Surprisingly, Clint didn’t back down as he spat, “I’ve told you she doesn’t know where it is.”
Blade ground his teeth together, his jaw popping out as he did it. “And you’ll forgive me if I don’t buy a fucking thing you say right now. We had a deal, you fucked me over. Now, we do things my way.”
Clint held both hands out in front of him, as if he thought it would placate him. “I hear you and I will get you the money, but you fucked the plan when you dosed her with that coke. It’s laced.”
Blade lowered the gun. “What did you just fucking say?”
If I had use of my limbs, I would’ve chosen now to run as both men were completely distracted. As it was, I was forced to lie on the cold hard ground and fight for my next breath.
Clint ran his hands through his hair in frustration. Despite the freezing air, sweat ran down the sides of his face. “Uh, the coke—it was laced with fentanyl.”
Blade’s voice remained calm, but his stance revealed his rage. “Why would my blow be laced, Clint?”
Clint began walking toward him. “You swore to me that we’d get the money and nobody would get hurt—you said you were just going to scare her. You fucking stabbed her, Blade. I finally quit letting you do the thinking and laced your shit. That coke was a one-way ticket to Hell for you, fucker. We need to get Narcan in her. Now.”
Blade’s eyes widened in surprise. “I didn’t know you had it in you. Thing is, I don’t deal with you anymore.” He calmly fired a round right between Clint’s eyes and I tried with all my might to squeeze my eyes shut, but found that it was just one more part of my body no longer under my control.
Clint didn’t have a chance to react—he was dead before he even hit the ground, leaving me completely defenseless against Blade.
All this time, I’d thought that he was after Clint. It had always been me though. And Clint’s plan, while brilliant, didn’t exactly give me a sense of hope that I was going to make it out alive.
The sound of bikes carried through the trees and Blade tugged me up off the ground, dragging me along behind him like a rag doll. “Where’s the money, Neve? Oh, that’s right—you can’t fucking tell me, because he laced the coke with fentanyl. Goddamnit!” He roared the last word and dropped me onto the gravel.
I felt nothing, even as the toe of his boot connected with my abdomen repeatedly. Vomit was forced up again and Blade stopped kicking me long enough to turn me onto my side.
“You fucking bitch—you’re not checking out until I get the money. I’ve been crossed one too many times—Charm ever tell you about how his old man encroached on our territory?
“Dirt bags that had used me for years, suddenly got a better deal with Luck. He’d get ‘em hooked on his shit and off they’d go. He took something of mine, so I destroyed something of his—Rae was already strung out. Lacing her H with Apache was the easiest damn thing I’ve ever done. That fucker knew it was me too; he pulled out and then got himself dead. Guess he never bothered to fill Charm in on that though—dumbass came looking for a fucking partnership before Luck’s body was even cold. It’s funny—guess he’s gonna lose you to Apache too.”
I struggled to piece it all together. The thoughts floated around in the air above me along with a few snow flurries; the words looping together into one long strand of gibberish. I opened my mouth. “Prmmm…”
That wasn’t right.
Blade leaned down. “What’s that, ‘honey?’ You’re gonna have to speak up.”
He didn’t wait for a response before hauling me back into the trees. I labored through another breath as he dug through his pockets, producing a small vial and a syringe. He measured out the liquid and jammed the needle into my thigh.
His teeth clenched together as he watched me struggle for air. Within seconds, the pressure on my chest eased enough for me to take several deep breaths, but something was still off.
The ground beneath me rumbled as the bikes pulled up to the lodge and the leaves began swirling violently in the breeze, as if even they were afraid of what was to come.
“Neve?” Twitch called out as the bike shut off. I knew that he’d seen the broken window and the door left open. His boots moved quickly from the gravel onto the porch steps, but we remained hidden in the trees.
Realizing I only had one shot, I took a deep breath and screamed—using every ounce of air in my lungs to do it.
Blade brought the butt end of his gun down on my forehead and wetness ran down my face, blurring my vision and staining the world red.
“Neve!” Twitch called out as he moved closer, panic evident in his voice.
He’d fix this—if anyone knew what to do, it’d be him.
Blade thrust his palm against my face, covering my mouth and nose in an attempt to keep me quiet and I struggled against him, trying to gain a breath. Just as the edges of my vision began to go dark, he removed it and stood up, firing off a shot.
Twitch let out a groan of pain, before firing back. When Blade raised his gun to let off a second shot, I threw my body into his legs. Exhaustion hit me like a freight train almost immediately, but I had to believe it had saved Twitch.
Blade raised his gun again as a bullet whizzed past us, striking a tree a few feet away. “Fuck!”
He tried to drag me further back into the trees, but I fought him with what little I had left, scrambling to get to my men. Another bullet flew by, grazing his ear, and he roared in frustration before taking off into the trees.
I used my forearms to pull myself toward safety. Joker caught sight of me just as I reached the clearing and I collapsed in relief. When I lifted my head up, a scream burst from my mouth. Twitch was lying on his back, the ground stained red beneath him.
No.
Joker was by my side within seconds, pulling me into his arms, even as his eyes scanned the tree-line. He quickly signed, ‘How many?’ and I managed to hold up one finger before my body began seizing.
My eyes rolled back into my head and then everything went dark.
Charm
I’d done it.
Somehow, against all odds, I had Neve.
When I saw her standing there in a red polka dot dress, that was it for me. Primal instinct had taken over, leaving me with a strong urge to claim her and an even stronger urge to murder any man that looked at her.
I’d held back, even then, waiting for her to come to me willingly. And she had. I’d been given not only her body, but her scars as well, which made me the luckiest son-of-a-bitch alive.
She bore the physical scars, while mine were hidden on my heart—but, she and I? We were the same.
I was finally at peace.
Coming in to find her curled up in bed and lying with her while she read to me from a science textbook—these things had become my new normal. It made it damn near impossible to leave her every morning.
I’d never understood the addict mentality, until Neve. She’d had me hooked from day one, but I hadn’t seen it until it was too late. I didn’t want to detox—I wanted to fuckin’ OD while buried inside of her body; to fade away listening to her soft moans.
Gunner raised his left arm up as he rode ahead of me before bringing it over his head, signaling that he needed us to pull off.
I slid off my bike and walked toward him, teasing, “Why’d we stop? You cold?” My ‘club business’ had taken a little longer than planned, so we were late getting back on the road. I patted my pocket, only relaxing once I felt that familiar circular shape. The stop had been well worth it—there wasn’t another woman in the world who’d have a ring like hers.
He stared down at his instrument panel, refusing to meet my stare. “Got a problem, Prez. We need to turn around.”
My smile faded. “What happened?”
He gripped his handlebars before raising his head up to meet mine. “It’s Neve.”
Panic wrapped itself around my chest like a vice, squeezing until it was hard to take a breath.
I didn’t need any other details. I hopp
ed back on my bike and immediately began scanning the traffic on the highway, looking for an opening to turn around.
Gunner pulled up next to me and I asked a question I didn’t know if I wanted the answer to. “Is she hurt?”
He nodded and I exhaled slowly. She was perfect when I left her sleeping this morning—she was going to call me the minute Twitch and Joker showed back up.
“After getting tied up last night, Doc went back to the clubhouse. It was a goddamn massacre, Charm. He told Joker to get her to town—Twitch and Axel—”
This time, I didn’t wait for traffic. Without any regard for my own safety, I kicked up gravel getting on the highway and back toward Kasselhessen.
I’m coming, baby.
Hang on.
Chapter Twenty-Three
My eyes fluttered open and I came to as my body jerked to the side. We were no longer outside the lodge, but in a vehicle. A vehicle that was moving very quickly, judging by the way I was being jolted across the seat. Joker kept his eyes on the road, sneaking glances over at me every few seconds.
I wanted to know where Twitch was, but I couldn’t find the words in the heavy fog that had settled over my entire body. The radio played nothing but intermittent static in the background, as if the music was gasping for air.
It took me a minute to realize that the sound was coming from me.
Joker brushed moisture off of his cheeks and shook me to stay awake. I stared up at him in confusion. Bikers didn’t cry, did they?
The light bounced in and out of the truck as it broke through the trees and I watched it, mesmerized by the colors. It didn’t matter how many times I saw it; the sunrises and sunsets were always different. The colors were similar, but slightly varied in shade.
I’d broken my arm when I was eight, attempting a back handspring on the trampoline with my next-door neighbor. The doctors had to put me under to reset my radius, and I remembered lying on the table and being told to count backward from one hundred as they administered the anesthesia.
That was how I felt now—disconnected and drowsy.
I’d never had blow affect me like that before. I’d also never had my face forced into a pile of it. What had Clint said it was laced with?
I lost my train of thought; still seeing the colors of the sunset as they burned through my eyelids. Joker shook me again, harder this time, and my eyes reluctantly opened to stare through the passenger window.
Joker was going to fix everything. He was going to get me help—perhaps I was finally going to meet that elusive mountain doctor. If I stared hard enough, I could just make out the edge of his cabin back in the trees. Charm would find Blade and this whole thing would be something we laughed over during dinner tonight.
The vehicle shook again and my body collided with the stick shift before hitting the seat back. A vehicle was really nothing more than a coffin made of metal and glass.
People who live in glass coffins shouldn’t throw stones.
I smiled at the thought just before my body began convulsing again.
I awoke beside the back wheel of the truck, just as the last rays of daylight began to fade away. I slowly eased myself into a sitting position and found that I felt much better. Maybe I’d vomited all the drugs up. I tentatively touched my forehead, but it was smooth and dry. Joker must’ve gotten the bleeding stopped. I knew he’d come through.
“Joker?” I called out, as I used the wheel well to stand up. I could hear his heavy breathing near the front of the truck as I cautiously approached him.
The poor guy was probably traumatized—it had to have brought up memories of Rae for him. He was on his hands and knees on the asphalt, huffing and puffing.
“Joker? I’m feeling better. I’m so sorry I scared you.” I reached out a hand to touch his shoulder, but it passed through and I stared at it in confusion before stepping around him.
As I did, my other hand came up to my mouth in a gasp. It couldn’t be. Wetness hit my cheeks as I shook my head from side to side. Joker wasn’t on his hands and knees in shock. He was on his hands and knees doing CPR. On me.
There was absolutely no scientific explanation for this—no reason that I should be having an out-of-body experience.
Tears fell from his own face and onto the body that once belonged to me. My face was ashen—cheek bruised and swollen. A stream of dried blood ran from my hairline down to my nose, while white powder clung to my cheek. Joker somehow managed to avoid touching it as he puffed air into my lungs. The eyes that had wanted to remain closed were now wide open, yet unseeing. He continued doing chest compressions and mouth-to-mouth, even as the red and blue lights lit up the highway.
A police officer jumped out and immediately radioed for help, before taking over for Joker when it became apparent that the biker was tiring. An ambulance arrived within minutes and they lifted me off the asphalt.
I couldn’t feel any of it.
I pinched my arm, but my body had gone numb. I feared that this was a nightmare that I wasn’t going to wake up from. Before I could make the choice of whether or not to stay behind with Joker, I was pulled into the ambulance with my body.
The paramedics slapped tape pads onto my chest as the robotic voice of the defibrillator filled the small cabin. “Shock advised. Please stand clear.”
This was going to snap me out of this state. I hovered near the back of the ambulance, wringing my hands. My body gave a small jolt, but nothing happened.
“We’ve got a pulse,” one called to the other.
It didn’t make sense to me—if I had a pulse, then why was I here and my body there?
We arrived at the hospital in Kasselhessen and they rushed me through the sliding doors, but I fought to stay back—to make sure Joker was okay.
He arrived and tried to follow after them, but was stopped by the nurses. “Sir, you’ll have to stay out here. Can you tell us what happened?”
He began signing, ‘She’s been hurt—I don’t know if she took something.’ He stopped and his shoulders shook with silent sobs.
“Was she in a car accident?”
He shook his head, clearly growing frustrated by the fact that no one knew what he was trying to communicate.
The nurse gave up her questioning and wrapped an arm around his shoulders before leading him to a private room. Within minutes, another person arrived to translate for him. He signed everything he knew, which was sadly not much. He hadn’t seen Blade—the only people who had were all dead. They assured him that they were doing everything they could to save me and left him alone again.
Where was Twitch?
I wanted to believe that he was okay—I needed him to tell the others who was responsible for this. Why would Joker have left him behind?
The door to the small waiting area flew open and Rooster burst in, wide-eyed and panting. “Gunner told us—is she okay, J?”
He shook his head and lowered it back down to his hands.
Rooster sank down into the chair closest to him. “The guys are right behind me—what the hell happened?”
“Blade happened. He drugged me and—” My voice broke off in a sob, although neither man appeared to hear me.
“It fucking sucks, doesn’t it?”
I jerked my head to the side and saw Axel sitting in a chair a few feet away from Joker and Twitch. “Oh my god, Axel. You’re okay!” I ran over and embraced him.
He laughed. “Yeah, about that. Spoiler alert—I don’t make it.”
The smile faded on my lips. “But, you’re here,” I protested.
“Neve, I am here, but I’m the only one who can hear and see you. What do you think that means?”
“I think it’s a dream. Just some extremely vivid and realistic dream, right? I’ve heard of this happening in times of extreme stress. I’m probably in a coma—that’s it. My brain has imagined this entire situation as a way of coping with my trauma.”
He shook his head and replied, “I don’t think so.”
I swallowed again
st the lump in my throat. “But they got a pulse. They found a pulse on me! How can you be stuck here if you’re dead?”
He looked around. “Well, maybe it’s a waiting room—get it? Because we’re stuck in an actual waiting room.”
“That can’t be it—dead people don’t have a pulse! Maybe I’m just having a psychotic break brought on by the overdose.” It sounded crazy, even to me, but if it meant I wasn’t dead—well, I would’ve believed in just about anything at this point.
He chuckled to himself. “Alright, let’s go with that. I was never much of a hippie or new-age guy, but I bet we could rustle up some healing crystals down in the gift shop and give ‘em a whirl.”
Rooster paced the room, speaking tersely into his cell phone, while Joker stared a hole through the door. Maybe Axel was right—any minute now, a doctor would come in and tell them that I didn’t make it. The thought was too painful to dwell on—I needed a distraction.
“How’d you know that something was wrong?”
He leaned back and where I expected the chair to squeak, there was silence. “I’ve had a bad feeling about Blade for a while now—obviously, I couldn’t voice that to Charm, seeing as to how I was just some lowly prospect. After the shit he pulled with you at the clubhouse that day, I kept an eye on him and, when the alarms were tripped at the storage building, I told Charm I’d handle it. I expected to see cops swarming the place, but there was nothing. I thought about it and realized that the alarms provided the perfect diversion, leaving you completely alone. I was too late though.”
I mulled over his words. He’d actively gone after the leader of another MC for me. “Why’d you do it?”
He laughed heartily. “Why’d I do it? Neve, you’ve singlehandedly turned this club around. Everything you touch becomes something else—something better. I didn’t get it at first; thought you were just another club whore wannabe. It wasn’t until Twitch mistakenly referred to you as Rae that it clicked though. I always had a soft spot for that girl—she was a fucking mess, but there was just something about her.
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