“There we go, doll. Just relax. I’m not going anywhere. You feel my hand? If it hurts too much, squeeze my hand—hell, break the damned thing off if it makes you feel better.”
I held his hand in a death grip and gagged in silence as the nurse continued suctioning me. “You’re a real fighter, Mrs. Ryan. I can definitely say in all my years of nursing, I’ve never seen anyone wean themselves off of the vent while sedated.”
Guardrail placed his other hand against my forehead, preventing me from arching up as I gagged. “That’s because our girl’s a badass.” He said the words with pride as they suctioned me one last time.
The tube came up and out with a small gurgle and I began coughing almost immediately; my lungs working to expel any remnants from being on the vent.
“We’re going to give you a little bit of oxygen to keep your levels nice and even. You can relax.” The nurse secured the tubing around my nose while Guardrail kept his death grip on me.
I knew Charm was dealing with Blade, but I suddenly wished that I hadn’t sent him away. I glanced down at the mistletoe, still in my palm.
What had he said when he placed it in my hands?
It wasn’t possible, yet I knew it wasn’t just some dream conjured up by a brain deprived of oxygen.
There was still so much that needed to be said—so many questions that still needed to be answered, but without Charm, I was going to have to put the pieces together on my own.
Chapter Twenty-Five
I swallowed and winced from the pain. I had somehow ended up back where I started—injured and feeling as if I’d gargled with sharp stones. I was told that I’d been out for two days and, if it hadn’t hurt to talk, I would’ve told her that it felt much longer than that.
It had seemed closer to an eternity.
Guardrail’s phone had gone off not long after and he pressed a quick kiss to my cheek before leaving me with the nurses. They didn’t waste any time in moving me to a regular room. I think they’d probably had enough excitement to last a lifetime thanks to me.
Movement near the cracked door caught my eye and I saw a bouquet of flowers, moving up and down in someone’s hand— the person appeared to be having an animated conversation with the wall.
The door came open suddenly and I jumped, wincing at the pain in my side. Twitch gave me a small smile before holding out a bouquet of yellow daisies.
“Hey, kid.”
My lower lip trembled violently and my eyes filled. He was alive. I tried to speak, but my throat was raw, so I settled for a small wave instead.
His arm was bandaged and in a sling, but he was still breathing. I held out my arms and he placed the flowers on the bedside table before embracing me with his good arm.
“Jesus Christ, kid. I didn’t think you were coming back from that—”
I cleared my throat and whispered, “How? Blade shot you.” Gone was my soft, lilting voice; I now sounded positively demonic.
He dug into his pocket and pulled out a circular disc. Upon closer inspection, I realized that it was the medallion I’d given him. “That little token you gave me saved my damn life. The bullet should’ve hit my heart—instead, it hit right in the middle, where it says, ‘Miracles Happen.’ Now, tell me I’m not the luckiest son-of-a-bitch alive because of you.”
I pointed to his shoulder. “But your arm’s all bandaged up.”
He nodded. “Well, the fucker did manage to graze my shoulder with the second shot, but all in all, I’m fine. I was more worried about you.”
He needed to hear the truth—however twisted it was.
I cleared my throat several times and in a brittle voice, I managed to get out, “I have so much to say...”
Twitch brought his free hand up to my mouth. “Shhhh…don’t force it.”
I shook my head. “Please. I need to tell you what happened. I didn’t relapse—this,” I gestured to myself, “was done to me.”
He nodded and then shifted me over in the bed before climbing in next to me. “Okay.”
I looked over at him. “Okay—that’s it?”
He nodded again. “I believe you, kid. You don’t owe me shit. Blade did this and Charm will handle that motherfucker. I showed up here because I wanna hold you—I’ve spent the last forty-eight hours afraid I wouldn’t get to again—scared that my last memory of you would be hearing your screams for help.”
He pulled me in next to his body, his nose nestled in my hair, breathing me in. I’d expected to have to beg and plead for them to believe me. I let out a quiet sob and he tilted my face up to meet his. “What’s wrong, kid?”
I sniffed. “Twitch—what he did to Rae…my parents and the fire. I never got the chance to say goodbye to them. How did Charm and the others know to come back?”
Twitch’s eyebrows furrowed. “I’ve been retracing everything since that day—I heard his voice and it stuck. I was sitting at the clubhouse, talking to Doc, when it came to me. Like it’d been spoken out of thin air—Blade. I called Charm immediately and he told me that he’d just left you alone with him. I thought I was going to have a heart attack waiting to hear if you were okay.
“He said a minute more and you’d have been gone too—just like Rae. Blade already took so much from us—there wasn’t a chance in hell we were giving you up too.” Twitch rubbed at his eyes wearily and focused on the ceiling above my head. It had to have been Axel. His plan of getting into the clubhouse had been successful.
He looked down at me again. “Did you say your parents? Blade was responsible for the fire?”
I nodded. He might not have started the fire himself, but he set everything in motion. If Clint hadn’t had a change of heart at the last second, I would’ve died with them.
He clicked his tongue against his teeth. “I’ll be passing that information along to Charm.”
“Twitch, where is he?” It was the only question I could ask. The others still lurked silently below the surface.
Does he blame me for all of this?
Is he going to throw me out of the club?
Will he believe me as easily as you did?
He cleared his throat and looked back toward the door. “He’s taking care of some club business, so he sent me.”
I folded the corner of the hospital sheet over in my hand. “I see.”
He stopped me with his hand on mine. “Do you know what he—what we all risked by bringing you here? Do you know the doctors and nurses that have been paid off to keep the club off the radar? We all put our necks on the line, kid. And we’d do it again in a heartbeat to keep you safe.”
My throat tightened and I rubbed at it before replying, “I didn’t look at it that way—”
He laughed easily. “You think it’s common for a hospital to look the other way when a man tries to kill a patient? Charm and the guys hauled Blade’s ass out of here and not one person even batted a fucking eyelash. You showed up beat all to hell and the nurses are trying to get your doctor to release you back to us.”
I nodded along with him. “So, where am I going?”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “Where the hell do you think you’re going? Home, kid. Where you belong.”
“Back to Boulder?”
Twitch leaned closer to me, studying my eyes. “Do you have a fucking concussion? Did they check you for that? Course you’re not going back to Boulder—you’re going back to the clubhouse. We’re your family, Neve.”
Voices carried in from the hallway— “Just said he was going to the bank…”
“That make any fucking sense to you?”
“Not a damn bit, but I’m following orders.”
Bank? I assumed he was dealing with Blade.
I looked at Twitch. “Who’s out there?”
He whistled and the door opened immediately, revealing Rooster and Doc.
“Sup, Twitch? Our girl giving you problems already?” Rooster drawled as he sat down on the small couch near the window, placing a brown paper bag on the floor beside him.
It took Doc a second to respond as he studied the bruises on my face. “Guarding your room and somebody here thought you’d die if you had to eat the food from the cafeteria, so we snuck some in.”
Rooster held up the bag. “Pearl’s famous chicken noodle soup—she said you’d be up and shoppin’ in no time with some of this in ya.”
“Pearl? As in Pearl’s Treasures?”
Twitch nodded. “The very same. She brought a casserole over to the clubhouse as soon as she heard—she and a few others got the place put back together.”
I pressed my lips together in a thin line and Rooster, sensing I was uncomfortable, chimed in. “Wanda had us all come to the café for breakfast and lunch. I’m afraid we were all about to starve to death without you, Darlin’. Now, eat up, because word at the nurse’s station is that they’re kicking your pretty little ass out.”
Charm
“You’re sure?”
Twitch sighed and looked over my shoulder. “Yeah. She confirmed it. Thought you were gonna wait for me.”
I glanced down at my bloodstained hands and clothes. “Uh, yeah; I was. He got a little mouthy. How’s my girl?”
“She’s asking about you, Charm. She wakes up and you immediately leave. How do you think she’s doing?”
I knew what he thought—what they all probably thought—that my need for revenge was stronger than my need for her. Nothing was further from the truth. This was about so much more than putting Blade to ground; it was about finding out why he’d come after her in the first place.
I had two bodies on my property—one was a guy I’d known since we were kids and the other had an expired driver’s license that identified him as Clint Scott. When I pulled that string, it led me to a list of priors. I also found a news article about a house fire in California—a fire in which Jim and Stacy White perished, but their daughter, Neve, was pulled to safety. And who should’ve pulled her out, but the same guy that was now lying dead out behind my clubhouse.
I struggled to find a connection between Blade and Clint, outside of drugs, but kept hitting dead ends. Just as I was ready to call it a bust, Blade decided to speak up; confirming what I’d already started to suspect—she had something they wanted. I opened and closed my right hand, noting my split knuckles with a smile.
Unlike the two of them, I’d known exactly where to find what they’d been looking for.
I crossed my arms over my chest and looked to Twitch and Gunner. “We’ll finish it together.”
Blade came to and lifted his head up, looking around as if he had no idea where he was. Blood ran from his scalp down to his chin and he began struggling against his bindings when he saw me. “Charm…I can explain.”
I grabbed what I needed from the shelf on the wall behind me and took immense pleasure in watching his eyes widen as I lit up my cigarette with it. I took a couple of puffs before asking, “You familiar with blowtorches, Blade?”
Gunner pulled a length of chain down from the ceiling and, with only a little resistance, he and Twitch strung him up.
“Charm,” Blade panted. “We could fund the town for years with what she has. She’ll tell you where she’s hiding it. She trusts you.”
I clenched my jaw, while Twitch gave Blade my answer in the form of his fists. “Let’s see how good of a dancer you are, Blade.”
A quick death was beneath him.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“Here, I got you.” Doc offered me his arm and helped me out of the backseat of the truck. The very same truck Joker had used to get me to the hospital.
We’d only taken a few steps when I looked up and saw the spot where Axel had taken his last breath. The ground was still red. A small cry escaped my lips and my legs gave out.
“Easy, Neve.” Doc kept a tight grip on me and directed me toward the house. The minute we crossed the threshold, memories from the assault came flooding back and I fought back a sob as I looked at the coffee table and relived Blade slamming my face into it. Even though the floor was now clean, I could still see white powder mixed with blood near the doorway.
This house had been my sanctuary—how could I stay if it was now full of nightmares?
“Doc,” I called out a warning before my vision swam and everything went dark.
When I came to, I was lying on a bed in a dark room. Charm’s room, to be exact, yet he was still nowhere to be found. I’d worried that it would come to this. It was only a matter of time before he looked at me and saw his sister.
I’d seen his sister, hadn’t I?
My biggest dilemma was in trying to sort fact from fiction—there was no rational explanation for why I’d been able to see Axel. This wasn’t The Sixth Sense. If I was in a coma, then I shouldn’t have been able to walk the halls of the hospital—which meant that what I’d seen was nothing more than a drug-induced hallucination.
But, Charm had been there—I had the mistletoe to prove it.
The bedroom door opened, but I stayed as still as possible on the bed, suddenly afraid of what was to come. I heard the lock turn as the door closed, but the lights remained off. Charm rounded the corner and jumped back when he saw me.
“Jesus Christ, Neve. What are you doing here?”
I pushed myself up into a sitting position against the headboard, clutching my sore ribs. “I’m sorry—I woke up in here. I can go back to my room. Sorry—”
With an aching throat and on the verge of tears, I forced my legs over the side of the bed and stood up with a groan. Charm reached me in two strides. “Stop. What’d I tell you about apologizing for everything? I thought you were still in the hospital. Nobody told me otherwise.”
I tried to step around him to leave, but he held me by the shoulders, forcing me to look up at him. That was when I noticed that he was covered in blood.
“Oh my god—you’re bleeding!” I tried unsuccessfully to pull his cut-off away from his body, but he stopped me.
“Neve, stop—it ain’t my blood.”
My hands dropped back down by my sides. “Oh…right. All that blood—it really brings out the color of your eyes.”
Charm cocked his head to the side and chuckled. “I swear to god, honey. You say the strangest things when you’re nervous.”
“So, Blade—he’s dead?”
He nodded and took a step back. “He’s gone. You wanna tell me what happened to you?”
I sat back down on the bed with a sigh. Here it was—he was either going to believe me or I was going to end up sleeping in the forest again. He leaned against the wall and gestured for me to start talking.
“I didn’t relapse—I swear to you.”
He nodded, but his jaw remained set in a hard line, so I elaborated. “Blade showed up at the house—I thought that Twitch and Joker had gotten back early. Turns out, Blade had broken in and I’m not going to lie to you, seeing the coke laid out on the coffee table like a Christmas present was tempting. I couldn’t do it though. I saw your face—I saw all of your faces.”
A lone tear trailed down my cheek, but Charm kept his focus on a spot somewhere above my head. “How’d the drugs get into your system?”
He didn’t believe me.
I took a deep breath. “Blade said he was there on business— said you were going to meet with him. I told him to leave because the deal was off. He hit me and the next thing I knew, I was on the floor with him on top of me.” I squeezed my eyes shut as the images assaulted me.
Charm knelt near my feet and gripped my knees. “Jesus, I shouldn’t have pushed you. You don’t owe me an explanation.”
I shook my head and forced myself to finish. “I—I tried to fight him off, but he was so much stronger. He pushed me onto the coffee table and I tried not to, but I inhaled some of the drugs.”
The whole thing sounded unbelievable. People didn’t get forced into using drugs; that was just some lie we were all told growing up.
Charm�
��s eyes focused on mine and his grip tightened on my legs; a clear indication that he was still listening and waiting for me to continue.
Axel had claimed that fentanyl was highly potent and Doc backed it up, saying that what I didn’t inhale had most likely been absorbed through my skin—something that sounded fishy, at best.
“I knew something was off within a few seconds. It was like trying to breathe through a straw and then my throat went numb. Axel or Clint created a diversion long enough to get me out of the house. Blade killed Axel first…and then Clint. They died trying to help me.”
Charm looked down at me. “Clint wasn’t involved? Are you sure?”
I nodded. “Blade was responsible for all of it. Clint got in too deep with him and—” I mashed my lips together as salty tears ran down my face.
Charm cupped my chin in his blood-stained hand and wiped away my tears with his thumb. “It’s okay, honey. You’re safe now.”
My entire body shook, but I kept talking. “The fire. It was to get my parent’s money. He was the one who stabbed me; I didn’t put it together until he showed up at the clubhouse. He thought he’d get me high and I’d give up the money. Clint thought that the drugs were for Blade and cut the coke with fentanyl.” I couldn’t finish—couldn’t tell him that it was the same drug that had been used against his sister.
He immediately reached for me, pulling me up against his chest. “I’m sorry, honey. God, to think that I almost lost you…”
I focused on the warmth of his large hands framing my face and not on the fact that the knuckles of his right hand were split wide open before whispering, “I have a confession to make. I’ve needed to say it for a while now, but haven’t known how. You have a right to know though.”
His body tensed and he rocked back on his heels, letting me go. “Okay.”
I traced the stitching on the comforter. “I found your journal my first week here. I didn’t mean to pry, but I wanted to know more about you.”
Through The Woods Page 25