by Erika Blount
It didn’t take long, though, before thoughts of Mindy hit her like a ton of bricks and she picked her phone up to call the hospital. She had put it off and didn’t call initially because she wasn’t sure what they’d tell or how she’d handle it.
“Baton Rouge Medical, how may I help you?” A sweet voice on the other end of the phone greeted Lilly.
“May I speak with Alanda, please?” she asked.
“Hold, please.” Lilly heard a beeping tone and then ringing commenced.
“This is Alanda,” she answered cheerily.
“Hi Alanda. My name is Lilly Summers. You called me about Mindy Hollis.”
“Hello, Miss Summers. I’m so sorry about Miss Hollis. She was involved in a one-car crash. She’s in ICU, but she is looking good and we think she will be fine. The truck, however, is completely unrecognizable and the insurance company is certainly going to total it.”
“Truck? Mindy doesn’t drive a truck, ma’am.”
“She was tonight. A dark blue, blacked-out Chevy.”
Linc’s truck.
“Is she conscious?” Lilly asked.
“She is, but she’s extremely tired and has been resting a lot. If you’d like, though, I can transfer you to her room.”
“No, that’ll be okay. Thank you, Alanda.”
“Yes ma’am, Miss Summers. I will call you if anything changes, but for now she is stable and doing okay.”
“Thank you. Goodnight.” Lilly hung up the phone and set it in her lap. Raven glanced at her out of the corner of her eye.
“Mindy was in Linc’s truck and they said it was a one-car accident. The truck is totaled, but she’s going to be okay,” Lilly said.
“Oh, thank goodness.”
“I’m still pissed at Cass, though. Hey, do you smoke in here?” she asked, hoping the answer was yes.
“I do, you couldn’t tell? And trust me, I’d be pissed at Micah if he pulled some shit like that. I could see if it was someone you didn’t know, but this is your best fucking friend.”
“Exactly! And he’s gonna get an earful as soon as I see him. And no, I couldn’t tell. It smells pretty damn good in here.”
Lilly lit her cigarette and cracked the window. While they rode down Interstate Ten toward the Mississippi-Louisiana state line, both girls were quiet. Raven had turned the radio up and before they knew it, they were rocking out to nineties country. The drive to Baton Rouge didn’t take as long as Lilly thought, and they were pulling up at the clubhouse before she knew it.
Where there would have normally been a line of motorcycles in front of the clubhouse, the motorcycle parking was empty. Lilly’s car was the only vehicle there aside from Raven’s, which meant it was going to be easy to get in her car and get to the hospital without having to explain herself. She hadn’t checked her phone for the duration of the ride home, though she knew that Cass probably knew by now that she wasn’t in Gulfport anymore.
“Thank you, for everything,” Lilly said.
“Anything for a Hound ol’ lady.” Raven grinned before leaning over the center console to hug Lilly.
“Do you want to stay the night here or are you okay to drive back?” Lilly asked, aware that it was well after three in the morning and Raven had likely been up since early the previous morning.
“I’m good to drive. I took a nap today before I started getting things ready at the clubhouse. Besides, if I don’t show up at home tonight, Micah is going to send a search party after me. He’s already called twice, but he’ll be okay. I’m going to give him a call when I get back on the road. Go take care of your friend, girl.”
“Okay. Let me know when you make it home. Here,” Lilly reached for Raven’s phone and quickly added her number.
“I will. Call me if you need anything, okay?”
“Okay.”
Lilly stepped out of Raven’s Kia and walked the few steps to Betty. The clubhouse was vacant from what Lilly could see. No vehicles were in sight and all the lights were off, too. Lilly slid into the driver’s seat of her car and cranked her up.
She was about to head to Baton Rouge Medical when she checked her phone. One missed call from Cass and one text message.
Lilly: Just call me and let me know you’re okay.
She dialed his number and put the car in drive. It rang twice before the line picked up. All Lilly could hear was the wind that slightly muffled the sound of a motorcycle. Cass was hollering something, but Lilly couldn’t understand him. He was surely on the bike, but he could be anywhere. She hung up the phone and drove to the hospital. He would call her when he stopped.
Lilly hated hospitals. They were so white and sterile and out-right depressing. She associated hospitals with death, probably because that’s the last place she saw her grandmother and her father alive. Losing two people in a year that were close to her heart kind of made her steer clear of these white hell holes.
After she parked in the parking garage and tried to make a mental note of what row she was on, she almost sprinted to the elevators. Once inside, she went straight to the nurse’s station.
“I’m here to see Mindy Hollis,” she told the heavy set, older black lady that sat behind the counter. She had a feel about her that said she was a grandmother. A sweet grandmother who baked cookies and showed up to any and all of her grandchildren’s school functions.
She smiled sweetly at Lilly and nodded her head as she tapped away on the keys of the computer in front of her. After a few seconds, she wrote down a room number on a sticker with the hospital’s logo with “Visitor” underneath it.
“Here. Room 4230. The elevator is down there on the right, when you get to floor four, take a right and follow the signs.” She handed Lilly the sticker and returned her attention to her computer.
Lilly did as she said and went down the hall to the elevator on the right, then took a right on floor four and followed the signs pointing to the different sets of room numbers. As she approached room 4230, a nurse was walking out and she could hear muffled chatter coming from inside. Someone else was here to see Mindy.
Lilly knocked lightly before letting herself in. Linc sat on the side of Mindy’s bed, his hand clutching hers inside his. Mindy was awake and sitting up, tears falling down her cheeks as they spoke. Her eyes snapped toward the door and when they landed on her best friend, she smiled.
Lilly was surprised at how put-together Mindy looked. She was banged up, but her face was nearly without a scratch. The only indications that she had been in a “horrible accident” as the nurse had put it, was the bandage that spanned from her right temple to her ear and the small cuts on her forehead.
“You look like hell,” Lilly said through a half-hearted smile and tears that threatened to spill over her eyes. She approached the side of the bed that was closest to her.
“Thanks, bitch.” Mindy smiled through tears of her own and Lilly threw her arms around Mindy’s shoulders.
“I was so worried about you,” she sighed, squeezing Mindy.
“Ow!” Mindy howled.
“Shit. I’m sorry.” Lilly let go and eased back, still inspecting her.
“It’s alright. Just fucking hurts. What are you doing here? I thought Linc said you were in Gulfport still and hadn’t heard anything about this yet?” she asked, an eyebrow raised as she looked back and forth between Lilly and Linc.
“I’m your fucking emergency contact,” Lilly said it as if she were telling them the temperature outside. Like it was simply common knowledge.
“Oh. Yeah. See, I knew that, but neither one of the guys did when they thought they could keep this kinda stuff from you.”
That made Lilly feel a little better about the whole situation. Mindy knew that they would call Lilly and she didn’t say anything to the guys because Lilly was her best friend and she needed to know. Lilly beamed at the thought and had to resist the urge to squeeze Mindy again.
Speaking of guys…
“Where’s Cass?” she asked, her attention directed at Linc.<
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“Don’t know. He just left. Said he had some things to take care of.” Linc shrugged and Lilly knew she wasn’t going to get anymore information out of him. She would just have to wait until he called.
“What’s going on with the bar?” Lilly asked.
“We hired a few new girls to work and run it. Cass told me he didn’t want anyone club affiliated working until they got this shit straightened out with the Moccasins. That, and he’s hired a few guys to sit at the bar with the girls and look like they’re just hanging out but they’re really there for protection. He didn’t tell you?”
“No, but I also didn’t ask and it hasn’t come up. I miss it, though. I miss working the bar,” Lilly sighed.
“It’ll still be there when this shit blows over and you’ll jump back in without missing a beat.”
Mindy’s optimism even when she was lying in a hospital bed lifted Lilly’s spirits. Her best friend was the most amazing person she’d ever met. She put her hands on either side of Mindy’s face, inspecting her injuries.
“Damn, it’s good to see you. I was so scared I was going to lose you,” Lilly confessed.
“I’m not going anywhere, but those fuckers that did this…let me get my hands on them,” she shook her fist in the air then flinched and lay it back down on the bed.
Lilly giggled and put her own hand over Mindy’s. She looked up at Linc who had been sitting there, silently, throughout their exchange.
“You’re an ass, you know that?” she asked, accusingly.
He put his hands up in surrender. “Look, I’m just a prospect. I do as I’m told and never in our conversation was I told to let you know what was going on. That, and I was worried as fuck and couldn’t wait to get down here to check on my girl.”
“True. I retract my earlier statement. Cass is an ass.” The smug look on her face said she was satisfied with that. It felt good for her to say it out loud, and slightly ridiculous, but that was irrelevant. She had even crossed her arms for emphasis.
“What happened, Min? The nurse said it was a single-car accident…”
“My car went down on me after I got home from the benefit, so I asked Linc if I could borrow his truck for a few days until I could get my car looked at. I’ve been driving the truck around and earlier tonight, I was followed. If it would’ve been motorcycles, it would have thrown red flags up in my head way before it did, but there weren’t any bikes. Instead, it was just a truck. They followed me for god knows how long before I even realized they were behind me. I was on my way to Baton Rouge for a few things I needed to pick up for the bar before tomorrow when I noticed them behind me on a cut-through road I normally take. It has minimal traffic and before I knew it, there was something in the road in front of me. I swerved, then over-corrected and the truck started flipping.”
“What was in the road?” Linc asked, and Lilly was surprised that Linc hadn’t already gotten the scoop. He must not have been there long before Lilly had gotten there.
“I don’t know. It was huge, though. I didn’t get a good look at it before the truck flipped.”
Lilly and Linc shared a puzzling look and she wanted to pull him aside right now and ask him what he was thinking.
“Then,” Mindy continued, “When the truck finally stopped flipping over itself, the truck that was behind me came to a stop with their headlights shining on me through the bent metal and broken glass. I could hear voices and boots, crunching the shards of glass beneath them. I knew when they were so quiet and calm that they weren’t there to help me. One of them grabbed my arm and pulled me toward him, then dropped my arm and cursed. He said, and I quote, “Fuck! We weren’t supposed to kill a fucking woman, it was supposed to be the prospect. Asher is going to lose his shit,” then they left and that was that.” Mindy shrugged her shoulder indifferently.
“So, you’re going to find these bastards so I can give them a dose of their own medicine, right?” she asked Linc, looking hopeful.
He chuckled and pulled her hand to his lips and kissed it. “No, babe. I’m going to find those bastards so I can give them a dose of their own medicine. Nobody fucks with my girl.”
Linc wasn’t domineering in the same essence that Cass was, but he radiated an energy like no other. He meant every word he said. Mindy’s face lit up at Linc’s response and Lilly realized she hadn’t ever seen Mindy so happy. She had always been happy, in a sense, but nothing like this. This was different. This was that glow that people spoke of. Mindy had it.
“Okay, you two. I’m going to leave you alone and go get some rest. I’m exhausted.” Lilly stood up from her seat on the bed.
“No,” Linc protested.
“What? Why not?” she asked.
“Because, I can’t let you leave here in that damn car that can be spotted from two miles away when they just nearly killed Mindy. Cass wouldn’t only have my prospect patch, which, might I add, I’ve worked my ass off to prove I’m worthy of, but he’d have my head to hang in the clubhouse to make an example of what happens to people who don’t protect their own.”
Lilly huffed in frustration. “I’m really getting tired of these fucktards making my life difficult.”
“You can sleep on the couch right here if you want. I won’t be getting any sleep anyway.” Linc stood up and opened the cabinet at the end of the couch. He pulled out a stiff hospital pillow and a thin, weird-feeling blanket. The plain white ones that were standard to all hospitals, damn near.
Lilly wanted so badly to protest, to tell Linc that she would be fine because she had her gun with her, but she was too tired to argue, and maybe even too tired to drive.
She put the pillow on the end of the couch and curled up with the blanket over her. Linc sat down at the foot of the bed and gently rubbed Mindy’s legs.
“Good night, you damn love birds,” Lilly groaned as she pulled the blanket to her shoulders.
“Good night,” they said in unison.
Before she drifted off, she pulled her phone to her and sent out a text to Cass.
Lilly: I’m at the hospital with Mindy. Will be here all night. Getting some sleep. Please be safe. I love you.
Lilly didn’t sleep much in Mindy’s room between Linc going in and out and the nurses constantly coming in to check Mindy’s vitals. Finally, after the tenth time she got woke up within four hours, she sat up and decided to say fuck it.
She went into the bathroom and splashed cold water on her face and threw her hair up into a messy bun. And not a cute one, either. She walked down the hall to one of the waiting rooms and filled a cup of coffee halfway before putting a ton of sugar and creamer in it.
Coffee never did anything for her, but she had to try something. So, coffee it was. While Lilly sat down in one of the chairs, she took slow sips of the steaming hot coffee. She was shocked that it didn’t taste outdated and disgusting, especially for being hospital coffee.
If she didn’t know any better, Lilly would have thought it was midday judging by all the people walking the halls of the hospital. Doctors and nurses, patients and their families, everyone was going somewhere this morning. Lilly chanced a peek at the clock that told her it was just after seven thirty in the morning.
“Shit, I need to check my phone,” she muttered as she stood up and started back to Mindy’s room. Even with all the people scurrying about, the hospital still made Lilly uncomfortable. Fucking white walled hell hole.
Mindys room was quiet aside from the low volume on the television that came out of the small speakers on her bed. She sat up with a tray of food over her bed while Linc was now curled up on the small, stiff, and highly uncomfortable couch. Mindy raised her finger to her lips and whispered “shh”. Lilly closed the door slowly and tiptoed until she eased onto the bed next to Mindy.
“I need my phone,” Lilly whispered and pointed to the small bedside table that was next to the couch.
“Don’t wake the sleeping bear,” Mindy whispered, fighting back a laugh.
Lilly again tiptoed h
er way around the bed, grabbed her phone, and tiptoed back to her spot. She unlocked her phone and found nothing. No response from Cass. No phone call. Nothing. Her heart dropped and she wasn’t sure if she felt worried or hurt, or a combination of them both.
He could be hurt. Or dead. Or sleeping. Or…well he could fucking be anything right now and I wouldn’t know it.
She fought back the emotions that so desperately wanted to show through on her face. It was a little easier to breathe, though, when she read a text from Raven saying she had made it home and Micah wasn’t “too upset” with her.
Being a club ol’ lady was beginning to take its toll on Lilly. What more would she have to go through? Why couldn’t she be more involved, especially when this shit was personal for her? She understood it to an extent, but on the other hand, she was almost to the point of tracking down the Moccasin druggies herself and putting a bullet in their heads.
She shook her head to clear the ridiculous thoughts, gaining Mindy’s attention. “What’s going on in that brain of yours? I can feel you thinking hard,” she whispered.
Lilly sighed and lay back in the bed, her head resting near Mindy’s. “All this shit going on. I’m worried about Cass.”
Mindy rubbed Lilly’s arm compassionately as she gave her a sympathetic look.
“I’m sure he’s just fine. He didn’t get to be a club president by being a weak pussy.”
Leave it to my best friend to say something fucked up and still make me feel better.
A light bulb instantly went off in Lilly’s head at the thought of a best friend. She lifted her phone and typed out a text to Scott.
Lilly: Hey, if you’re with Cass, can you just send back some kind of response and at least let me know y’all are okay.
She pressed send and held her breath. She didn’t give two fucks what they were doing, so long as they were okay. Her phone buzzed almost immediately with a text back.
Scott: Safe.
One word. That was all she needed. Confirmation that they were safe. She could now breathe easily. Now it was time to focus on getting Mindy better and figuring out what her part in this messy war was.