I feel Roman tense. I am standing in front of him, tucked into his massive body, and as he tenses I feel his muscle tight against my back. I lean into it, thankful for the firmness, telling myself that this is safety. Which is a stupid lie. Roman, big and muscular as he is, dangerous as he might be, would stand no chance against a fully-armed man.
“My boss sends his regards,” the man says, voice deep.
The man walks around the bed. That’s when I see that he is wearing a mask, a black, plain mask pulled tightly around his head, with two eyes poking out between the holes. The front of his body is as absurdly armed as his back. I want to laugh, I am laughing; no, no, I am crying. Tears are streaming down my cheeks. I am sobbing. I can’t watch—a man being killed—killed in front of me. All my life, trying to help people, and now a man being killed in front of me . . .
The masked man brings his hands to Les’ face, two big paws, and with one paw squeezes the sleeping man’s nose and with the other covers his mouth. I am weeping openly now, but somehow silently. Roman brings his hand to my face and softly covers my mouth, ceasing my small sobbing noises. He brings his other hand to my eyes, covering them, but I can see through his fingers. The man leans his entire weight into Les, his two peering eyes completely blank of emotion, and just waits until Les stops writhing. The death spasms go on for several minutes, and then the man casually stands up and wipes his hands down on his cargo pants. Tears seep between Roman’s clasping fingers. I can’t stop. Les has released himself in death: spit, blood, shit, piss, all of it making the room reek like hell.
I whimper, too loud.
Roman tightens his grip on my mouth.
The masked man pauses, out of view, making no noise but for his breathing. Roman doesn’t curse, doesn’t make any noise, but I get the sense that he wants to curse from the way he silently maneuvers me so that I am standing behind him. He gestures with his hand for me to get down. I back away, near the toilet, and slide down low. Roman takes a step back from the door and lifts his hands in a boxing gesture.
This image freezes. All I can do is sit here, watching as Roman gets ready to bare-handed fight a man covered in metal, knees to my chest, panting, weeping. I have always thought of myself as strong. When Mom died, I cried, sure, but I never crumbled. When patients are in horrible states in front of me, I feel for them, but I never crumble. But now, I feel myself crumbling, crumbling into little pieces as I watch Roman get ready to fight a machine. My eyes burn with tears, my fingernails dig into my knees, my knees press painfully into my breasts. My throat is desert-dry and my bladder feels too full. I have not let it go, yet, but I know that if the machine-man barges through the door, I will. Shameful or not, I will. I wince, flinch, as something bites into my leg. Then I realize it’s my fingernails, cutting through my scrubs and into my flesh.
The image freezes, and stretches. Time opens up like a maw.
And then, after an eternity, the footsteps leave the bathroom door, leave Les’ room, and get quieter and quieter until I can no longer hear them.
Roman comes to me, standing over me, arms at his sides and chest heaving. He may be tough, but I can tell even he was a little scared then. He offers me his hand. “We have to go,” he says. “If the bastard can clear out a wing of your hospital, he has access to some pretty fuckin’ high-up people. You can’t be here. Give me your hand, Lily. Give me your hand, now.”
I am still shaking as I reach up and place my hand in his. He heaves me to my feet. I collapse, almost collapse but then Roman is at my side, propping me up.
“What’s wrong with me?” I whisper.
“You’re in shock,” Roman says. “Happens to the best of us. Come on.”
He moves my arm to that I have it around his broad shoulders, and then helps me out of the bathroom. I look at Les, who is stone-dead—the heart monitor is a flat-line, a humming noise—and wonder why people are not rushing in here to help him. On the way out, I press down hard on the Call Nurse button. Then Roman is half-carrying me down the emergency staircase.
“Roman, I can’t—”
I swallow, but it’s no good. I can’t see; my vision is blurry. My belly is a tight knot still, but I know that in a matter of seconds the knot is going to release and I am going to vomit, violently. I feel it, the breaking of the waves, the impending explosion. I swallow again, again. But it’s no good. This past day and a half has been way, way too much, too mad, too absurd. Too surreal.
“I’m going to be sick,” I manage to say, my voice faint as I try and move my lips as little as possible. “Set me down.”
We’re on the ground floor—I can hear the street outside—when Roman sets me down on the stairs. I grip the handrails, breathing deeply, trying to breathe away the feeling of nausea. But then I keel over and vomit all over the stone stairs, belly unknotting as it hurls vomit up my throat and out of my mouth. I vomit for a long time, or what feels like a long time. The tears stopped at some point after the man killed Les, but they return now, hot tears streaming down my face as vomit streams from between my lips. Then the vomit stops, but the tears don’t.
I slump, the steps digging into the small of my back, and cry pitifully.
“Are you okay?” Roman asks uncertainly.
What a question! Okay? What is okay, after all of this?
Something about the way he’s looking at me makes me angry. Or perhaps it’s the throbbing in my head, the feeling that my brain is pressing against my skull, or the way my heart is choking my throat, or the twisting sickness returning to my belly. Or perhaps it’s that everything I thought I knew about my life—my job, my strength, my certainty, my poise—has been torn away from me in the space of less than 48 hours.
“It’s your stupid baby!” I snarl, eyelids suddenly heavy. “So it’s your stupid fault!”
And then, darkness.
Chapter Nine
Lily
I wake with a heavy rain pounding against the glass, eyes closed, just listening to one of Vegas’ legendary flash showers: rain hammering down so hard that I don’t even know if my head is hammering, too. I am at home, I tell myself. I am in my apartment, curled up in my sheets, safe from the world and the rain and anything that wishes me harm. I am safe. My mind is bleary and I keep it that way. Events hover at the peripheries, but with a force of mental will I stomp on them, make myself believe it is just a normal morning. I have a day off, maybe I’ll go to the park, do some reading, maybe I’ll . . .
But when the memories return, it’s not like the rain; it’s like the thunder. One strike, and all the memories are once again firmly lit inside my mind. I open my eyes, stare at the ceiling of what is clearly a hotel room. It just has that look, that too-clean look, not like my ceiling, with a few chips and flakes here and there. I remember the pregnancy, Roman, and then the death . . . Tears well up in my eyes. I try to fight them back, but the welling grows until two large beads are clinging to my eyelashes. When I blink, they slide down my cheeks.
I make a small sniffling sound. That’s when Roman appears, leaning over me. “Are you awake?” he says.
“Y-yes,” I whisper, throat sore. “Water?”
Roman nods, and then walks across the room. Something happens as I listen to his footsteps. I’m thrown back to the bathroom, to listening to the masked man’s footsteps, to the fear that any second he will barge open the door and heft one of those shotguns at me. My arms begin to flail against my will, and then my legs, and suddenly my entire body is wreaked with spasms, twisting into the sheets and gasping for breath. I am drowning. I am drowning. I am going to die. I close my eyes and see the man, glinting with metal, and I imagine what could’ve happened, so easily could’ve happened had he needed to use the toilet, or thought to search the bathroom. One shot, and my life is done. My hopes, my dreams, my child—
Roman lays his hand on my trembling shoulder. “It’s okay,” he says. “You’re safe. You’re safe, Lily. I promise. I wouldn’t let anything happen to you.”
He massa
ges my shoulder, slowly, with surprising softness, and after what feels like a long time, I manage to calm down.
“Can you help me sit up?” I ask.
I feel bone-tired, as though I’ve just run a marathon. Roman hefts me up as though I weigh nothing. I grab my pillows and move them to my back, lean against the headboard, and look around the room. There isn’t much to see. A plasma screen on the wooden stand, a chair and a desk off to one side, an en-suite bathroom, door open so that I can see the walk-in shower, and a pile of clothes on the floor. Roman brings the glass of water to my lips and I sip greedily, the water so refreshing I end up dribbling down my chin like a child. Roman dabs at my chin with his sleeve.
“I see you’re not wearing scrubs anymore,” I say, chest still thumping, but slowing down.
Roman is wearing a short-sleeved checkered shirt, jeans, and boots. His shirt is blue, but there’s a large spreading patch of red in his shoulder.
“Roman,” I say. I’m glad to hear Nurse Sherlock in my voice, calm and professional. I nod to his shoulder. “Did you buy bandages, at least?”
He grins sideways at me. “And suture thread, and a needle, and . . . well, I’ve got a whole medical kit.”
“Why stiches?” I ask.
“They’ve come loose,” he says. “Must’ve been when I was lugging you into the car.”
“Lugging me into the . . .”
I let it trail away. I remember, vaguely, passing out on the stone stairs and then being carried across the parking lot, Roman elbowing his way into somebody’s car, and then changing car, and then again, and finally ditching it and carrying me into some house in the middle of nowhere.
“How did you get me into the hotel?” I mutter. “Weren’t they suspicious?”
“Of a drunk woman in Vegas?”
I smile, almost laugh. Almost, but the memory of the masked man is too fresh.
“Let’s see to your shoulder, then,” I say, making myself Nurse Lily, not Scared Lily. “Though, I’m not normally allowed to do stitches.”
Roman grunts out a laugh. “Normally? What part of this is meant to be normal? Do you know how to give stiches?”
I nod.
“Then have at it.”
I stand up, tired but grateful to have something to focus on, and take the desk chair and bring it into the middle of the room. “Sit down,” I tell Roman, “and take off your shirt. Where is the medical kit?”
“On the floor, near the pile of clothes. I’ll get it.”
Before I can tell him not to exert himself, he leans down and snatches the kit up. He sits in the chair. I take the kit from him. “You’ve got a gunshot wound,” I say, standing over him as he unbuttons his shirt. “You shouldn’t be moving around so much. You need to rest, let it heal.”
“It’s nothing,” he says, but even so he reaches to the TV stand and takes the bottle of whisky.
I take off the bandage, which is damp with blood, and look at the wound. A few of the stiches have come loose. Blood seeps from the wound, dripping down his body, but nothing major. I go to the back of his shoulder, happy to see that that side is fine and won’t need re-stitching, but it will need re-bandaging. I go about my work methodically, first cleaning the wound, and then threading the needle. When I thread the needle, Roman takes a swig from the whisky.
“What’s wrong?” I ask. “A gunshot is no big deal but a needle is the scariest thing ever?”
“Never been a fan of needles,” Roman mutters. I find myself glancing down at his body, his hard-packed ab muscles, his round, bulging pectorals. And then I turn back to the needle. What the hell’s the matter with me? No—what the hell’s the matter with my body? “When I was a kid, a doctor slipped when giving me some fuckin’ injection and stabbed me right through the arm. I swear to God, it was the creepiest thing I’ve ever seen.”
“Somehow, I doubt that. Now, don’t be a baby.”
As I stitch the wound, concentrating hard because this is the first time I’ve done this on a live person, Roman takes swigs from the whisky. Then he sets it aside and just waits. I’m almost disappointed when the stitching is done. It’s such a minute task, a task requiring such close concentration, that it’s perfect for pushing away other concerns. The bandaging does not have the same effect, on me or Roman. As I pack the wound, Roman asks in a quiet voice: “What did you mean, yesterday, when you said it was my baby?”
The rain whips relentlessly against the glass. I can’t answer right away because the cracking of thunder is too loud.
Then I reply, “I thought that would be obvious.”
I finish the bandaging and begin putting away the medical equipment, throwing the dirty bandages in the trash. Then I sit on the edge of the bed.
Roman leans forward, still shirtless. “Well, what are you going to do?”
I bristle, not meeting his gaze. “Keep it,” I say. “I am going to keep it.”
He nods shortly. “That’s your choice,” he says. “But me, Lily, I don’t reckon I’d make much of a father figure—”
“That’s fine,” I cut him short. “That’s absolutely fine. I never said you needed to!”
“It’s just, I don’t think you can expect me to turn into some kind of perfect daddy or whatever. I’ll pay for the kid, of course—”
“I said it’s fine, didn’t I!”
This isn’t exactly the response you want when you tell the father of your child he is the father of your child, is it? I stand up, go to the window, look out on rain-streaked Vegas. From the window, I can see the Vegas sign and the phony Eiffel Tower. That’s Vegas, I reflect grimly, everything phony, everything a poor mimicry, even parenthood.
I turn back to Roman, who’s buttoning up his shirt. “Thank you for taking care of me, Roman. Of course I have to thank you for that. But I need to get back to my apartment now; I need to get showered, and changed for work. I need to explain to them what’s happened. I can’t think how bombarded my work email is right now. Or my cell; my cell’s in my locker.” I stop, realizing I’m rambling, and finish with, “I need you to arrange for me to get back to my apartment, please.”
“No.”
There is unswerving certainty in his voice.
“No?” I say, walking back across the room and returning to my place on the edge of the bed. “What do you mean, no?”
“It’s pretty simple,” Roman says. “No.”
When I raise my eyebrows at him, which is my expressive way of saying without saying, “Are you fucking serious?” he just shrugs.
“Look, Lily, it’s fuckin’ awesome that you’re this committed to your job. Really, it is. But I’m committed, too. I’m committed to keeping you safe. The man I’m chasing sent some psychopath into your hospital, cleared the whole wing out, and then this guy just strolls into the street covered with guns. Do you really think I’m goin’ to send you back there now, especially after . . .” He nods at my belly. “Especially after that?”
“I thought you wanted nothing to do with it,” I say.
“I didn’t say that,” he replies. “I just said I wasn’t much of a father figure. That doesn’t mean I’m going to see you dead.”
“I don’t want to be kept prisoner,” I say. “I won’t be kept prisoner. I understand I’m in danger. Fine, take me to the police. I’ll tell them what happened, and—”
“The police?” Roman jumps to his feet, looming over me. “The goddamn police? This man I’m chasing has so many cops in his pocket he could start a precinct. If I take you to the police you could be dead by tomorrow morning.”
“And I’m safer with you, am I? You know, you haven’t even told me who you are.”
Roman grits his teeth, jaw clenched. When he talks, his voice is changed, low, intimate. And somehow dangerous. “You want to know who I am, sweet Lily? I’m the kind of bad man who takes care of the really, really fuckin’ bad man. I’m the type of man who stops evil bastards from messing with children, or from killing innocents. I’m the type of person who works
behind the scenes of behind the scenes. The world doesn’t much care for men like me, but without men like me there’d be some fuckin’ devils out there reaping lives. If a man like me tells you that you’re safest with him at your shoulder, you better count yourself lucky, ’cause that means you might have a chance, just a chance, of making it out of this thing alive.”
When he stops, he seems surprised by how much he’s said, and paces to the door. “Do you need anything?” he asks.
“Nothing from you,” I say, but my pouting is forced. His speech has stunned me. What is he, then? CIA? Army? Marines? What? I want to ask, but I know he won’t answer. He’s clearly done with talking.
BAD BOY’S SURPRISE BABY: The Choppers MC Page 52