21
The last place I want to be is at work. It’s quiet tonight, and usually I would be appreciative of that so I can catch up on paperwork, but it’s only giving me a chance to think about all the reasons why kissing Riggs had been a terrible idea.
Kiss me.
It’s only now, without distraction, that I realize it’s a little too late to regret my decisions. I hadn’t slept that well in years and even the thought of him staring at me the way he had in the car raises my temperature.
“Hey Cress, can you file this?” Mel asks and I look up from the computer with a nod, only to catch sight of someone stumbling through the glass doors toward me.
I get up from my desk and move around quickly toward them. “Mel, get a wheelchair!”
I know that raven hair, those tattoos, that wicked smile. “Now!” I call out, catcing Birdie in my arms just before she hits the ground. Her face is beaten badly, she’s bleeding, and I can’t tell if it’s all hers but she can’t open her left eye.
“Hey,” I cradle her face, “Birdie.”
“I won the race…” she coughs out and blood pools at the corners of her mouth and coats her perfect teeth.
“Get her up,” Mel says quickly, her brain working faster than mine in the panic. I haul her heavy body into the chair and Birdie giggles like she’s having the time of her life. “Do you know her?” Mel asks me as we get her back and into a bed.
“Yeah she’s my…” I stop. Family. “I need you to find Dr. Kay and clear a slot for a CT.”
“You can’t order th—” Mel stops when she sees the look on my face. “Yeah, alright. She’s bleeding in the back,” she says, pointing to Birdie’s head as I get her settled on the bed and Mel takes off to get help.
The second she’s gone I pull the curtain over and start to look over Birdie’s face. With all her energy, she forces a painful smile. “What happened?” I ask, turning her head gently to inspect the bruise that blossoms across her jaw.
“Won a race,” she grinds out , keeping her one eye on me.
“Can you open this?” I ask her quietly, softly brushing under her eye with my fingertips as she shakes her head.
“This is gonna hurt,” I tell her before lifting the lid.
The eye itself looks okay, her pupil reacts to the light but it’s bloodshot and she grimaces as I do it. “Your cheek is going to need stitches.”
“No,” she protests, putting her hand up to stop me as I move to check the back of her head.
“Don’t argue with me,” I tell her, and she drops her hand. “It looks irritated back here. Was your hair pulled?” She tilts back and lays against the bed with a groan.
“Two goons attacked me in the street outside Soundwave,” she says finally.
“Who were they?” I ask and she shrugs.
“I didn’t really stick around to ask…” she hisses as I start to clean the cuts.
“Don’t be a baby,” I admonish, but she smirks at me.
“Fuck, the cash,” she groans. “It’s in the glove compartment.”
“I’m just glad you’re safe. Do you remember what they looked like?” I ask, setting out the kit to start her sutures.
“No, it’s fuzzy,” she says, pulling away from my hand. I scowl at her and she relaxes so I can close up her cheek. “But Murphy—” she swallows down a wave of pain, “—taught me to look for CCTV. I'm parked between two—whoever it is, they’re caught on camera.”
“You’re both too smart for this life,” I say without thinking and Birdie clearly takes offense because she turns her gaze away from me. “It’s a compliment, Birdie.”
“Doesn’t sound like one,” she huffs.
“Do you want me to freeze it?” I ask her as she grimaces again, but she shakes her head so I keep going. “How did it feel?” I question and she looks at me, briefly confused before she realizes what I’m asking.
“Good.” She smiles again. “Really fucking good. I beat a Westfall.”
I want to ask her how much trouble that’s going to cause us but I don’t because she’s proud of herself.
I understand her need to race, that feeling it brings her.
I get the same one working in the ER. Helping people under tremendous stress lights me up like the fourth of July.
But it's not nearly as dangerous or as illegal as what Birdie does, and the worry in my bones is loud.
I open my mouth to ask her another question when Dr. Kay comes through the curtain with Mel on his tail. “Cress, you asked for me?”
“Would you mind?” I ask him. Dr. Kay is handsome, all grey hair and charming smiles. He’s always had somewhat of a soft spot for me, and I don’t want Birdie sitting around the emergency room in the open like this. The sooner I can get her looked over and out of here, the better.
“For you?” He smiles and Birdie gives me a hilarious look. I back away from the bed and took the forms from Mel to fill out for Birdie. She can use my insurance, and if anyone asks, it’s me who fell and hit my head. “You sure did a number on yourself…”
“Birdie,” she offers with a smirk. Even in her dazed state she’s her smooth, flirty self and that’s the only reason I’m not letting the panic take hold. It’s not hard to notice how handsome Dr. Kay is, and fortunately for her, he loves to be fawned over.
“Hard to forget a name as pretty as that.” He winks at her and Mel scoffs, leaving the room. I keep filling out the forms and he sends her off for a CT just like I knew he would. “Can you see me, Birdie?” he asks softly, using her name like honey.
“Mid-fifties, two dimples—” she winces. “I can’t tell if you’re single though,” she flirts with a laugh.
He holds up his hand to show the ringless finger with a laugh as he turns his head to me.
“I don’t think there’s damage to her eye,” he says from the end of the bed.
“I’d get it looked at as a precaution, the sutures are good though.
” Dr. Kay gives me a pat on the shoulder before exiting and leaving us be again.
“No wonder you like working here.” Birdie sits up a bit in her bed.
“Be quiet or I’ll slip you laxatives,” I tease and sit against the shitty hospital mattress by her feet to catch my breath. “He’s going to lock you in a tower.”
She nods, knowing that I’m talking about how Riggs is going to react to all of this and knowing that I’m right. One look at Birdie and he’s going to lose his fucking mind.
“My shift is almost done so, I’ll take you for that CT and we can face him together?” I ask her.
“I’m not scared of him,” she says after a moment. It’s meant to be a thank you but she’s not very forthright with those. She never has been. I nod softly, give her leg a pat before going to fetch the wheelchair.
Birdie drops the envelope of cash on the hood of Rafe’s car and I think she expects Riggs to change his tune when he sees it, but it only makes everything worse. I shouldn’t have let her convince me to drive by the Skyline to grab it, but what Birdie wants, she gets.
“I told you not to go to that.” His brows furrow deeply and every muscle in his neck, shoulders and arms are tight with worry. Rafe hovers as Birdie sinks to the couch and lays her head back, clearly in a decent amount of discomfort but completely unbothered by Riggs’ glare.
As the panic passes of getting Birdie home safe I realize that Rafe is also in rough shape.
“What the hell happened to you?” I ask, tilting his head to the side.
The cuts had been cleaned, but it looks like someone with a hand full of thumbs did it.
He winces slightly as I jostle him and I step back, looking at how he’s holding himself.
I push his hand out of the way, pulling up his sweater to expose a large, bloody-looking bruise. “Rafe,” I hiss.
“I’m fine. What happened to Bird?”
“She’s got a mild concussion,” I explain, keeping my back to them and staring out into the darkness that engulfs the trees outside the garage. “I have to take her back in a week to get her eyesight checked.”
Riggs looks over and down at me with a dark sigh. “Is that all?” It’s meant to be a simple question but it comes from his lips like an accusation that we’re hiding something else.
“That’s all.” Leave it to Riggs to remind me just as quickly that he’s not Koa.
One kiss isn’t enough to soften him. It barely chipped away the concrete that he wrapped himself in.
I know the teenager I grew up with is there, the free and wild boy that never considered the risks a day in his life, but he’s got too many people to look after now, too many family members with that carefree mentality to protect. “She’ll be okay.”
“For now,” he snaps, his head turning back to them. “Call Bowie.”
“What? Why?” Rafe is quick to protest.
“Because I’m not leaving her and Jet in the dark anymore.
Get Jesse and Jake down here. We need all the help we can get.
” He nods to Birdie who gets her phone out.
About ten minutes later, Bowie appears in the door of the barn.
Older now, but still giving off the presence of a lion.
Thick blonde hair that wraps around her round jaw and pairs perfectly with her shark-sharp smile and big blue eyes.
“Oh I fucking missed you!” She eyes me, reaching out before I can say anything else and pulls me into a hug. “Rafe sent out a dramatic text like he was dying,” she mumbles into my hair as she pulls back and crosses her arms over her chest.
“I am,” Rafe coughs. The bruises under his eyes are so dark and I curse myself for not noticing before.
“Where’s Jet?” Riggs asks.
“They’re at the bar. We can’t just leave it unattended ‘cause you blow in your seashell…” Bowie scowls at him and it’s good to know the animosity between the two of them is going strong.
“Holy shit.” Bowie drops her arm from my back the second her eyes find Birdie and as she starts to fawn over her, Jesse pulls up around the back in his truck.
A tall kid with shaggy blond hair that curls around his ears and bright, ocean eyes climbs out from the passenger side in a pair of jeans and a shirt that’s two sizes too big for his frame.
He and Bowie could be twins but I’ve never seen him before in my life. This must be Jake.
“Was it Pema?” Jake drops to the side of the couch and reaches over the arm toward Birdie, who swats him away with heavy, exhausted fingertips. Their reaction is similar and suddenly Riggs has their attention.
“No.” Riggs shakes his head. “You should have had her back.”
“Don’t.” Birdie’s voice is hoarse. “He gave me a heads up to bounce. He had no idea what I was driving into.” She defends her friend and Jake grimaces as she speaks.
“Sorry, Bird,” he whispers.
“The Westfalls are pawns in this game too,” Riggs says next. “It’s someone bigger.”
“A new player?” Bowie asks.
“They have bounties on our heads,” Rafe says and everyone goes quiet. “A booty call did this to me.” He points to the bandage around his bicep. “For twenty grand.” He walks toward Murphy’s desk and waves around a phone I don’t recognize.
Birdie’s too drugged to tell them, so I fill Bowie and Jake in on what happened with us. Slowly, I watch as she goes through every emotion we’ve been feeling for the last while. She suggests the same things that we did: leveraging the garage, racing, but she has no new ideas.
“We’re past that,” Riggs says. “It’s clear that this isn’t about money.”
Birdie’s head is tucked against Bowie on the couch, her one eye looking more swollen than before as she lets Bowie brush her fingers through dark strands of hair and tries not to fall asleep.
“They’re getting bolder,” Rafe mutters, sliding into the recliner.
“Bird’s face proves it,” Jesse grunts. “So what do we do?”
“No one goes anywhere by themselves,” Riggs suggests. “Ever.” He looks at Birdie, who had gone out of her way to sneak out to the race alone. “We keep racing, we keep digging.”
“We protect each other," I add to Riggs’ pep talk and he looks over his shoulder at me with a nod. The garage goes quiet and it’s a strange silence that the walls have never known. Not a single person argues with his decision, not even Birdie.
“That’s all dandy,” Jesse pipes up after a second, “and I know I’m not the best at counting, but it seems like you're down a brother.”
Riggs sighs. “Has anyone heard from Murphy today?”