22. Orneriness, Sarcasm, Unreasonable Anger
ORNERINESS, SARCASM, UNREASONABLE ANGER
WILLA
I swear if the damn beeping doesn’t stop, I will lose my shit. The only beeping like that should be an alarm, and if I’m dreaming, I need to roll over because I’ve slept so long in this position, I’m stiff.
My eyelids are so, so heavy. I try to lift them, but they crash back down, warm and soft. I fall under until that damn beeping pulls me back to the surface.
I growl and try to reach for the alarm, only to realize I can’t and trying hurts too bad. “Make it stop.” I try to force the words out with venom, but my roaring tiger is more like a purring kitten.
“Make what stop, dragon slayer?”
My eyes pop open, but immediately sink shut. And I’m under again.
I think I can hear Exton’s voice. Sometimes I think I can hear two men. Doors open and shut and the digital sounds from equipment come and go.
When my right arm warms from the pins and needles of sleeping on it, I try to wiggle my fingers and the jolt of pain running through me pulls me to the surface.
“Ow.”
“Willa?”
“Ow. Fuck. My arm.”
“Eyes, Willa.”
I open my eyes and stare into the face of Exton Ranger. Worry lines his eyes, and the set of his mouth is all wrong.
“Where am I?” I look around and realize I don’t need that answered. I shake my head in a small motion, recognizing the ache. “Where’s Jackie? Is she okay?”
“She’s here. She’s okay. I’ll get an update.”
“I’ll do it,” another man’s voice says, and the door opens and shuts with his exit.
But I see it. I see it, and I panic.
“My arm. What the hell?”
“Breathe, baby. What do you remember?”
“Bamboo, driving, a gun, needles, Paul, Jackie, gunshots. Where’s my car?”
Exton smiles as if I amuse him.
“Don’t smile like I’m cute and entertaining, Exton Ranger.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Well…?”
“Your car is here. I don’t know about bamboo. We’ll discuss your driving.” His eyes go hard and tight when he says the word. “Paul—if he was the man with the gun—is dead. And the needle was thiopental sodium.”
“Thio-what, and are you sure?”
“Thiopental sodium. Truth serum. Dumbass thought he would loosen up your inhibitions, I guess. Can’t really say. Better than flunitrazepam. And am I sure about what?”
“I don’t speak pharmacy. What—Too tired.”
“Sodium can be used for relaxing inhibitions or for anesthesia. Same with flunitrazepam—roofies.”
“He was going to shoot me.”
“He didn’t get that chance.”
“I need to sleep.”
“Okay, baby.” Hands brush my head, rubbing my hair and down my neck, and I let sleep take me under.
The next time I wake, my brain is less fuzzy, but my arm hurts like fuck. No, both of my arms.
“I’m tired of waking up in the hospital,” I whine.
“Me too.”
“Me three.”
“Who’s that?”
“Your favorite brother,” Layton says, winking at me behind Exton’s back. “We’ve got to stop meeting like this. It’s really not my style.”
“Well, if I’m crimping your style…” I say, realizing that I see white in my periphery. A cast. “What the hell?”
“Yeah, about that,” Exton starts.
“Did you just launch in with ‘yeah, about that’ when my arm is in a cast? My arm connected to my tatting hand? My livelihood? That arm? About that…”
Exton turns to Layton. “Side effects of the meds. Orneriness, sarcasm, unreasonable anger at the man she loves. Pay her no mind.”
I growl, and both men chuckle.
“I’ll show you ‘unreasonable anger,’” I mumble under my breath.
Their chuckles turn to laughs. I’d slap it on my bed, but it would have so little effect in the cast, and my left wrist is in a black contraption. “What the fuck?”
“Baby,” Exton says, leaning closer to me. “I’m controlling my anger at you running away, and at you putting yourself at risk, and at that fuckwad for tying you up and attempting to shoot you. It’s not anger I’m feeling about your arms.
“I’m so damned pissed at myself and have so much regret over that.
” His eyes leave my gaze and he looks off as if in a memory.
“He fell. I didn’t see that when I fired.
Couldn’t have—nope, that’s not true, I should have foreseen his trajectory.
I just didn’t calculate it. He landed on you and sent you toppling onto your back, onto your arms that were tied there.
” He pauses as if he is experiencing my pain, or as if his own has overtaken him.
“I’m sorry, Willa. This part is my fault. ”
I reach up to comfort the tortured look on his face, but grimace when I do. It’s the all wrong thing, showing I’m in pain, but I can’t control it.
“Exton?”
He turns to face me again, but the agony in his face stops me short.
“Don’t you dare blame this on yourself.”
He opens his mouth to protest, but the door pushes open and a nurse walks in. “Time for your meds, Miss Jayne. And a Jackie James is here to see you. Should I let her in?”
“Yes, please,” I agree, desperate to see that she’s okay.
Jackie peeks in from around the nurse. Her normally vibrant blond hair is dingy and strings around her face. The dark circles under her eyes are no longer masked by concealer, and the hollows in her cheeks make her look gaunt. Her hospital gown hangs from her body like a coat hanger.
How did I miss this when we met on Wednesday? This isn’t a week’s worth of exhaustion and worry. It’s long-term neglect.
“Jackie?” I ask. “You okay?”
She shakes her head and tears stream down her cheeks.
Layton stands and heads for the door. “I’ll just, uh… grab us coffees and be back.”
Exton takes Layton’s seat but makes no attempt to be less Exton. His presence looms large and fills the room.
Jackie slowly makes her way to the bed, looking tiny and acting it too. Her eyes are glued to the floor and then to the bedsheets.
“Jackie?”
“I’m sorry, Willa.” Her voice is small, and her shoulders are slumped. “I didn’t mean…”
“What are you talking about, Jackie? You were a victim here too.”
She shakes her head, avoiding my eyes. Her finger traces a pattern on the sheet. She stares at my right arm and flinches before going back to her tracing.
“I just… Well, I just knew you could handle yourself and—”
“What do you mean I could handle myself? Jackie?”
“Well. I-I, just, uh. When they said they needed you, I just knew you could take care of yourself and—”
“Get out! Now!” Exton’s booming voice startles us both. I jump, but Jackie cowers.
I’m about to tell him to butt the hell out when it hits me.
Jackie used herself as bait to set me up.
“Get out,” I repeat, but my voice has no power behind it. It registers as defeat.
She set me up—endangered me—at least once, maybe twice. One of the handful of people in my life I trust, and she was willing to jeopardize my life for... For what?
“What was worth risking my life for, Jackie? No. Don’t answer that. The answer is nothing! If there was anything worth more to you than the life of your best friend,” I spit out the word. “Then you’re the worst kind of human.”
I close my eyes. The pain from her betrayal radiates through my heart, greater than the pain of what’s happening under my cast.
“Willa, I—”
“Get out.” My voice is small. The scuffling I hear causes me to open my eyes and witness Exton with Jackie over his shoulder, plopping her down outside the open door.
“Nurse, this guest isn’t allowed back in Miss Jayne’s room. And please call the sheriff. Miss James just admitted to endangering Miss Jayne. I’ll discuss the situation and charges when they arrive.”
He returns to me. “Lift your arm, baby.”
I raise my right, before his breath touches my face at my other side.
“Other one, Willa.”
I do. The black brace there is annoying but it isn’t as heavy or bulky as the plaster cast on my right arm.
Exton slides in behind me, not quite spooning me since that would put me on my right shoulder.
“Tell me about this morning.”
I stiffen.