by K. L. Savage
Da-dum. Da-dum. Da-dum.
“Call Reaper!” I order Poodle, and he pivots on his heel, pulling his phone from his pocket.
“Who did this to you?” I ask her, knowing she isn’t going to answer me. Her bottom lips is busted open, and her cheek has a deep cut on it too.
“Guys are on their way,” Poodle states and squats next to me. “Who do you think she is?”
“Don’t know,” I answer honestly, but my brain is screaming one thing.
Whoever she is, she’s mine.
Chapter Two
SKIRT
“She hasn’t woken up yet?” I ask, laying on my stomach in Doc’s treatment room in the basement. It’s nice, better than most emergency rooms I’ve been in, which is over a few dozen if I include the times I needed stitches in Scotland. The basement walls and floors are stainless steel walls and floors, with a dozen beds, heart monitors, ventilation machines, and whatever else a hospital needs.
Down here in the cold darkness is also the playroom, but it isn’t as sexual as it sounds. A lot of blood gets spilled in that room.
“You have to give her time, Skirt. We just got you guys down here.”
He doesn’t remind me that it took four guys to carry me since I could hardly walk. My arse was burning so bad from the damn cactus needles. My cheeks are starting to tingle, and I’m afraid I’ll lose my balls. It’s worst-case scenario, but I’m having terrible thoughts of the pricks being poisoned. What if I get a rash? What if it makes my balls fall off? It won’t happen.
But could it happen?
Yeah, that’s what I’m worried about.
“Skirt landed on a cactus! Doc has to pluck the needles out of his ass!” I hear Knives yell out to the entire clubhouse, and a stampede of boots sound above on the floor.
“I’m going to kill him,” I hiss through tight teeth, debating if I want to use Knives’ own ninja stars to shut him up.
Doc chuckles and lifts up my kilt. His face turns from funny, concerned, then pained, which doesn’t help my panic. “What is it? Is my ass rotting? Falling off?”
“It’s the whitest ass I’ve ever seen.”
“Oh, fuck ye, Doc.” I flip him off, and he cackles like a mad scientist. His laughter bounces off the walls of the room as the rest of the members of the MC parade down the stairs. This is going to be a nightmare.
“That doesn’t hurt. I’ve had knife wounds bigger than that,” Tongue says, popping his lips as he lifts my kilt to check the damage. “Not too bad at all. I can pry these out real fast. Flick of the wrist with the knife.”
“Ye aren’t getting near my arse with a fucking blade. There are important things down there. And ye get all twisty turny and excited with yer blade.”
“Just saying,” Tongue drawls.
“My ninja stars make bigger holes than that. Stop being a baby,” Knives decides to join in, clicking his tongue as he inspects my rear.
“Fuck off, the lot of ye. I have a hundred needles in my arse!”
“A few dozen, maybe,” Doc corrects me.
I fold my arms under my chin and plop my head down. “It feels like a hundred,” I grumble. I turn my head to see the girl we picked up off the road as if she were roadkill. Doc has her hooked up to a bunch of monitors and an IV in her arm that’s hooked up to fluids. Whatever happened to her, I’m going to go out on a limb and say it wasn’t good. She looks so small in the bed, so broken. What if we weren’t riding our bikes; what would have happened to her? I don’t even want to think about it.
“Ow.” I reach back and slap the tweezers out of Bullseye’s hands. “Only Doc is allowed to pluck things out of my arse.”
“I have steady hands, Skirt. You’ve seen me with darts. Who better than to pluck needles out of your ass than me?” Bullseye asks, and what scares me is that he’s serious.
“The doctor,” I say as if he’s stupid. “Ye know, the one with the fucking medical degree. I don’t trust ye, any of ye down there.”
“We aren’t going to pluck the hairs off your balls.” Tool chuckles.
“Ruined my surprise.” Tongue’s laugh is a mix of dark and light. I can’t tell if he’s serious.
“Doc? Where the hell are you? Get these things out of my arse before these dumbasses hold me down and pluck them out themselves.”
Metal clinks behind me, and since I can’t really see, another round of nightmares enter my head. What, he has a torture device? No, he’s a doctor. He took an oath. I’m fine.
“Okay, guys. This isn’t a pony show. Go on, leave.” Doc takes charge and tells them to get on with their damn lives, shooing them away like the pesky vermin that they are.
“Fine.”
“Didn’t wanna be down here anyway.”
“I never get to do anything.”
“This is a bunch of horseshit.”
“I need to sharpen my knives anyhow.”
All of them bitch and moan, dragging their sorry asses up the steps one by one. Yeah, like I’ve ruined their life or something. What about me? They aren’t the one with needles in their ass. The basement door slams a bit harder than usual, and I shake my head from their tantrum. “They act like they never seen a guy fall on a cactus before,” I mumble.
“Well, to be fair, I’ve never plucked cactus needles out of a guy from falling on a cactus before,” Doc says, just as he plucks one of the things out of my ass.
I flinch and nearly roll away from him. “Damn, Doc. Can’t ye numb me up or something?”
“Are you going to be that big of a bitch about this?” He steps beside me so I can turn my head to see him. He’s wearing his cut, which he never does, over his pretty boy polo shirt. He has purple latex gloves on and a face mask, but it’s the long silver tweezers that get my attention and have me swallowing. I never, in my life, have seen tweezers that size. Is that necessary? Are those a scare tactic?
It’s working.
“You fight. You literally beat the shit out of whoever Reaper asks you to, and you can’t handle getting a few needles plucked out of your ass?”
“Well, when ye put it that way…” I say and shove my arse up in the air. “Go to town, Doc.” He walks away and flips up my kilt, and I turn my head in embarrassment. This is not how I wanted to start my day. After this is all over, I’m going to go get me a big pint of ale. I deserve it.
I clench my teeth as he yanks every piece of cactus out of me, and I try to focus on anything, everything that isn’t the burning sensation in my lower half. I fixate on the girl in the bed beside me and map her delicate features with my eyes. Even under the cuts and bruises, I can tell she’s beautiful. Her hair looks like it would be a strawberry blonde if it weren’t for all the blood and dirt caked in it.
“Is she going to be alright?” I ask Doc after a few minutes of silence. I wonder if I got to her in time.
“She’ll be fine. She’s exhausted. Dehydrated. I don’t know how long she’s been out there. She needs to gain some weight, but with rest, she’ll make a full recovery.”
“That’s good to hear. I wonder what her story is.”
“Well, if it brought her here to us, it can’t be that good. It never is.”
I know that’s right. Anything that comes through our door brings bloodshed. We fight for what we care about, what we protect, and we will do it for anyone who stays under our roof. I hope that isn’t the case for her, but if it is, I’ll fight for her. She’ll be the most important thing I’ll bring my fists up for. I bet she’s more woman than any other woman I’ve ever met. I bet she’s a fighter; her bruises speak for themselves.
“Alright, you’re all done. I’m going to prescribe you some antibiotic cream. You’ll need to rub it on your ass twice a day—on clean skin. Don’t go rubbing it in after sweating your ass off on your bike.”
“I won’t be sitting on my bike for a while. Front end is completely smashed.”
“That sucks. Good thing you missed her, though. If you would have hit her with your bike, I don’t know if
she would have survived it.”
“Yeah, good thing I took that cactus up the arse, right?” I snort, trying to ease the heaviness in the room. Death is never easy to talk about, even when you’re so used to seeing it.
“You took it like a man too,” Doc says, spreading cream over my sore cheeks.
Emasculating, I tell ya. Emasculating.
Then to make it worse, he puts bandages over each cheek. I thud my head against the exam table. This. Can. Not. Be. Happening.
“Alright, you’re all set, Skirt. You can go on about your day now.” Doc snaps off his gloves and tosses them in the trash next to the bed.
I gather the small pillow underneath me shove it under my chin and stare at the nameless woman beside me. “I think I’ll stay here, Doc. If she wakes up soon, I don’t want her to be alone.”
“I think that’s a great idea. She’ll be scared when she wakes up. It’s new place, somewhere she hasn’t been. She’ll need a kind face.”
“I’m a kind face?” I ask him in surprise. My knuckles are scarred, my nose is a bit crooked from being hit too many times. I’ve got tattoos all over my body. If anything, I don’t look as kind as Doc does. It would be best if he stood at the foot of her bed when she wakes up. Polo shirt, blue eyes, and messy light brown hair, she’ll feel like she’s in heaven. If she sees me looking at her, she’ll see a man with red hair and a kilt and probably run screaming. “You know, it’s better if you stay, Doc.”
“Nah, don’t be ridiculous. You’re a nice guy, Skirt. You’re nicer than half the men upstairs. What if Tongue was down here? Knives? Even Bullseye, they are scary motherfuckers. You’re scary, but you aren’t as scary. You’re her best bet. Plus, she’ll see you in bed, nursing your butt wounds, and she’ll need a good laugh.”
“Great. I love being the butt of someone’s joke.” I can’t help it. I snicker from my own joke. I’m such a funny bastard.
Doc chuckles and flips down my kilt. I breathe a bit easier knowing my hairy ass isn’t exposed to the world. Poor woman, if she woke up and saw that, she’d wish she was on the side of the road again. The guys aren’t wrong, my arse is white and a tad bit hairy. Last thing I want to do is scare her.
“Why don’t you get some rest? It will be a few hours before she wakes up.”
“I need to go on that run for Reaper. Fuck, we never made it to Circus, Circus.”
“Poodle and Bullseye are on their way for that. Reaper is aware. Just relax.” Doc taps my ass with his hand, and I wince, then turn my head to give him a dirty look. “I had to.”
“You’re just like them.” I squeeze the pillow tighter and mumble incoherent nothings under my breath.
Doc throws his head back in laughter as he walks away and turns the light to a low glow. He doesn’t say anything else as he climbs the steps and I get settled, trying to get comfortable on my stomach, which is impossible since I’m a back sleeper.
This fucking sucks.
Then I think about Maximo at Circus, Circus and decide that maybe a cactus up the ass wasn’t the worst thing that could have happened. I avoided having to deal with him. He’s a shady guy, and every day that passes he becomes a little more questionable. He wants me to fight in an illegal ring he started. He wasn’t involved in the ring the Ruthless Kings took down a few months back with Tool.
Maximo saw dollar signs in his eyes when he saw the news about the fighting and prostitution. He’s a shitbag, but he’d never abuse and traffic women. I guess there are bad criminals, then worse criminals. No way in hell do I want to be a part of that. Reaper will kick my ass, kick me out of the club, or kill me.
Probably torture me, then kill me if I think about it.
I shiver at the thought. No, I need to stay focused. Maximo can offer me as much money as God has, but I won’t take it. My morals are too high.
I hope.
The monitor at the other end of the room starts to beep quicker and quicker. I press my palms against the bed and lift myself up to see what’s going on. “Oh, shite,” I say when I see that it’s Moretti. His body is trembling, and the heart rate monitor is going spastic. I slide out of bed, heart pounding with a bit of fear since I have no idea what I’m doing, and limp my way over. “Doc!” I yell for him, but my voice just reverberates back to me since the walls are metal. “Doc! Doc! You need to get down here!” I scream and drag my left leg since it throbs more for some reason, while I struggle to Moretti. I’m sweating up a storm. Beads of salty liquid puddle on my forehead and drip down to my eyes, stinging them. I wipe the sweat away with my forearms, and I see his mouth foaming. His eyes are rolled so far back I only see the whites. He looks void, blind, inhuman, and it chills me to my core.
This is not easy to see. He clearly needs help, and I have no idea what to do. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I curse, then run my fingers through my hair, contemplating my next move.
“You have to turn him to his side.” A weak, tired, yet harmonic voice says behind me.
I look over my shoulder to see the brightest green eyes I’ve ever seen staring back at me through bruised orbital sockets. Her voice is hoarse as if it has gone through a meat grinder. “Hurry,” she said, snapping me out of my hypnosis. “You need to get him on his side and swipe the fluid from his mouth so he doesn’t choke; hold his head still. All we can do is wait.” She holds her side and takes a deep breath, then shuts her eyes when a fresh wave of pain hits.
I try to open his mouth, but his teeth are clenched shut. Foam sprays from between his teeth, and I move out of the way before it hits me, then I flip him on his side. “I can’t get his mouth open,” I tell her, grunting as I fight Moretti with every jerk of his body. It’s like trying to manhandle an alligator.
I’ve never wrestled a gator, but I’m going to assume it’s like this.
“Just going to have to hope he doesn’t bite his tongue off,” she says as she lays down. Her eyes flutter shut again, and I want to tell her to open them because I’ve never done this before. What if I hurt him? What if I mess up?
“Where the hell is Doc?” I rattle under an anxiety-ridden breath. The seizure is going on forever. Every jerk of his body, every drip of spit gathering on the bed, my heart races.
“I don’t know who that is,” she rasps. “What happened? What day is it?”
“I don’t have time to tell you right now. I’m kind of busy.”
“Could have already told me instead of saying that,” she says with attitude. I don’t expect a woman with a smart mouth in her condition. I look in her direction. She’s laying calmly in the bed, eyes closed, and it seems like she went back to sleep.
Moretti’s heart rate starts to slow, and the spasms in his body start to fade. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, but was only a few minutes, I release my hold on him.
“Scoop out his mouth,” the peanut gallery chips in.
It’s a good thing I like peanuts.
I grab a glove and snap it on, open his mouth, and scoop out all of the foam and bile from his throat. He didn’t bite his tongue, so that’s a good sign. I gag when I take the glove off and throw it on the trash. Blood, I can do. Pain, I can do. Scooping shit out of someone’s mouth? I can barely do that. It’s a limit. And I just surpassed it.
“I think he’s okay now.” My chest rises and falls from exertion. My arse begins to throb when the adrenaline starts to crash, and that’s when I remember I just got needles plucked out of me. I rub my forehead against my shoulder and remember I have my fucking cell phone on me. Christ, I can be such an airhead sometimes.
I type Doc a quick message.
“Get the fuck down here. Moretti just had a seizure.”
My cheeks bubble as I blow out a breath when I hear boots pound along the floor. “Porch, main room, kitchen,” I say as I follow where Doc is walking, and then the basement door opens. “Basement.”
“Oh, you’re good. What gave that away?”
I narrow my eyes at the new pain in my arse, laying stock still as if she’s
trying to catch a quick snooze. The bruises and cuts are just a front, but she’s just a five-foot-one body packed with damn attitude, and I bet the other guy she fought looks worse than she does.
Doc slides down the rail on the staircase and jumps down to the floor. He doesn’t bother with me or the woman; he runs straight to Moretti. He slides the pale yellow curtain closed to give him and the mobster some privacy. I’m not sure how much longer Moretti’s body can handle this. He’s healing on the outside, but the inside? It’s like he is getting worse. If it were me, which I’m glad it’s not, but if it was, I’d want someone to put me out of my misery.
I shuffle over to my bed, but before I sit, I freeze, thinking better of it. Nope. Better not do that. I push my hands against the mattress, holding weight of my body as I pull my legs up and then lay on my stomach. “Oh yeah, that’s the damn stuff right there.” I sink into the mattress, and the blankets are nice and warm.
“What happened to you?”
Her eyes are the color of evergreen. They say the eyes are the windows to the soul. If that’s the case, she’s a forest waiting to be explored, so much beauty and so much mystery. I can wager if someone, anyone, tries to figure her out, they’ll get lost in the many directions that lay inside of her, forever trying to find their way to her heart.
I bet many men have failed on that quest.
I don’t plan to fail.
“Where am I?” Her eyes widen a bit more and the familiar monitor starts to beep. “Who are you? Where am I? What happened?” She snaps out of her haze, and reality comes crashing down. Her bottom lip trembles.
Oh, shite. I’m horrible when women cry. Lagoons form in their eyes, and I’m helpless.
Doc slides the curtain from Moretti’s bed. He has a grim expression on his face. I’ve seen that look before. He’s running out of hope for Moretti. Doc approaches her bed and pulls a small black flashlight out of his pocket and peers into her eyes. She jerks away from him, then slaps his hand away.
“Who the hell are you?” she cries to him. “Don’t touch me. Don’t fucking touch me!” she screams and slaps Doc’s chest. “Get away from me. Get off me!” The woman won’t stop shouting, and her pleas to leave her alone break my heart. She’s obviously been fighting for far too long.