Carlos’ deputies, had already been identified as the body Danny had brought outside with him.
Now, Dru Dendinger, the wife of the man Ghost had rescued, had also been DOA.
Last Ghost heard, there was still no sign of Frankie, Monica, or Gracie.
Others had been pulled alive with injuries, like the bar’s part-time cook and the bankers that had been gathered at the back of the bar.
Grumpy was in surgery. The fact that he was alive shocked Ghost the most. That shard of glass had been huge, or maybe it had only looked that way. If he did survive surgery, there was no doubt he would lose the eye.
Bear was inside the room with Tessa and Ghost. He had one phone to his ear and was texting on another. Whose, Ghost had no idea. Maybe he stole it from a paramedic or he’d borrowed Tessa’s. Either way, he was Ghost’s current source of information.