Edge of Ashes (Sons of Ash Motorcycle Club)

by O'Connor, Brynn

  I remember the other day when he came to the rescue of that mother and her kid. For some reason I really didn’t believe what I was seeing. It was more like some publicity stunt; or at least that’s what I thought it was. Next time I get in front of a computer I’m going to do a little research and see if I can find out what is really going on with the Sons of Ash VP, ‘cause right now he’s beginning to sound more like Mother Theresa than a feared outlaw biker.

  Tracy and I talk pretty much the entire ride back and I find I kind of like her despite the fact that she is some schmuck’s old lady. When she drops me off we exchange cell phone numbers with the promise of keeping in touch. Now it’s time to focus on work.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Back to Happy

  I don’t normally consider the ER as a place of refuge, but after everything that went on yesterday I can’t think of a better place to go to unwind after your boyfriend shoots you in the head. I just hope this isn’t the start of a new dating pattern for me. We meet, we go out, we almost do the nasty, and then he shoots me. Yeah, not something I really want to be repeating.

  The first two thirds of my shift just flies by. The moment I arrive I’m thrown into the fray and literally do not have time to even eat until it’s nearly over. There were no big tragedies, just a lot of small ones that could have been diverted to a doctor’s office had it not been in the middle of the night. At least we didn’t get any more fallout from the Sons of Ash civil war. They must be taking a break from their squabbling. Just as the clock hits four in the morning things get weird. I’m just finishing up with a patient who thought it would be a good idea to chop wood after smoking a doobie. He required twenty-seven stitches in his lower leg when he missed the kindling he was chopping. Good thing he was just using a dull hatchet and not a heavy axe; he could have chopped his leg clean off. I walk out of Trauma Room 4 when I get a page over the intercom system asking me to report to the third floor doctor’s lounge which is weird because I don’t work on the third floor and that lounge is pretty much always deserted at this time of the morning; but I wash up and go anyway.

  I push the door open and find just as I suspected, it is empty. Well empty except for the life sized blowup doll hanging from a noose in the middle of the room. The obscene doll is made up with a ridiculous amount of makeup and lipstick and wearing a very short nurses uniform rather than the scrubs I always wear. There’s an ID badge hanging from the doll’s neck as well. Fearing the worst I step forwards for a closer look. There’s a picture of me on the badge. Suddenly my blood runs cold when I recognize where the picture was taken; my bedroom. I’m standing in front of my mirror in a pair of silk pajamas and am in the process of taking off my contacts.

  I grab the badge and yank it as hard as I can, but instead of it coming off the doll the whole thing comes with me; noose and all. I stumble backwards and fall hard on my ass with the doll on top. I scream in a combination of pain and anger as I do my best to throw the disgusting thing across the room. I can’t believe this. I burry my face in my hands and begin to shake. Who could have done this? It’s not easy to get into a hospital at four in the morning. And to have gotten in my bedroom and taken a picture of me? Had to be a camera set up in my room when I was at work or something. I would have known if someone was standing in my closet taking pictures of me. I force myself to slow my breathing down and take a closer look at the photo. It looks like a grainy still captured from a video. That means someone planted a video camera in my bedroom and this is a frame from the video.

  Suddenly I have to get home. I need to find that camera before whoever did this comes back for it. I need to see what they filmed then I don’t care if it’s evidence I’m going to destroy the video. No way am I going to let a bunch of horny cops look at it in the guise of an investigation. I pocket the badge and leave the room before someone finds me there. I don’t care if they find the blowup doll. Whoever finds it will think it’s a threat to some nurse who works on this floor not an ER nurse. There must be fifteen nurses per shift on this floor. That’s more than enough to share the trauma of being victimized by some psycho. They can handle it.

  When I get back to my department I find that no one noticed my absence. Unfortunately it’s still too busy for me to just take off early. By the time I get out of there it’s close to eight in the morning. I can’t get home fast enough. It normally takes me a good thirty minutes to get home from the hospital. I glance at my watch as I pull into my driveway; it took all of fifteen minutes! I don’t see my sister’s car in front so I guess she has already left for work. I don’t feel like explaining what happened. I don’t need her freaking out over this too. I should probably check the guest room though in case they were filming in that room as well.

  I walk over to the mirror where I was standing when the still was taken. I turn around and just opposite the mirror is my closet. The doors have those slats so that conceivably someone could have hidden a video camera in it and shot through the cracks. That would explain the horrible quality of the picture on the badge. I walk over to the closet and open the doors. Nothing jumps out at me.

  Five minutes later my floor and bed is covered with everything that used to be in my closet; and that’s a lot of stuff. I collapse on the floor in frustration. The camera is gone and now I’ll never know what they filmed. I get up and go over to my bed. There’s no room to even lie down. In a rage I grab my comforter that covers my bed and yank it off. Clothes, jewelry boxes, and knick knacks galore go sailing across the room. A single DVD catches my attention as it bounces off the wall and falls to the floor. It’s a plain unmarked Memorex rewritable DVD and I’m pretty sure it’s not mine. I pick it up on its edge and hold it away from my body like it’s going to bite me as I cross over to my laptop on my dresser. My hands start to shake and pretty soon my whole body is trembling so badly I can barely manage to put the thing in the DVD tray. I catch my breath and can’t seem to breathe as I wait for the home movie to begin. It’s all black at first then a grainy picture of me appears. I’m wearing hospital scrubs. I watch myself, mesmerized as my video self begins to undress.

  Suddenly I feel like I have been raped! I almost don’t make it to the toilet before last night’s lunch comes up. As I sit there slumped against the toilet blowing chunks from my nose I suddenly have to talk to Jenny. We haven’t talked since the whole blowout with Adam at his shop, but right now I need my best friend. I do my best to wash my face and make sure there no vestiges of vomit clinging to my long hair before I go back to the bedroom to retrieve my phone from my purse. I reach for my purse then stop mid motion. My laptop is still playing the video. I can’t bear to see anymore. I slam the top down on my computer hard enough to break it and fish my phone out. She may not even be home yet. My hands are still shaking badly and it takes three tries to tap out my best friends number. After a half dozen rings it goes to voicemail. I’m not planning on leaving a message but soon as I hear her voice, and soon as the beep comes, it all comes spilling out. I’m talking so fast it’ll be a miracle if she can even understand me. I’m so caught up in my monologue that I don’t even notice the beep of the recording time ending and I just keep plowing along until the phone just cuts off. She’s pretty good at checking her messages. She’s probably at work. Suddenly I get this overpowering urge to take a shower. I set the temp as hot as I can stand and spend the next thirty minutes scrubbing layer after layer of my skin off my body. When I finally can scrub no more I get my raw, red self out of the bathroom and climb into bed. The mess of my closet can wait. I don’t expect I’ll be able to sleep as worked up as I am but surprise surprise, the minute my head hits the pillow I am off in dreamland.

  “Kari…Kari, you awake?”

  My eyes fly open! Adam is leaning over me with his hand on my shoulder.

  “How’d you get in?” I ask. You can’t come in unless you’re invited.

  “What?”

  “Everyone knows that. Demons can’t enter a person’s house unless invited by someone wh
o lives there.”

  “Wow, I’ve been called a lot of things but not a demon.”

  “Get that look off your face! It wasn’t meant as a compliment.” I reply, trying to wipe the sleep from my fogged out brain.

  “I believe in calling a spade a spade. You’re a demon and you should never have been able to come in. I mean look around you. My room is a mess!”

  He looks around himself. “Wow, if you call this a mess, I’m never inviting you to my place.”

  Surprised I look around my room as well. It’s completely clean. Gone are all my clothes and knick knacks from my closet. The place barely looks lived in.

  “You did this?” I ask. No…he couldn’t have cleaned up the mess without me waking up. No way.

  “Well there was this shoe in the middle of the floor. I uh…picked it up and put in in your shoe rack next to its partner.” He shrugs. “It was nothing really.”

  I look around again bewildered. “But it was such a mess,” I complain.

  “Yeah…I think we have a different understanding of what constitutes a mess Kari.”

  “But my clothes…”

  “Are in the closet and dresser, I assume.” He replies.

  I take another peek around the room. It’s clean as before I trashed it. Something strange is going on here.

  “How’d you get in?” I ask again. For some reason my brain is stuck on that.

  “So it’s back to that again is it?”

  I’m just about to make some kind of caustic remark when my best friend appears in the doorway of my room. She appears to be naked save for one of my robes she has on. If that’s not weird enough I suddenly notice that Adam is a pair of silk boxers and nothing else.

  “We have to tell her,” Jenny says to Adam.

  “You weren’t supposed to find out this way,” Adam says to me.

  I look at him like he’s nuts. “Really? Then why’d you burst into my room wearing your underwear?”

  “I told him not too.” Jenny says.

  “She was screaming,” Adam defends himself. How am I supposed to be doing the nasty with you when your best friend’s voice is in my ears?”

  I decide to ignore the remark about me screaming; that can wait. “Weren’t you going on about love at first site not so long ago and now your back to screwing my best friend?”

  “I got confused.” Adam replies. “It’s always been about Jenny. She’s my old lady now.”

  This is not making a lick of sense.

  “Kari!” Jenny shouts. “Kari!”

  “What? Why are you shou-”

  “Kari, wake up!”

  My eyes fly open. Jenny is standing amidst the rubble of my room and shaking my shoulders. I jerk back away from her and sit up. What the hell is going on here?

  “Who let you in?” I ask.

  “I know where you hide your spare key.” She replies. “What happened here? Did they do this?”

  “You got my voicemail then?”

  “Of course. I tried calling but when you didn’t answer I thought I should come over. You sounded really freaked out.”

  “Where’s Adam?”

  “What? Why would he be here?”

  I look at her again. She’s wearing jeans and a tee shirt, not my bathrobe.

  “What’s going on Kari?”

  “It was a dream I guess.”

  “What? That whole thing about the blowup doll and the home movie; that was a dream?”

  “No…that was real. I just dreamed you were here with Adam just before you woke me up. I wish that other stuff was a dream.”

  “Who would want to hurt you?” She asks. Her face is full of genuine concern. She really cares about me and has been a great friend. I can’t believe I let that thing with Adam get between us.

  “So tell me again what happened.” Jenny says.

  “Wait, first…are we good?”

  I catch myself holding my breath anticipating her answer.

  “Of course we are. You think I’d let anyone come between us. My hospital’s got me working double shifts and I just have had no time or energy to even pick up the phone. And besides, I knew you’d call me if something was really wrong. I love you and I always will.”

  Then she gives me a hug and everything is right again in the Universe of Kari and I finally feel like I can deal with whoever is stalking me. She snuggles up beside me and I begin filling her in about everything that has happened in my life since we parted ways.

  “You actually shot a gun?” She asks.

  “Your boyfriend shot you in the head?” She says.

  “Your ex beat up Dr. Shanahan?”

  It’s all true.” I finally reply.

  “And I thought I had a tough week.” She concludes.

  What should have taken twenty minutes to recount took the better part of an hour thanks to her questions. Now I just have to figure out a plan to stay safe. I’ll have to change the locks in case whoever broke in found my key hidden under a fake rock near the front door. I guess it was kind of obvious but I really never worried about someone even wanting to get into my house in the first place. A quick check of the front door fails to yield any clues as to how someone could have gotten in. If they forced their way in there would be damage to the door and lock I guess. That means they either picked the lock or found the key. A locksmith is due out here in the morning. While I’m home I’ll make sure to keep the chain on. Jenny volunteers to keep me company for a few days until I feel safer but I refuse. I don’t want her to get a target on her back on account of me. It’s bad enough having my sister here for another couple days. I decide not to tell her about the intrusion or the doll at work. That would just worry her unnecessarily.

  Jenny helps me put my room back together and when that’s done I start to feel a little normal again. I’ve always been pretty good about pushing things out of my mind when I don’t want to deal with them. Jenny sticks around until my sister gets home from work then she leaves to get a bit to eat and go to her work where she is doing an extra half shift for a nurse who had to leave due to illness.

  As little sis and I sit down to dinner I finally feel good. She’s in an upbeat mood and it’s infectious. In no time we’re laughing and joking around like we used to when we were kids. Finally I am back to happy!

  CHAPTER NINE

  Brick

  When I finally get around to telling Adam about the doll bit he reacts as expected; he goes ballistic. I purposefully told him while I was on shift to minimize the fall out. I asked him to meet me for lunch but I really could not have eaten a thing. I can only imagine how he would have reacted had I told him about the DVD. Adam seems to be a sensitive, kind person, but Adam mad is Adam bad; and it’s not a side to him that I like seeing. I guess I should be glad he’s mad on my behalf and not mad at me. Of course that begs the question, what happens when he gets mad at me? That’s bound to happen at some point. This is a lot of hassle for some guy I don’t even know I want as my boyfriend. Why can’t I just be satisfied with Mike the doctor I work with? He and I have worked together for five years now and he is a well- respected ER physician. He’s stable and would provide a great home environment for kids one day…if of course I wanted that. For some damn reason I always end up with the bad boys instead. There’s just something about a man who’d do more than talk a good game if someone hassled me. Just knowing that Adam can kick ass is, as much as I hate to admit it, is a huge turn on.

  “Why would you even consider some namby- pamby boy doctor in the first place? Adam asks me after I bring up Doctor Mike one too many times.

  Even though I have basically arrived at the conclusion that bad boys like Adam are a better fit in my life lately, given that my life may actually be in danger, I still feel the need to argue in favor of the support and stability a man like an ER physician can provide.

  Adam asks me again. “Why would you even want anything to do with someone like that doctor guy or any wimpy guy?”

  “I don’t know how about, I’ll
never get shot at or be asked to shoot someone while we’re together. That’s kind of a plus.”

  “Yeah how’d that work out for you two when your ex came calling? I seem to remember you both got your asses kicked and you only didn’t have to shoot anyone because I came to bail you out.”

  “We were doing just fine before you arrived.”

  “Try telling that to Doctor Mike.” Adam replies. “I believe he’s still got a size 12 boot print on his face.”

  “Okay fine, so he got the short end of the stick; big deal. At least if I got hurt he’d be able to save my life.”

  “Not if he’s busy getting his ass whooped he wouldn’t. Anyway, you need someone who can protect you now and there’s no one better at that than I am.”

  “Oh I don’t know if I’d go that far Adam. You didn’t prevent Ripper from sneaking in her with a blowup doll and you certainly couldn’t keep him out of my bedroom!”

  The instant I say that last bit about Ripper being in my bedroom I regret it. I wasn’t going to say it but it just slipped out in the heat of the argument.

  “Wait a second…what was that last part you said?” He asks. Suddenly his eyes narrow into slits and I can literally hear his blood beginning to boil.

  “I don’t know if it was him Adam. In fact it probably wasn’t or he’d have let me know; you know, to terrorize me and all.”

  “What the fuck did he do Kari!” Adam asks.

  He is getting scary. I know his anger isn’t really directed at me but since I’m here and ripper isn’t, there’s a little bit of the kill the messenger mentality going on right now. He is pacing the room like a caged tiger and it’s not helping me feel any safer.

  “Tell me what he did Kari. I need to know what his thinking is before I confront him.”