“Yeah, but she’s not the best with surprises, especially ones in the form of you.”
“Just tell me her fucking address.”
Blake sighs. “Shit. She’s going to fucking kill me for this.”
Blake finally rattles off directions and I end the call without so much of a goodbye. I start my truck and get the fuck out of there before Lucien decides to come and finish the job, making me feel sick with every passing second that I get farther away from my girl.
Chapter 8
Slade
Every rumble of the truck and every fucking bump I fly over tear me apart and make it hard to remember where the hell I’m going.
Blood spills all through my truck and by the time I reach what I think is Lucy’s place, I’m a fucking mess. I pull into the drive and am grateful to find the gate wide open. At least there’s one bit of luck in my otherwise fucked-up day.
I pull right up to the front door of yet another mansion and pull myself out of the truck.
Sweat drips down my forehead as I clutch onto my shoulder, desperately trying to ease the pain.
If this chick isn’t here…fuck. I’ll be in a shitload of trouble.
I don’t know how I do it, but one minute I’m standing on her drive and the next, I’m at the top of the grand stairs, standing at her front door. Maybe I blacked out while I struggled up here, I don’t know, but honestly, I don’t fucking care. All that matters right now is getting inside and making the pain go away.
My fist slams against the heavy door and I lean into it as I wait.
“Come on,” I groan under my breath before pounding on the door again.
“Alright, I’m coming,” a voice says from the other side as I hear her fiddling with the door handle. “Keep your fucking knickers on.”
I clench my jaw, not having the patience for her attitude. Hell, I still haven’t seen her face and even then, I know this chick is made from the same cloth as Skylah. But either way, I don’t care for her ramblings.
The door is pulled wide and as she gets one look at me, her eyes bug out of her head and she steps in front of me, pulling the door closed and blocking my way. “Who the hell are you?” she demands, pressing up to her tippy toes and looking over my shoulder to make sure I’m alone.
“Are you Lucy?”
“I asked first.”
I resist putting her in her place and get on with it, realizing that if I give her what she needs, maybe she’ll do the same for me. “Slade,” cringe, “Cruz.”
Her brow raises and she gives me that award-winning attitude. “And should that mean something to me?”
“I’m Skylah’s boyfriend. Are you Lucy?”
“First off, it’s Luce. Not Lucy, and second, Skylah doesn’t have a boyfriend. I was just talking to her half an hour ago. She would have told me.”
Shit. She saw her? “How was she? Is she alright? Did he hurt her?”
“Wait…you know?”
“Of course I fucking know. I’m her boyfriend.”
Luce shakes her head as her eyes rake up and down my body. “No offense, but you look like a criminal…and a fucking guilty one at that. I’ve known Skylah since we were kids and if she was going to date a criminal, then she’d at least find one with tatts.”
I groan and push past her, making her scream as I pass. “I need alcohol.”
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” she screeches. “Get out. You’re bleeding all over the fucking floors. My mother is going to kill me.”
I turn around and groan. “I don’t give a shit about your fucking floors. I have a bullet lodged in my back that I need you to get out before I fucking pass out.”
Her eyes go big as she shakes her head. “This is way out of my league.”
“Seriously? I don’t really give a fuck right now. I need to get this bullet out so I can go back there and kill that motherfucker.’
Luce looks weary as she watches me. “Lucien did this?” she questions with a look on her face suggesting she really wants my answer to be no and I realize that if she’s known Sky all her life, then she would have known Lucien and probably saw a much different side of him than what Skylah saw.
I nod. “Shot me right in the back and promised that Skylah would be next if I went back there.”
She gasps and watches me for a silent moment. “At least go to the pool house so you don’t destroy my home.” She starts walking through the house and I follow her, no doubt leaving a trail of blood behind me.
“Go out through those doors,” Luce tells me, pointing to the back door and out towards the pool house that is bigger than my home. “I’ll go and get the supplies and meet you there.”
I nod. “Bring alcohol. Lots of it.”
Luce walks away and as I turn to face the back door, I let out a low groan. This is fucking killing me. I just have to make it out to the pool house and I’ll be alright, that’s if I don’t pass out, fall into the pool and drown on my way. Right now, there’s probably a greater possibility than actually making it to the pool house.
After what feels like the longest walk in history, I get to the pool house and push my way through the door. I look longingly at the massive double king-sized bed that’s in the center of the pool house, inviting me in, but I keep going. If I stop…I’ll never get up again.
I find the bathroom and as I walk in, I finally see the blood staining my shirt. It’s fucking covering me but something about actually seeing it makes it that much worse. I go to tear the shirt over my head and as I raise my arm, my soul tears right out of my body.
“STOP,” Luce growls from the bathroom door. “You’re going to make it worse. I’ll have to cut it off you.”
My face scrunches as I lower my arms back down and Luce crosses the bathroom. She hands me a bottle of Vodka and drops a tub of supplies down on the counter. Despite knowing that she’s going to need this for the wound, I tear off the lid before swallowing half the bottle desperately needing something to take the edge off.
“Hey, stop,” she snaps, grabbing the bottle from my hand and slamming it down on the counter. “I need to pour that over the wound or you’ll end up with a well-deserved infection.”
Jesus Christ. This chick.
Without skipping a beat, she digs through the tub of supplies and pulls out a pair of kitchen scissors before hacking at my favorite shirt, but I keep my mouth shut about it. That’s not exactly something I have the right to complain about right now.
She gets halfway through cutting before her patience wears thin and she tears the rest of the shirt off, being careful not to get blood on her manicured fingers.
“Shit,” she sighs, looking over the bullet wound as the scraps of material fall to the tiled floor. “This doesn’t look good.”
I turn around and get my first good look at the gaping hole in the back of my shoulder. “Fuck,” I groan, grabbing the vodka again and taking another swig. “This is going to hurt.”
“What were you expecting?” she grumbles, talking to herself as she steps in closer to get a good look. “So, you think the bullet is still in there?”
“Well, it sure as hell didn’t come out.”
Luce rolls her eyes and pulls up the flashlight app on her phone, shining it into the hole to get a good look around. “I don’t see what Skylah sees in you.”
“Funny. I don’t see what she sees in you either.”
“You know, any smart person would be nice to the girl who’s about to go digging in their back for a bullet.”
“Any smart person wouldn’t get shot in the first place.”
“Good point,” she grumbles before stepping back and grabbing the tub. “Come on. You’re too tall for me. You’re going to have to lie down on the bed, but let me get some old towels first. That linen cost more than that truck out front.”
I trudge out of the bathroom, starting to get dizzy as Luce races ahead of me and peels all the linen off the bed. She quickly replaces it with her version of old towels which look practically brand-new.
I crash down onto the bed with pain shooting through me while also getting a wave of relief. I’d do anything to be able to close my eyes and forget this bullshit right now. I’d be more than happy to go back in time and wake up yesterday morning where everything was right in the world.
Luce drops down on the bed beside me and leans over my back, trying to get into a good position to do this but quickly realizes that there’s only one way this is going to work. “Sorry,” she says with a cringe. “I’m going to have to sit on your back.”
Fuck. There was once a time I would have rejoiced in random hot chicks climbing all over me but right now, there’s zero appeal. “Just…do it carefully.”
She sucks in a breath as though that’s going to make her somehow lighter and climbs up onto my back. I clench my jaw as the movement jostles everything and has me wanting to hurl her across the room, but without her help, I’m fucked.
“Alright,” she says as she pulls the tub of supplies closer. “This is going to hurt. Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer to be in a hospital?”
I shake my head.
“That’s right, you’re probably a criminal.”
For fuck’s sake.
Luce lets out a heavy breath and for a moment I wonder if she has the balls to do this when she grabs the vodka and pours it all over the wound, making me jump and clutch onto the mattress as though it’s my only saving grace. Luce has to grab hold of my side just to stay on my back.
“A little fucking warning would be nice,” I scold.
“Warnings are for pussies,” she says, righting herself and throwing back a swig of vodka.
I watch as her hand dives into the tub and comes out with a pair of tweezers and I try to remind myself that I’m the badass, tough motherfucker that Skylah fell in love with.
Fuck. I’m going to scream like a little bitch.
I grab a part of the towel and shove it between my teeth to avoid calling her every name under the sun. I clench my eyes and curl my hands into the mattress. “Just do it.”
Luce leans forward onto her elbows, getting up close and personal with my back. “Ha,” she grunts. “That’s exactly what I said when I lost my virginity.”
Her hands press down around the wound, pulling and stretching at the skin to see inside. The pain is manageable until I feel a sharp sting of the tweezers pressing into the wound, searching around for the bullet.
“Oh, fuck,” I groan low, tightening my fists around the mattress and thanking God that Sky isn’t here to witness me being such a little bitch.
I hear Luce’s heavy breathing, or maybe it’s not heavy, maybe she’s just that damn close that it’s loud as fuck. “Okay,” she finally says as the tweezers pause. “I think I found it but it’s pretty fucking deep in here. Last chance to pull out. I mean, what if I pull this fucker out and you just like…bleed everywhere? I don’t want to be incarcerated for your murder.”
“It’ll be fine. The second you pull it out, just press something down on it until you can stop the bleeding.”
“Okay, but I wanted it stated for the record that if you die, this is on Lucien, not me.”
“Done, now get on with it.”
The tweezers in my back start moving around and I groan as they latch onto the bullet, at least I hope it’s the bullet. If this chick pulls out something that’s meant to be in there, I’m going to be pissed.
Luce gives a hard tug and the tweezers slip off the bullet making me groan. “Shit, sorry,” she says, digging them straight back in and adding a little more vodka to the mix.
She tries again and this time I feel it loosening until finally, it’s wedged out of my back and dropped down on the towel beside me. I can’t help but stare at the little fucker. It’s amazing how something so small can cause so much damage.
Luce goes crazy with the vodka and presses down, making sure I’m not about to bleed all over her pool house and after she’s convinced that my death isn’t about to be on her conscious, she pulls back. “I think I need to stitch you up a bit.”
I groan. “Seriously. It’s not enough to get shot. Now you want to poke at me with a fucking needle.”
“Are you kidding? You just survived a bullet. I think the needle will be fine.”
Luce gets busy and when she finally presses a bandage over the wound, I feel like my world can come back into perspective. “You know, only a fucking lovestruck idiot would go running in there like you did.”
“Thanks but Blake beat you to the punch. He’s already given me the ‘I told you so’ bullshit.”
“Blake?” she questions, her brow raising. “You’re friends with him too? Is he alright?”
“He’s been better. Lucien did a number on his leg. He’ll be in the hospital for a while.”
“But what about basketball and the NBA?”
“Jury is still out on that one.”
“Shit,” she sighs, pulling herself up off the bed and helping me sit. She dashes into the kitchen and grabs a massive trash bag and starts hauling everything into it before finding the disinfectant and scrubbing the shit out of the place.
“So, you said you were talking to Skylah earlier today?” I question, watching her move around the pool house. “Does she have a phone you called her on or an email that I don’t know of?”
“Nah, I went over there,” she says. “Lucien had me ‘helping’ him to find her all this time. If I knew…” she lets out a sigh and gets back on track. “She hasn’t got anything, no phone, no email, no Facebook. She might as well not exist. I’m going to try to get back in there tomorrow and smuggle her a phone but I can’t guarantee that he’ll let me in now that he knows that I know what he did to her.”
“Shit. You’ll let me know, right?” I say, standing. “If you can get her a phone.”
“Yeah,” she says with a small nod. “I’ll text you the number.”
“Thanks.” I nod and start heading for the door.
Luce grunts at my back. “Where the fuck do you think you’re going?”
I looked back at her, my brows furrowed. “Umm…home. Where does it look like I’m going?”
Luce shakes her head. “Don’t be fucking stupid. You’ll stay here tonight. You literally just got shot and Skylah told me you guys are from Aston Creek. I googled that shit and it’s a long fucking drive. I can’t let you drive in your condition, and besides, you drank nearly half a bottle of vodka. If the bullet didn’t kill you, then your driving will.”
Fuck.
“Make yourself at home, Cruz,” Luce says, seeing the resignation in my eyes.
I stride back in and drop my phone, keys, and wallet onto the table. “Fine, but if I’m staying, I’m going to need to eat, and a fucking big juicy steak sounds good right about now.”
Luce rolls her eyes and continues cleaning up the mess I’ve left behind and despite how shitty I feel about leaving her to do it, I let out a sigh and drop back down onto the edge of the bed.
There’s something I have to do first, and because Lucien’s bullet didn’t kill me, he just might.
I press my phone to my ear and wait for my best friend to answer the call, knowing that I’m going to have to explain exactly why I didn’t bring him along on this little death-defying, failed suicide mission. While those answers are clear as hell in my head, he’s not going to understand it when I tell him that I did it for his own safety.
“Yo, where the fuck have you been?” Damian demands, answering the call after the second ring.
I let out a heavy sigh. “You sitting down, man? I gotta tell you something.”
Chapter 9
Eleven fucking days.
He’s been gone for eleven days and my whole world has turned upside down. One minute he was here and the next…gone.
My heart hasn’t been the same since. How am I supposed to go on without him? Slade Cruz was my everything. I was supposed to walk down the aisle to him one day but instead, I’m walking down the aisle to a fucking creep tomorrow.
&
nbsp; You know, I don’t even care anymore. I don’t care about anything. I’m being a good little girl and my family will be safe back home and that’s all that matters. It doesn’t matter what happens to me. It’s not like it could get any worse than having to live with this black hole inside of my heart.
I haven’t moved from this room since Lucien locked me in here, except for when I’m escorted to the bathroom three times a day. My food is brought to me, my laundry is taken from my door, and my personal trainer is taking it one step further by not only making house calls but making room calls.
It’s fucking ridiculous. The trainer that is. He tries every day to make me move but why should I bother when I have nothing to live for? Slade is gone and I’m not going to spend my days trying to make my body just right to fit the specifications of another man. No, fuck that. I’d rather gouge out my own eyes.
Every day since Slade was…
Every day has been hard. I’d give anything to see him, if only for a second. God, I’d give it all up for him. Why couldn’t he have taken me with him? I would have preferred to be shot then we could have spent the rest of eternity together but he left me here. I’m so mad at him. Why did he have to die? Why couldn’t he have just stayed home in Aston Creek and lived a full and happy life? He would have gone to the NBA and been a star but now he’s just some high school kid who is going to be a story that people tell their kids one day.
He was so much more than that. He deserved so much more.
How could I let this happen? Maybe if I’d gotten away from the guard sooner or if I’d tried to leave instead of spending those wasted hours in Blake’s old bedroom. I could have run then and found Slade along the way. If I knew he was coming for me…shit.
The ‘what ifs’ have plagued me for eleven days but I’ve stopped crying about them now, not because they don’t tear me apart but because they’ve already drained all of my energy. I literally don’t have anything else to give. The only reason I haven’t joined Slade on the other side is because Shay and Blake need me. Besides, one day, I’m going to be watching Blake on my TV running up and down the court in the NBA because I know he’s going to beat this. His leg is going to get better and Shay is going to be there by his side every step of the way, making sure he keeps his head on straight.
Real Girl: Aston Creek High (Book 4) Page 6