She narrowed her eyes at him, then hauled back and kicked him in the shin… hard. He growled and let up minutely – she’d scored a direct hit, even with chunky platform sandals – and she got free. For two seconds. Then Wolf grabbed her again, shook her until her teeth rattled.
“Hey, Wolf,” Jinx protested, watching this with alarm. “Take it easy, Prez…”
“Like hell I’m takin’ it easy!” Wolf thundered, and to a man they backed up. “You think I’m gonna let her kill herself?” He turned his ferocious glare back to her, showing no mercy or pity at all. “You listen to me, Zoe, and you listen good. You stay put, and if you can’t or won’t do that, then I got no problem sending you over to Satan’s to wait. I don’t give a flyin’ fuck if it takes five guys to drag you over there kickin’ and screamin’, you will go. If you want to stay here, then you will behave yourself. Am I bein’ clear enough about how things are gonna go?”
“Wolf…” she whispered, and suddenly, tears were streaming down her cheeks. “That’s my baby girl in there, my sweet little flower, and she needs me…I promised to take care of her, no matter what, and I left her in there, left her sleeping… and Scars is in there all alone… and he’s… I love him. Don’t you understand? I can’t just stand here… I can’t.”
His face softened. “I do understand, Zee. I promise you that I do. But you’re forgettin’ somethin’.”
“What?”
Wolf wiped her tears away with his thumb. “That Scars is a man who has survived fire once already in his life. He’s the only man I know who’s walked through the literal flames of goddamn hell, and come through the other side with anyone still alive.”
She stared up at him, and she realized that he was right.
“Don’t bet against Scars Innis, not ever,” Wolf said quietly. “Deep breaths, baby girl… you hold on to me, and you hold on. You keep the faith. And don’t you count Scars out – don’t you fuckin’ dare.”
**
Scars knew that he had to keep moving – even the briefest of pauses could be the end of him – because this was all about time now. Not minutes, either… seconds.
The whole ceiling could go at any second.
The tattooing chemicals and cleaning stuff that he saw scattered around could explode at any second.
The fire could move behind him, trapping him inside, at any second.
Keira could succumb to smoke any second (he refused to believe that she already had… that was not an option today).
He grabbed a shirt off the floor, dashed across the room to the water cooler next to the reception area, dumped the whole bottle on the shirt. He held it to his mouth, took a breath, and ran to Zoe’s office – or where her office used to be.
God, the heat. The acrid, awful taste in his lungs, black and thick, even through the soaked material. And the smell… Jesus, he’d forgotten what fire smelled like, because whenever he thought about that deadly winter night, all he remembered was the smell of his own skin burning.
Fire smelled like death.
Fuck that. Nobody dies today.
He avoided something burning on the floor (part of the ceiling? Oh, God), and coughed into the wet shirt, praying for the first time in twenty years… praying that Keira was passed out peacefully. Praying that that was why there was no screaming coming from the crib that he now saw.
The crib that was on fire.
“Fuck!” he mumbled. “C’mon, God… c’mon now… don’t do this to Zoe…”
He ran through a wall of flame, ignored the intense burning on his upper back, and peered into the crib.
Empty.
Relief smashed through him, until he remembered that voice over the baby monitor… and he knew that whoever had Keira had gone out the back door.
To the second parking lot.
He sprinted through the office, exploded into the back room, tripped over something solid, and landed heavily on his elbows… and there was a man on the floor.
Passed out cold. Or dead.
Scars didn’t care and he didn’t check – whatever had happened here at Blue Dragon, Scars knew that this prick was 100% responsible. Let him die, then let his stinking soul rot in hell. Scars had other priorities than hauling a full-grown murderous asshole out of harm’s way.
“Keira!” Scars said, wildly and stupidly, as though she’d respond with ‘Over here!’. “Keira!”
Unbelievably, he heard a sharp little wail, and he followed the sound through the smoke, crawling on his hands and knees now, noticing that the smoke was much thinner closer to the floor. And there she was – sitting on her bum and lodged under a shelf, clutching her bunny. Whole. Not visibly burned. And pissed off as hell.
“Oh, my God.” Scars scooped her up, immediately wrapped the wet shirt around her tiny body, making sure to cover her face. “I’ve got you, little peach. We’re getting the fuck out of here now, OK? You good with that?”
She screamed in response, and he took that as a good sign. He also took it as enthusiastic agreement.
He crawled in the direction of the storage room door, the door to the back parking area, the door that meant that they were mere feet from salvation and sunshine and goddamn air… he wrapped his hand in his long jacket sleeve, reached for the door handle, twisted it to open, and…
Nothing.
Panicking now, he turned it the other way, pushing his massive shoulder against the door as he did.
Still nothing.
Goddamn it.
Scars lay on his back, Keira tucked into his side, lifted both legs to his chest, plowed his boots forward into the metal door. It stayed resolutely closed, so he kicked again. Again. Again. That was when he saw that the frame was bent, buckled, deformed, undoubtedly by the heat. His heart fell into his stomach, as he clocked that this escape route was shut to them.
Motherfucker. You’ve got to be kidding me.
Seconds, seconds, seconds.
Tic. Tic. Tic.
Go.
Scars took a deep breath and shot to his feet, paused long enough to cover Keira more securely with the damp shirt, then ran back through the now-blazing office. Through the main tattoo work space, where jagged, burning pieces of ceiling were falling like snow, setting the lower legs of his jeans aflame. He hunched his whole body and gathered Keira to his chest as he ran, feeling chunks of wood and plaster hit his broad back, fire burning through his shirt, searing his skin, but he barely felt it and he didn’t slow, not even a little bit. Scars just nailed his eyes on a tiny sliver of bright blue sky that he saw thirty, forty feet above them, just held onto that blue like a talisman.
We’re gonna make it, little peach. You’re goddamn right we are.
**
For the rest of her life, Zoe would remember the second that Scars came bursting out through that wall of smoke and flame.
He was holding a wrapped little bundle tight against his chest. He was coughing, tears streaking tracks through the thick layer of soot on his face. He was running like hell, like a man running from death.
And he looked… bright. Glowing.
Like an avenging angel. He’d never looked more destroyed, more fierce.
He’d never looked more beautiful.
“Jesus fuck!” Holt grabbed Keira and ran over to Zoe, who had fallen to her knees with her arms outstretched. He shouted over his shoulder, “Down, man… down on the ground! Guys… help him!”
Without a word, Scars dropped. Zoe lost sight of him as Keira lay silent in her arms, just caught glimpses of the man that she loved through the legs of his brothers as they peeled off their clothes and surrounded Scars, as they started to pat him with their shirts and jackets.
His back. His legs. His hair.
“What….” she croaked, her mind not engaging, still trying to figure out if her daughter was breathing, half-hearin
g the sirens wailing closer and closer. “Wolf… what are they…”
“They’re dousin’ the flames,” Wolf said tersely. “Stay here, Zee. Stay with me.”
“They’re…” She shook her head, her fingers trembling as she held her palm against Keira’s mouth, praying for an exhale. “I don’t…”
“He’s burnin’, baby girl.”
“No,” she said shaking her head, blank and dazed. An EMT appeared out of nowhere, gently lifted Keira out of her arms and started CPR, and she looked at him in confusion. “But…”
That was when Scars began to scream. And Zoe knew, knew with everything that she had, that her beautiful, shining avenging angel had just had his wings burned right off him.
He was on fire.
Chapter Eighteen
Doctor Sam Innis strode down the hall to the second, smaller doctor’s lounge, already knowing what sight would greet his eyes when he entered. The head nurse Marcy had taken one look at the general waiting room heaving with huge, glowering, scary bikers, and had used her initiative to send them up three floors to the lounge. She’d had no interest in seeing worried families and kids intimidated by the terrifying men. Also, they’d taken up an incredible amount space.
Sam was braced and ready and professional to talk to the Road Warriors. Even if he did want to fucking beat Wolf Connor into the goddamn ground.
I always knew this day would come… always, always.
Sam paused in the lounge doorway, gauging the mood of the thirty or so big, surly MC maybe-ex-maybe-current-one-percenters. Vic’s brothers were not the most level-headed, mellow guys on earth, and so Sam had fully expected tension and anger, of course.
But not this much.
This wan’t tension and anger on any measurable human scale – this was bubbling, boiling rage. Oh, nobody was rampaging around like a crazy person, there wasn’t any shouting or even any raised voices. No, quite the opposite. It was still, quiet, somehow dark with shadow. Like a clenched fist, or a snake all coiled up and eyeing its prey. Simmering, silent – but not patient. No… not patient at all. This was the stillness of men gathering their energy and focusing their purpose, waiting for the opportunity to be set loose on an enemy.
This wasn’t the calm before the storm; this was the silent gathering storm before the damn apocalypse.
“Sam.” Wolf was immediately right there beside him, and Sam drew himself up to his full height. Sam wasn’t a short man, but somehow Connor made his extra two inches in height feel like two feet. “How’s Keira? And Scars?”
“Vic is hopefully being stabilized right now,” Sam said, really making a point of stressing what he would always consider his brother’s real name. “He went into shock and cardiac arrest in the ambulance – did you know that?”
The dark, dangerous edge in the room got keener, sharper, more cold and silver.
“No,” Wolf hissed. “We didn’t know that.”
“Well. Now you do.” Sam met Wolf’s eyes full-on. “I ducked into the trauma room quickly, but too much was going on, so I stayed out of the way. I wouldn’t be much help, to be honest. I’m – I’m too close. I couldn’t be emotionless about my brother, not even if you demanded it with a gun to my head.”
The men around him all nodded, and despite his anger at them, he did feel their hurt for him. Yeah, they understood what working on Vic’s burned body would have meant for Sam. After all, these were the men who had smothered the flames as his strong, indestructible, protective brother had screamed and writhed in agony in a fucking tattoo parlor parking lot. They’d seen the hair burned right off his head, they’d seen the skin hanging off his back and legs in long, jagged strips.
They knew. They knew as well as Sam did how bad it was.
“And Keira?” Wolf asked quietly. “Zoe hasn’t been back to say anythin’.”
“She’s sedated and intubated,” Sam said. “She’s having lots of trouble breathing on her own, and when she does, she coughs up mucous. Her nostrils and throat have some soot, which we’re still trying to get out completely. It’s harder with babies, just because their nasal passages and throats are so small and tight, but now that’s she’s out, it should be easier.”
“Is her blood work back?” Viking asked. “Her metabolic profile?”
Sam nodded, knowing Viking’s medical background. “A minor change in pH in the blood. No carboxyhemoglobin or methemoglobin levels.”
“Thank fuck,” Viking said.
“Translation?” Jinx asked. “For us non-doctor types?”
“Keira doesn’t have any signs at all of severe smoke inhalation,” Sam explained. “She won’t suffer any permanent damage. Vic – maybe Vic just got to her in time, but all I can think is that she must have been on the ground, or close to the ground in her crib, and it was a huge help. She had cleaner air for longer.”
“My God,” Saint said, looking at the bandages covering the smarting burns on his forearms. “I can’t believe it… I went back to get her, man, and couldn’t breathe for the smoke. Not even shallow, half breaths. I can’t – I don’t understand how that little thing survived.”
“Luck,” Sam said. “Blind, sheer, stupid luck.”
“Yeah.” Wolf took a deep breath, feeling grateful for the sweet, pure oxygen. Funny how he’d never really thought about the simple, physical act of breathing before today. “That’s the long and short of it.”
“So.” Sam shrugged. “I should get back to Vic. If you wait half an hour, you can see Zoe and Keira. Just let the doctor finish cleaning out Keira’s nostrils and throat, OK?”
“You’ll let us know how Scars is?” Arrow said, haltingly. “When we can – can go see him?”
The question hung in the air, because the truth was, they didn’t know if they’d be seeing Scars again… when was optimistic, maybe to the point of foolishness. But they needed that hope, needed the when not the if, and since Sam needed it as badly as they did, he went along with it.
“Yes,” he said crisply, cleaning his glasses on his white coat, and they watched him slip back into E.R trauma specialist and surgeon mode with that small gesture. “I’ll let you know as soon as I know anything.”
“Thank you, Doctor Innis,” Cole said, and one by one in a rippling murmur, the Road Warriors thanked Sam as a doctor. It was the rarest of events, for these men to show any deference or respect for authority, but they did it for him. It was the emotional equivalent of a lunar eclipse spontaneously happening in the waiting room, and Sam recognized it for the little miracle that it was.
His throat tight with tears and oddly touched despite himself, knowing that these hard men had just given him the gift of generosity and compassion in the only way that they knew how, Sam nodded, then left. He had to go see his big brother.
Maybe for the last time.
Is it that bad? It looked bad… but all burns are bad, right?
God, he wished that he was home with Annie and Cindy. Just curled up in front of the TV watching a movie, a huge bowl of extra-buttery popcorn between them. No worries, no cares, no life-and-death scenarios. Pure bliss in normality, in the simple touch of a warm body next to his.
Just then his work cell rang. With a sigh of annoyance, he fished it out of his pocket, glared at the number. It was the main nurse’s station, and he supposed they were calling to tell him about Vic being admitted… maybe they didn’t know that Marcy had already talked to him.
Sam swiped ‘accept’. “Doctor Innis here, and I know about my brother, but thank you. I appreciate the call.”
There was a pause at the other end. Then, an unfamiliar voice:
“Doctor Innis… I’m really sorry to hear about your brother, we all are. But that’s not who I’m calling about.”
“It’s not?”
“No, doctor. Could you please come down to the E.R.?”
“Now?”
“Yes. I’m so sorry to ask, I know you want to be close to your brother. But – but there’s a woman here and she’s… well. She’s saying things that I think you need to hear.”
“Look.” Sam took a deep breath, sped up his pace as the exam room came into sight. “This isn’t the best time –”
“She’s talking about Zoe Parish,” the nurse said in a rush. “And Zoe’s baby girl, Keira, and The Road Devils. She’s mentioned everyone by name, including your brother. She said everyone is in danger, and she’s screaming that you need to believe her and call the police before it’s too late.”
Sam slowed. “She said Vic’s name?”
“Not exactly. She said Scars. And Doctor Innis? She’s been in and out of consciousness and she hasn’t always lucid… but she’s okay right now. I think the sedatives have taken effect, and it’s a rare moment to get some genuine and calm information from her, but she might pass out soon…”
Sam stopped dead in his tracks. “Three minutes.”
“Yes, doctor. I’ll talk to her, keep her alert as best I can.”
Sam thanked her and disconnected the call, then spun on his heels and rushed down the stairs to the ground floor level. If this woman knew something – anything! – he wanted to hear it, and the sooner the better.
Anything that helped figure out who did this to Vic, and that sweet innocent baby.
**
In the lounge, Wolf watched Sam go, feeling very calm after that surprisingly warm and heartfelt moment with his brothers, and Scars’ kid brother. He enjoyed an almost fanciful musing about how ‘family’ had about a hundred different meanings to him, knowing full well that in a few seconds, his family was going to look at him, look to him. And they’d be waiting for their instructions, because hell was going to be paid that night. In pain, in blood, in souls.
Fuckin’ Dawson. This was you, and I know it. I’m comin’ for you, and you’re gonna die so, so slow. You’re gonna beg for it to end. It’s not gonna end, though. Not until I’m good and ready.
The Devil's Scars (The Road Devils MC Book 1) Page 27