Chapter 37 – CJ
Stepping off the elevator, CJ headed to the private wing of Hortensia General Hospital mainly used for the Death Dwellers, especially Mom. The unit was always locked, so he pressed the intercom.
“May I help you?” a female voice responded almost immediately.
“Uh, yeah, hey, this is CJ Caldwell, here to see Molly Harris.”
A buzzer sounded and the door clicked open, allowing CJ entry. Molly was in the room Mom was always in, front, center, and across from the nurse’s station, but as he passed the first room and glanced in, he halted. Easton DeLuca sat in a chair, dressed in street clothes and looking at his phone.
Detouring from his destination, CJ paused in the doorway and cleared his throat.
DeLuca lifted his head and nodded. “CJ.”
“How are you feeling?”
“Much better than I had been. I’m going home with a cane.” He pointed to the bed, where a black cane lay across it. “I don’t intend to use it much because I can almost walk normally, though the pain hasn’t gone away yet.”
“Thank you for helping Molly. You risked your life to save her.”
“It’s the least I could’ve done for her.”
The statement sounded simple on the surface, however, CJ felt as if there was a deeper meaning, though he knew better than to ask directly.
Not that it mattered. Motherfuckers he’d known all his life lied to his fucking face and allowed him to discover their duplicity in fucked up ways.
“You weren’t the one who called her father. That was all Ryan.”
“You know about that?”
“I know more than I care to. I know about Rory and Devon, too.”
Straightening, DeLuca laid his phone in his lap and lifted his brows. “What are you talking about?”
They were getting off topic. CJ wanted to steer the conversation back to DeLuca’s cryptic statement.
“Rory was the one who convinced me to help Molly, CJ.”
“I’ve heard. Both Rory and Ryan went to that spineless fuckhead and was turned away.”
DeLuca smiled. “You’re referring to Johnnie, I assume.”
“Do you know another spineless fuckhead? Aside from his goddamn son?”
“You sound pretty fucking upset with Rory. I’d think you’d thank him for talking me into doing what I had to in order for Bash to release Molly.”
There it was again. DeLuca telling CJ something without coming right out and saying it. Unlike the previously blithe comment, DeLuca seemed as if he’d pushed the words out.
“What did Rory do, CJ?” he pressed.
The biker Diesel fucked up swore Bash didn’t allow the videos of Harley, Rebel, and Mattie, to be shown at the Scorpions’ clubhouse, but CJ was almost certain the Bart brothers were there and those motherfuckers instigated the entire scheme.
No one mentioned what would happen to them for what they’d done.
CJ supposed the peace agreement saved their stinking lives.
He shoved his hands in the pockets of his trousers. “How are Willard and Wally?” he asked, unable to keep the bitterness out of his voice.
DeLuca studied him for a moment, then met his gaze. “Fuckheads.”
“So the usual. Did they hurt Molly?”
“Who didn’t hurt her?” DeLuca said, sighing.
“You didn’t. You helped her.”
“Not all good deeds are so cut and dry.” He glanced away, then looked at CJ again. “I helped her in the only way that was available to me.”
The shame on his face and in his voice hinted at his meaning. CJ withheld his judgment, even if he hated the thought of Molly fucking DeLuca for her release from captivity. “She is probably grateful to you. She’s alive and she’s free.”
“Do you know what I’m saying?”
“I know exactly what you’re telling me,” CJ said flatly. “You fucked her.”
“And you’re okay with that?”
“Even if I’m not, I see that you aren’t, so whatever my feelings, you’re already beating yourself up. My anger pales in comparison to your fucking guilt and self-loathing. You can choke on that for all I fucking care.”
Giving CJ an unfriendly smile, DeLuca shifted in his seat.
“Who shot her?”
“Does it fucking matter? As you said, she survived.”
Rory hurt CJ so deeply, more than Devon or Ryan ever could.
CJ and Rory had been as thick as thieves.
True, Harley once consumed most of CJ’s time, but on many occasions Rory was with them.
Yet, he couldn’t fucking ruin his life because the cousin he valued so deeply was nothing but a piece of shit.
Leaning against the doorframe, CJ folded his arms. “You saved her, Easton. Tom Harris was a motherfucker. I guess he wanted to humiliate her and use you to do it before he agreed to release her. Imagine what you would’ve done if you’d been given that choice but didn’t take it and she ended up not surviving? How would you feel then?”
DeLuca placed his elbows on his knees and nodded. “That’s what I remind myself of every day. But what’s killing me is she didn’t have a fucking choice. She was so fucking out of it.”
CJ hated the idea that Molly had been assaulted in such a manner. Yet…yet…she was alive. DeLuca’s reprehensible actions had saved her when CJ thought she was lost forever. “What you did was so fucking wrong. There’s no way around that. But the reason you did it wasn’t.”
“If I hadn’t slept with her, not only wouldn’t she have been released, she would’ve been killed. Right in front of me. Each time I declined, she was shot. They had one more.”
“The kill shot,” CJ guessed.
DeLuca raised his head and looked at CJ, then nodded.
“You had a fucked-up choice to make, but it wasn’t the wrong one. No, both fucking options were wrong. One was just better.”
“If you say so.” DeLuca straightened again. “Rory was still the one who asked me to save her.”
“Rory is still a motherfucker.”
“I hate to see my young cousins at each other’s throats.”
CJ absorbed those words but barely reacted. Fuck, if aliens suddenly invaded Earth, it wouldn’t have shocked him. “You’re Bash’s son.”
“I am.”
“Does my dad know?”
“He does. He visited with Diesel this past Saturday.”
“Yeah, I heard you were patching over.”
“Diesel’s my sponsor.”
CJ grinned. “Motherfucker, I pity you.”
“Fuck, I pity myself,” DeLuca said, barking a laugh. “Any advice?”
“Stand up to him. He might beat the fuck out of you, but he’ll respect you in the long run. Treat him like one of Dad’s sons, not like an adopted one, lucky to be a Caldwell.”
“Is it lucky to be a Caldwell?”
“It’s better than being a goddamn Donovan.”
DeLuca snickered. “Johnnie and Rory are Caldwells.”
By any other name, they were still fuckheads. “That’s Uncle Johnnie to you, asshole. And don’t fucking remind me. We need to drum them the fuck out of the family.”
“Seriously, CJ, what did Rory do to you?”
“It’s all wrapped in with Ryan and those two overgrown motherfuckers in Utah.”
“Same with Devon?”
“Yeah. Ryan’s behavior was foul, but he had a fucking reason, though I still hate to admit that. Those other two? Fuck them.”
“Care to tell me everything?”
“No. I’m sure you’ll hear it at the clubhouse soon enough.” Out of Diesel’s earshot so he wouldn’t go berserk again and throw another motherfucker into the goddamn crematorium. “Just keep it to yourself.”
“Will do.”
CJ looked at the clock on the wall. He’d spent half an hour in DeLuca’s doorway, time he could’ve spent with Molly. Now, he’d have to cut the visit short because of the dinner at Aunt Celia’s. “Will you be at the big DNA thing tonight?”
“Definitely,” DeLuca said. “Some motherfucker already came and swabbed me, though. So I guess my results are already in.”
“Mine, too.”
“The mysteries of the world will finally be solved.”
“Yeah, but not who owns the fucking club,” CJ said and backed into the hallway. “Later.”
Without waiting for a response, he continued to Molly’s room, nodding to one of the medical assistants who always made it a point to hold a conversation with him.
This time, he didn’t give her the chance.
The fucking world wouldn’t fall apart if he wasn’t nice to everyone.
Besides, what the fuck had niceness gotten him?
Seeing all the bouquets in Molly’s room pleased him. He’d sent several, trying to ease his guilt for not coming to see her.
He walked to the side of her bed, ignoring all the monitors and the IVs, then bent and kissed her temple. Her eyelids opened slowly and she blinked. She was drowsy, unfocused, studying him.
CJ heaved in a breath, remembering all the times he’d spent with her. Their kiss. All the ways she’d brightened his day. He wasn’t sure what to say to her, which was why he hadn’t come, and why he couldn’t stay.
She wasn’t a freakshow for him to gawk at. He kissed her again, this time on her forehead, the scent of sweat and antiseptic tickling his nose.
He started to turn away.
“CJ?” she croaked, soft, hesitant, as if she wasn’t sure.
He froze.
“CJ.” She said his name with more certainty this time. And something else—a hint of relief.
Turning back to her, he smiled and caressed her cheek. She’d lost so much weight. “Hey, bae.”
She wrapped her fingers around his wrist and laid her cheek against his palm. “I missed you.”
Nodding, CJ swallowed, tried to smile again. “I missed you too, Molly. So fucking much.”
“You pulled me from the moon,” she told him. “I found Mama’s head and I was bringing it to her. She was leaning against a rock, holding the baby.”
CJ hugged her. “I didn’t mean to disturb you,” he said gently.
“You didn’t,” she said, hugging him back before leaning against her pillow again. “The cow brought her head to me on the dish. It’s waiting for me. Hopefully, she doesn’t get up and leave me again. Or can she without a head? I saw Daddy take her head.”
That motherfucker needed his head taken.
“Bash made Daddy’s head open up. It went all over the wall.”
Jesus Christ. She’d seen all that? Wait…fuck! Tom Harris was dead?
She lifted her gaze to him, a little more focused but not completely lucid. “Do you know I have a crazy cunt?”
“You don’t, sweetheart?”
“Uh huh,” she said gravely. “Bash told me.”
Bash was a motherfucker.
CJ pulled the chair closer to her bedside, then sat and took her hand in his, careful with how he held it because of the IV.
She smiled at him. “I missed you,” she said again.
He couldn’t not answer her, so he repeated, “I missed you too.”
“Why did Daddy hide Momma’s head and make her take my baby?”
“I don’t know,” he told her. “I wish I knew the answer. I wish I could take your pain away.”
“How did you know it hurts a lot?” She pressed her free hand against her heart. “In here.” Although she was covered, she dropped her hand to her private area. “And there.” She touched her stomach. “And there. And where the holes are.”
The gunshot wounds, she meant.
“My throat feels better though. The bulls used it a lot.”
Fuck.
CJ rubbed his eyes, almost certain she meant oral sex.
She did need help, and a lot of it. He wondered if she could ever function somewhat normally again.
She was so fucking damaged. However, he didn’t know if anyone explained that she would be moved.
They might’ve decided she wouldn’t understand.
Maybe she wouldn’t comprehend everything, but she needed to be prepared.
“You are going to another hospital,” he told her.
Frowning, Molly allowed her blue-gray gaze to touch on all points of the room.
“One that can help you better.”
“Will you visit me?”
CJ nodded. “When I can. My brother is near where you will be.”
“Is he nice like you?”
“He can be,” CJ said quietly.
“Will anyone hurt me?”
“They better fucking not.”
“Will I still be on the moon with Mama, her head, and the baby?”
“For a little while, but then…then…you’ll give her head back and see that her and the baby are happy. It’ll ease you, Molly, so you can be happy again.”
Tears filled her eyes. “You’re going to forget me. Mama doesn’t remember me. I try to make the baby look at me, but it doesn’t even know me.”
“I won’t forget you. Never. I swear. As soon as you’re a little better, I will call you as much as I can. You will always be my friend. I will always love you as my friend.”
She smiled through her tears. “I love you, too. You’re my best friend in the whole world. No one ever treated me so nice.”
He didn’t know how to respond to that, so he remained silent.
“Will the dish, the cow, or the spoon take me to the new hospital?”
“An airplane.”
Her expression blank, she frowned.
“It’s a mode of transportation that travels through the sky,” he explained.
“Like a bird?”
“Yeah. A very big bird.”
“Will it hurt me?”
“No. You will be very safe.”
“I’m scared.”
CJ couldn’t tell her there was nothing to be afraid of because she was so traumatized.
He’d talk to Dad or Diesel and ask if there was someone who could travel with her.
He doubted his parents would allow him to accompany her.
Besides, he was almost certain, it would need to be someone over eighteen.
“I’m going to fix it for you and make sure you’re safe. ”
“Okay,” she said without hesitation.
He got to his feet, knowing this would be the last time he saw her for at least until the summer when he visited Rule. Once again, he regretted not visiting her more often. But he’d see to it that she had a phone as soon as possible and would keep in touch with her.
Releasing her hand, he bent and kissed her cheek. “I have to go, bae.”
“Me, too. Mama’s head got away again.”
“You’ll find it.” It seemed as if she always did. “I will talk to you soon.”
“Bye, CJ,” she whispered, the simple words reminding him of one of the days he’d walked out of her house, and she’d looked so sad and alone.
At the door, he paused and looked back. Her gaze was on him. “Bye, Molly,” he said, and forced himself to walk out.