6. Melody
MELODY
“Hey, are you with us this time?” a woman’s voice asks.
Is she talking to me?
Waking up is hard. My body feels like it’s buried under a pile of blankets.
It takes effort to open my eyes, and when I do, the fluorescent light panels on the ceiling make me regret bothering.
It’s all too easy to close them again and give in to the feeling of being pulled back beneath the surface.
“Come on! Stay with me. Nap time’s over.” Now she’s squeezing my hand and patting my shoulder.
I groan and flop my head her way. “Wh—where am I?”
“You’re in the ER.” The nurse has a heart-shaped face and her big brown eyes are warm and friendly, but tinged with concern. “My name’s Emily, and we’re going to take care of you tonight, okay?”
I’m being rolled down a pale blue corridor, passing door after door too quickly to tell where we’re going. But when did I get here? How?
Am I hurt? I must be. My head’s pounding like a jackhammer, and when I lift my arm it weighs a million pounds. When I finally manage to raise my hand enough to feel the damage, my fingers hit gauze and bandages.
“Was I shot?”
“What? No! You hit your head, but some nice people found you. You’re safe with us, promise.” Emily stays with me the whole time, holding my hand as they wheel me into a room and a couple of aides help move me onto the bed. “What’s your name?”
“Um, Melody.” I’m so confused. “How did I get here?”
“You were at the motorcycle rally. Do you remember?” She waits to see me nod.
“Good. There was a bit of trouble, and the crowd got a little rowdy. I don’t know the whole story, but you were brought in with a few other people who got hurt.
I can ask around and see if anyone else has more information, but first we have to get you patched up. ”
“Patched up? What happened?”
“We were hoping you could tell us. We’re going to need to take care of the cut on your scalp, but the bandages probably make it feel worse than it is. Head wounds are a bitch. You’ve got a bit of a concussion and some bruising.” She smiles. “I’m just going to do a quick exam if that’s okay.”
All I can manage is a weak smile while I try to sort my thoughts.
The rally. Red. Mad Dog and his friends.
Oh God. I had a foursome. The shooting. Dad.
I remember a voice and being hit. I was worried about getting caught up in the violence, but why would anyone go out of their way to attack me? And then take me to the hospital?
The evening started with a bang and ended with a whimper.
Emily is quick and efficient as she adjusts the bed and looks me over, chatting the whole way about what she finds. “Follow the light with your eyes, okay? Pupils are even. That’s a good sign. Any double vision?”
I shake my head and groan at the wave of vertigo it brings.
She chuckles. “Yeah, you really got your bell rung. You were in and out of it for a bit, so I want to keep you under observation for a couple hours to make sure nothing more serious develops.” She gently pulls away my bandages and checks where I was hit.
“You’re going to have a pretty good goose egg back here, but I think we can get away with gluing you back together.
“Some bruising on your arm. Looks like someone grabbed you pretty hard. Hmm…” She puts her hand on my arm, and her voice softens further, like we’re confiding in each other.
“Listen, I’m going to ask you something, Melody, and if I’m totally off-base, that’s fine.
” A short pause. “Maybe you just had an unlucky fall, but some of this looks deliberate, and your clothes look like they were pulled on quickly. Think hard about what you remember and how you’re feeling.
Do you want me to do a more thorough exam? ”
“What? What do you mean?” I start to sit up, then think better of it.
“Honey, should I get a rape kit?” she asks softly.
I’m incredibly touched that this nice lady is asking so sensitively, and also mortified that my clothes look like this because I had to pull them on in the dark while listening to gunfire after getting down and dirty with three guys.
I’m hardly going to say that out loud, though, so I stick with, “No, nothing like that.”
Emily accepts my answer with a kind smile. “Okay, good. If your answer changes? You let me know.”
The door opens, admitting a man in a white doctor's coat. His expression is kind, framed by a tight white beard and short-cropped white hair, which makes me think he might be older than his broad physique would lead me to believe. He smiles when he sees me. “Hey there. My name’s Doctor Brash, but everyone around here just calls me Doc. How are you feeling?”
I give him the same update. Dizzy, my head aches, and I’m a little confused about how I ended up here.
“Well, I can’t help much with that last part, but I hear you might need a little help. Em, can I have a word with you before we get this nice young lady patched back together?”
Emily nods. “Of course. I’ll be right back, Melody.”
They step into the hall and close the door most of the way. I take the opportunity to look around for my bag. It’s nowhere to be found. Crap. Most of what’s in there is easily replaceable, but if I lost my phone, wallet and keys, I’m screwed.
“What? Is he okay?” Emily’s voice carries in from the hall.
“I don’t know. The bullet hit an artery, and there was a lot of internal bleeding before they got him here,” Doctor Brash answers. “They’re taking him into surgery now.”
“Do Harper and the others know? Oh my God. How’s his brother?”
“He was the one who found him. It wasn’t pretty, but we’ve got our best people working on him. I’m going up after this to find out if we know any more.”
When they come back in, I can see a strain on Emily’s face that wasn’t there before.
It sounds like the rally wasn’t the only dangerous place to be.
I hope everyone I know is safe, even Rebel and the others.
If I can’t find my phone, I’ll never be able to tell him that I made it out, but hopefully he’ll understand.
Twenty minutes and some painkillers later, there’s a numb spot on the back of my head and some sort of adhesive situation that I’m supposed to keep dry and be careful of for a few days.
Doc waves goodbye and leaves me once again with Emily to clean up my other cuts and scrapes, along with an official diagnosis for my concussion.
“Is your friend going to be okay?” I ask after Emily tells me I need to stay for a couple hours and take it easy for the next week. I don’t have the heart to tell her that I won’t have anyone looking after me. “Sorry, I overheard when you were talking to the doctor.”
Her smile isn’t quite as bright as it was. “I hope so. He’s my friend’s, um, husband. If anything happens to him, she’s going to be devastated.”
I nod. “I hope he pulls through. Um, Emily? Do you know if anything was brought in with me? I had a little backpack. It was green, if that helps, with, like, buttons and stuff on the flap.”
“Oh! I’m just about done here. I’ll go check.
Sometimes personal belongings end up at the desk.
Listen, the concussion is probably going to make you feel pretty woozy.
Sleep if you need to. Either me or one of the other nurses will come in to check up on you once in a while.
” She dims the lights before leaving the room.
I close my eyes when she’s gone. The painkillers are kicking in, and everything feels a little fuzzy around the edges. I’m not hurting anymore, but the weight of everything that’s happened today is starting to sink in. I feel so alone. Who would I even call to take care of me?
My best friend moved away for school after we graduated.
Work? I’m friendly with everyone at the diner, but not actually friends.
Family? I don’t even know if Dad has any he talks to, and Mom’s disowned her when she chose me and Dad over whatever vision they had for her future.
It’s been a year since Mom died, which seems impossibly long, and the blink of an eye at the same time. It was always the two of us against the world, and I miss her.
The next thing I know, Emily’s voice is at my side again. “Melody? Can you wake up for me, honey?” She sounds stressed.
“Hm?” Waking up this time isn’t quite as bad as last time.
“I have good news and maybe bad news.”
I sit up, blinking the cobwebs out of my eyes. My scalp twinges where the adhesive is. “What’s happening?”
“Okay, the good news is that I found your bag.” She plops it down on the bed next to me, and I breathe a sigh of relief.
At least I can get into my own house, and I haven’t lost Rebel’s number. “And the bad news?”
Her eyes dart to the door and back. “There are a couple of guys out front looking for a girl who matches your description. Trust me, I’m the last person who would judge them just because they’re bikers, so maybe I’m overreacting.
I just got a bad vibe from the way they were talking and wanted to run this by you before we said anything. ”
For a second, I think it could be Dad, or maybe Riptide and the others, but then she holds up her phone. On the screen is a slightly out of focus picture of two men with Devil’s Brigade patches talking to the front desk. I’ve never seen them before.
“I—I need to check my phone.” Oh, thank God. It’s safe and sound in the side pocket where I left it.
My battery is running low, but I have full bars on my signal again. There are a few missed calls from Red earlier tonight, and one from Uncle Clutch, but nothing since before the shooting.
Dad’s words echo in my ears. Not even the club. Crap. I’m in way over my head.
Emily must sense my panic. “They’re not going to hear anything from us, I promise. Now, I know you were one of the people hurt at the rally tonight. Was it these men? Do you have somewhere safe to go? Someone to call?”
“I don’t know,” I whisper. “I don’t think… I don’t know.”
“Okay. You’re coming home with me.” She says it like it’s the most sensible thing in the world. “My shift just ended, and I guarantee there’s nowhere safer in the city. Plus, I can keep an eye on you in case there are any effects from the concussion.”
“Are you sure? I don’t want you to get in trouble for—”
She laughs, a bright tinkle. “Girl, you have no idea how much trouble I’ve been in. This is nothing.”
When she says it like that, I almost believe her.